Journalist Quotes

Many things I might not write today because I no longer believe them, but I wouldn't change them, since I believed them at the time.

What makes the goal of accuracy so vexing for chatbots is that they operate probabilistically when choosing the next word in a sentence; they aren't trying to find the light of truth in a murky world.

Singing what's in your heart? Naming the things you love and loathe? You can get hurt that way. Hell, you will get hurt that way. But you'll get hurt trying to hide away in all that silence and leave your life unsung. There's no future without tears. Are you really setting your hopes on not getting hurt at all? You think that's an option? You clearly aren't listening to enough Morrissey songs.

I received a card the other day from Steve Early which said, 'Don't Worry Me – I am an 8 Ulcer Man on 4 Ulcer Pay.'

Never let me hear you say it's someone else's fault. It often is, but you must never shirk your own responsibility... You can't change others, but you can do something about a fault in yourself.

Women had been on the verge of taking over the world-the Western world, anyway. Then some sexist pig in Silicon Valley invented the cell phone and women took a sidetrack on which all four billion of them would soon be happily talking to each other twenty-four hours a day, getting nothing else done, and Men Would Be Back.

John Sandford (novelist)

Above all, Vietnam was a war that asked everything of a few and nothing of most in America.

Myra MacPherson

Great. First the anonymous call. Now letters. Body parts all over town. It was like a scavenger hunt for psychos. Running after clues with a half-deranged, serial-killer-obsessed, recovering-addict cop was not a good idea. Then again...

It doesn't much matter whether people care or don't care. What matters is that people change the world.

Elizabeth Kolbert

Muslims are allowed to get away with almost anything. They can shut down and intimidate prominent ex-Muslims. They're allowed to engage in the most brazen anti-semitism, even as they run for office in European left-wing political parties. And, of course, politicians and the media routinely turn a blind eye to the kind of sexism and homophobia that would instantly end the career of a non-Muslim conservative — and perhaps get the latter arrested for hate speech when he dared to object.

Milo Yiannopoulos

In her inestimable audacity, Julia was the catalyst in my life for something beautiful. I hadn't anticipated her-hadn't even wanted her, truthfully-but there she was. A little something extra that made all the difference in the world.

Cathleen Falsani

Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position themselves in front of their young. Giraffes stare over treetops, their huge brown eyes blinking, then lope away in seeming slow motion. But no elephants.

Centuries of make-up that can be smudged by emotion have taught women to control their feelings.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Any solution to a problem changes the problem

The anger. The terror. The feeling of entrapment. the profound distrust of people.The wistful, plaintive conviction that a window, a thing, was more important than she. These feelings and attitudes, expressed in the course of this hour, were symptoms of some profound disturbance.

Flora Rheta Schreiber

I was looking for the authentic Negro experience, which of course my own wasn't, since being bourgeois somehow negated being black.

Can anybody tell me why reporters, in making mention of lady speakers, always consider it to be necessary to report, fully and firstly, the dresses worn by them? When John Jones or Senator Rouser frees his mind in public, we are left in painful ignorance of the color and fit of his pants, coat, necktie and vest - and worse still, the shape of his boots. This seems to me a great omission.

The cyborg is now the ideal to which all our most advanced technology is tending.

Bryan Appleyard

It would seem the incoming Trump administration plans to handle its affairs — domestic and foreign — in a manner that meets the dictionary definition of a rogue state as one that conducts its policy in a dangerously unpredictable way.

A profile, a look, a voice, can capture a heart in no time at all.

If there were nothing else, reading would—obviously—be worth living for.

Nuala O'Faolain

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast

Paul Scott Mowrer

A human being is a very social creature, and ninety percent of what he does is done only because other people are watching. Alone, with no witnesses, he starts to learn about himself—who is he really?

Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget.

Intellectual freedom, of course, implies intellectual diversity.

Frances FitzGerald (journalist)