Journalist Quotes

Texans are the only race of people known to anthropologists who do not depend on breeding for propagation. Like princes and lords, they can be made by breath; plus a big hat-which comparatively few Texans wear.

The way botanists divide up flowers reminds me of the way Africa was divided into countries by politicians.

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.

We've always had great letter writers, readers, great storytellers in our family. I've listened all my life to articulate people. They were all great storytellers, and every story had shape and meaning and point.

Katherine Anne Porter

All you have to do is anesthetize the masses by telling them they're an elite, that they've got a mission, that they're making history, that they're fulfilling their destiny and fighting for a better world — and they swallow it like lambs — even when a guttersnipe says it.

Hans Hellmut Kirst

When Callas carried a grudge, she planted it, nursed it, fostered it, watered it and watched it grow to sequoia size.

Harold C. Schonberg

The Iowa caucuses are no more predictive than a gasbag on an ethanol high swaying from a bridge in Madison County.

How long can a coincidence extend before it ceases to be one? Does coincidence have to be momentary? How long is the moment, the ongoing moment?

In every state and nearly every civilized nation in the developed world, readers know where to go for action and reaction of news – at least one day ahead... Free from any corporate concerns, there are simply too many to thank since the site's inception in 1994. This new attempt at the old American experiment of full freedom in reporting is ever exciting. Those in power have everything to lose by individuals who march to their own rules.

The Devil himself had probably redesigned Hell in the light of information he had gained from observing airport layouts.

At this point, is the average person boarding a plane more fearful of Al Qaeda or TSA?

Being in business is not about making money. It is a way to become who you are.

Intellectual freedom, of course, implies intellectual diversity.

Frances FitzGerald (journalist)

Any solution to a problem changes the problem

All enduring love between two people, however startling or unconventional, feels unalterable, predestined, compelling, and intrinsically normal to the couple immersed in it.

The sheer violence of it, the howl of air raid sirens and the air-cutting fall of the missiles carried its own political message; not just to President Saddam but to the rest of the world. We are the superpower, those explosions said last night. This is how we do business.

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

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

Elizabeth Kolbert

We are all proprietary toward cities we love. 'Ah, you should have seen her when I loved her!' we say, reciting glories since faded or defiled, trusting her to no one else; that others should know and love her in her present fallen state (for she must fall without our vigilant love) is a species of betrayal.

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Charles Haughey was undoubtedly a great statesman... By far the most gifted politician of his generation,
he squandered his opportunities for greatness on luxuriant rhetoric and luxurious living.

Along with its aggressive streak, the Chicken also seemed to have an appetite for play. Was it pure coincidence that she liked to sneak up on Yowzer, the cat most likely to develop a nervous twitch when caught unawares? Time after time I saw the Chicken trot up delicately when Yowzer had his back turned, squawk a couple of times, and then watch as the cat leaped a couple of vertical feet. The Chicken, after a successful ambush, would run off jauntily, with a cackle that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

William Grimes (journalist)

I want to spend more time with my family, but I'm not sure they want to spend more time with me.

In the part of the night where it's quietest, around three or four o'clock, I started wondering where this black man's soul had disappeared to as it left his body. His thoughts, impressions, memories, whatever: the background noise we all have in our head that stops us from forgetting we're alive. It had to go somewhere: it couldn't just vaporize—it must have gushed, trickled or dripped onto some surface, stained it somehow. Everything must leave some kind of mark.

Perhaps the greatest good that will emerge from this Far Eastern crisis is an awareness that freedom-loving men of all races and all nations will have proved that they can and must work and fight together if their freedom is to survive.

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.