QuoteLog

“We don’t communicate in full sentences anyway. We don’t need all those words. And it allows us to go faster.”

“It has been a few days, and I am still not sleeping well. I’m not afraid exactly, but scenes from that day come to me. For our mental health, the doctors at the hospital told us not to watch the television or listen to the radio for a few days. To tell you the truth, this thing just happened, and I have not really been able to think much about it. This is good. It’s just best not to think about something that has no explanation. Why think about a question that has no answer?”

“At 18 our convictions are hills from which we look; At 45 they are caves in which we hide.”

“This morning, I will practice an extra twenty minutes of yogic dis- cipline, after which the pain is banished to a cul-de-sac in a remote suburb of my conscious mind.”

“Listening to the 9/11 hearings, it sounded as if commissioners would have been happy if someone in an intelligence agency had sent Osama bin Laden an exploding cigar or found someone to put prussic acid in his shoes, whereas in 1975 or ‘76, that was looked at with horror.”

“He wasn’t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff.”

“He was in every meeting that was held on terrorism, all the deputies’ meetings, the principals’ meeting that was held, and so forth -- the early meetings after September 11th.”

“The very genuine grievances suffered by Palestinians seem to have nurtured an illogical expectation that both sides are bound to different rules of war, that somehow, if a Palestinian leader calls for young men to blow themselves up among Israeli civilians, a retaliation in kind against that leader is unacceptable [...] Yassin and Hamas declared war on Israel, an obviously stronger adversary, and they got war in return. Did they really expect a lawsuit instead?”

“I wish you and your families a slow and painful death!”

“If you don’t know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues’ initials on ‘em, and pass them along. When in doubt, route.”

“A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.”

“Fifty years from now the ludicrous accusations of individual culpability being tossed around this week will be remembered for only one reason: that such self-serving theatrics delayed the time when we came together as a nation to more fully prepare for the worse terrorist onslaughts that are still ahead of us.”

“Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.”

“Leaving aside this issue, everybody says they are in favour of co-ordination but nobody is in favour of being co-ordinated. The reflex of interior ministers is to jealously protect their powers on the national level even though the fight against terrorism is a global one. I don’t know how much will change after March 11.”

“TypeKey is centralized, so naturally lots of control freaks who run their own weblogs are against it. It’s not open source, so naturally lots of commie bastards who run un-American open source software are against it. And it’s not from Dave Winer, so naturally Dave Winer is against it. I am reflexively in favor of anything Dave Winer is against.”

“I’m shocked. To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable.”

“A blog’s for life, not just for Christmas.”

“I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it.”

“Can we dialogue with those who desire only our death and nothing but our death? Dialogue about what? The manner in which we will be assassinated?”

“We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.”

“Jackson Browne was a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll sex symbol. My wife says he still is ... we were drawing rooms full of men ... meanwhile, Jackson was drawing more women than an Indigo Girls concert.”

“Everyone has opinions, but for those opinions to be worth something, they have to be based on facts so that we can come up with an accepted version of reality. That’s how democracy works. Some of the media are entering an age where facts are based upon opinion. And reality? Well, that all depends on whom you get your news from.”

“Al Qaeda’s declaration of jihad had, as its first demand, the withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden does not seem to have noticed, but the troops are gone -- yet the jihad continues. The reasons come and go, the violence endures.”

“Bush has to answer those within his party who are increasingly question-ing the agility and management of his campaign. Among them, two well-placed sources tell TIME, are Laura and Barbara Bush. ‘They are paying attention,’ says a Bush official. The President’s mother, in particular, is worried that she has seen this movie before. Says the official: ‘She does not want to see her family go through a ‘92 thing again.’”

“I’m in a bad place, nor am I a painter.”

“Diane, last night I dreamed I was eating a large, tasteless gumdrop, and awoke to discover I was chewing on one of my foam disposable earplugs. Perhaps I should consider moderating my nighttime coffee consumption”

“I’m not anti-war on terrorism, and I’m pro-Bush and everybody knows it. I still think that neither party ... should be using images of 9/11 for political gain.”

“When New York’s WNBC fired him for lewdness, Stern railed that network brass had conspired against him. When the FCC pelted him with fines - a record $1.7 million in 1995 - he staged giant protest rallies around New York City. In 1987, he appeared in a prisoner’s outfit and shrieked, ‘Is it spelled FCC or KGB?’ [...] Stern has threatened to leave radio forever when his contract expires in two years. He should leave. There’s nothing more pathetic than a provocateur waving his arms and saying, ‘See -- everybody still hates me!’”

“What I always remind people is, radio and television and - as it happens - newspapers and magazines too, are advertising media ... When you have commercialism involved you have the kind of fear that advertisers are very afraid of offending some potential customer. They don’t want to lose a sale. So they have this need to inspect and clean up and watch the content in order not to hurt their own sales. It’s based on success at the cash register.”

“The biggest impact, I still think, is that citizens will see themselves more and more as publishers, as co-participants in a discussion they were usually barred from previously.”

“Any complaints about infringing on [Howard Stern’s] ‘free speech’ and the role of the marketplace can be taken up with John Rocker, Fuzzy Zoeller, Trent Lott and Marge Schott’s ghost.”

“The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn’t, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that’s a bonus.”

“Statements like ‘No Iraqi would commit such an atrocity’ or ‘No Muslim would do that’ are stupid, as if all Iraqis were saints and haven’t committed atrocities before. One GC member even went far as to say ‘No human being did that’. Of course not, dude, they were Greys from the Zeta Reticuli system [...] The shameful silence must end. Where are the cries of outrage from the Arab and Islamic world? Where is the condemnation and denunciation? Where are the fatwas? Where is the seething and shaking fists? Or are these preserved for other people?”

“A debate between Kerry and Bush will be a clash of the verbally challenged.”

“These are people [Pakistan’s ISI] who’ve done nothing but covert operations: One, screw India. Two, deceive America. Three, expand Pakistan’s influence in the Islamic community. And, four, continue to spread nuclear technology. Musharraf is trying to put out the fire with the help of the people who started the fire.”