Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
An editorial writer might consult a reporter to see what she thinks, if it is what she covers. But they are entirely independent.
The total wall is between editorial and newsroom. And unbreachable barrier. For good reason. It doesn't mean the two sides don't talk.
I believe that the fragile-flower, idea-intolerant society of victimhood that is being cultivated in many colleges today is really bad.
I think Hillary Clinton will make a fine president, and (most important) I am comfortable with her making gigantic, momentous decisions.
I feel like no matter what happens in my career endeavors after today, going to grad school is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
The verb "Garland" should be created. It would mean to unfairly put a stinking albatross around someone's neck, to make him unemployable.
The whole point of corporate mascots is to be distinctive. No one in his right mind would ever confuse the Hamburglar with Mayor McCheese.
I felt like I was never going to be a great writer. I felt like I was going to be a good writer at best. I wanted to be great at something.
I believe that sensitivity to issues of race and ethnicity is important, and nuanced, even more so when it intersects with the issue of free speech.
I have two favorites: Reading Kierkegaard while listening to Mozart's Piano Concerto 9 in E Flat Major, and reading early Bazooka Joe comics in Hebrew.
I believe men's faces come in two kinds: Faces that need a blade, and faces that need an electric. I never was happy with an electric. I became pizzaneck.
Mostly, you become a writer not because you want to get rich or famous, but because you have to write; because there is something inside that must come out.
I don't hold doors for women. I'm not sure I really differentiate between men and women, in my door-related activities. Do women really care about this issue?
Because I live and work in Washington, D.C., I have a ringside seat at the world capital of The Persuasive Arts, or, as I like to call it, The Opinions Racket.
You should support Israel not because it is Jewish but because it is a sane, secular democracy. You want Lebanon to be at peace. You don't care much about Kuwait.
I personally favor old mechanical watches, but my snobbery does not extend to demanding that all people wear them. My snobbery demands that no one wear a digital.
Nationalism and patriotism are two sides of the same coin, and the most nationalistic / patriotic country in the last 300 years was Germany during the Third Reich.
I have some advice: Unless she is pregnant or handicapped, don't give up a seat to a woman unless you KNOW she is well over 60. Trust me on this, even if I am a liberal.
It is hard to quantify the value of name recognition, but Donald Trump has gone from fame to international mega-fame. That has to be gargantuan when your business is your name.
I very much believe in the Intentional Fallacy. If Donald Trump lies and dopes and bumbles and staggers his way into peace in the middle east, he gets credit for it. He owns it.
I'll smoke anything. I won't spend a lot of money on cigars, because I consider that too self indulgent. $3, max, except for special occasions. And yes, I do know the difference.
First, in a love song, or any song for that matter, using a plastic word like "inhibitions" is just completely without feel or texture. It demonstrates a tin ear for communication.
I really value unforgettable moments. Things you can tell people about. We have too few of them in our lives, and it is all too seldom that we can create one such moment for a stranger.
I don't think there is prejudice against atheists the same way there is prejudice against fat people. I don't think people hate or contemn atheists; I think people feel sorry for atheists.
The advent of DNA testing, and the number of convictions thrown out, has confirmed that we've put LOTS of innocent people to death. There need not be any other argument against death penalty.
It doesn't entirely make sense that if 51 senators are from one party, and they can stick together, they can do whatever they want. Especially in this age of blatant, shameless gerrymandering.
When my daughter was a senior in high school, I remember noticing, almost in passing, that her friends were very cute. Which made me realize her friends' fathers probably found Molly very cute.
I once found myself driving, smoking a cigar, taking notes, and talking on the phone at the same time. I only became completely aware of this when I had to shift, and realized something had to give.
On Twitter, people like me regularly get called "sore losers" by Trumpeters. It just makes me roll my eyes. This is not about winning and losing. We all lost, even them, they just don't know it yet.
Most men I know adore women, and I am including gay men. I think studies on jury selection show that the biggest critics of women - people less likely to trust their character or judgment - are women.
It is a cliche, and it is also true, that humor springs from existential pain - from a need to blunt the awareness that life is essentially a fatal disease of unpredictable symptoms and unknown duration.
I do not believe in public shaming. I do believe that young adults go to college to learn things, and that this process will almost inevitably result in their making mistakes and misjudgments and otherwise acting badly.
I always thought there was some cleverness to the joke diet in which you could eat as much as you want and as often as you want, but everything must be consumed naked in front of a full-length mirror. That would deter me!
I always love it when a small paper wins. When I was growing up in the Bronx, the editor of the Riverdale Press - a neighborhood rag - kept submitting his columns for a Pulitzer. We laughed and laughed at his ego. He finally won.
I think there are a good many Donald Trump voters who are sick of government as it is practiced in America and genuinely want to blow up the system and see what happens. They are stupid - or at least unwise - but not necessarily racist.
When you are interviewing someone, don't just write down what he says. Ask yourself: Does this guy remind you of someone? What does the room feel like? Notice smells, voice inflection, neighborhoods you pass through. Be a cinematographer.
One of my favorite footnotes in the hypochondria book [The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death.] was about the death of one of the King Charleses. He was essentially bled and vomited to death by his doctors. They also drilled holes in his head.
The intelligent Trump supporter will be someone who is so cynical about politics that he wants the world blown up, and doesn't care if the person doing the blowing up is an obnoxious, infantile vulgarian. I don't know where to find these people. Do you?
I think Trump wants to be dictator. I don't think the courts will allow him to be, and I think that after months of revolting sycophancy, neither will Congress. He will sink to such a popularity trough that even those spineless, craven gophers will cave.
While it is true that many hep C victims became infected through blood transfusions or organ transplants or in other innocent ways, mine was contracted during my college years, when I showed as much care for my personal health as your average suicide bomber.
Donald Trump is showing the intellectual rigor, and emotional maturity, of a second grader. That's hardly being age-ist. This is a man who, when accused by Hillary Clinton of being a Putin puppet, actually responded: "No puppet! No puppet! YOU'RE the puppet."
I disagree with those who suggest that we permanently close down the U.S. mail on the grounds that it can kill you. That is sheer hysteria. I think we should permanently close down the U.S. mail on the grounds that it has been making us sick for quite a while.
Reporters are not merely recording devices that take down what people say and repeat it in print; we are expected to use our knowledge and experience both for triage - deciding what's important to cover and what isn't - and for contextualizing, analyzing and such.
I was possessing heroin in fairly large quantities in New York City during the years of the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. Had I been busted, I would have faced mandatory life in prison. I don't think many white kids walked, either. I knew one who got 15 years for pot.
Ever since roughly 1890, when snot poets first decided that rhyme was confining and unnecessary, every idiot with a pen fancied hisself a poet. The mere act of rhyming was suddenly regarded as a quaint, mannered, and uncool atavism, consigning doggerelists like me to the trash bin of literary history.
I like to eat alone in restaurants, with a book, particularly if I am out of town, alone, on business. It's relaxing. I feel not even a twinge of embarrassment. Is this gender-related? Is there a lingering feeling among women that if they are alone in public, they will be judged to be spinsters or spinsters-to-be?
Ask creative people where they get their ideas, and they will roll their eyes. It's the most common question, but it's also a bad one because the answer is inevitably disappointing. From the inside, creativity seems like an arduous task, often involving plebeian, imperfect choices, driven less by inspiration than by deadline.
Peggy Noonan is not as good a columnist as my colleague Kathleen Parker, in my opinion, but they share something related to their Pulitzers. Kathleen won in in 2010. They won it for a similar reason. They broke from their crowd, and sprinted away. They delivered the politically unexpected take, at some peril to their readership.
I am perhaps being charitable but I think there are a bunch of people out there who feel stupid. Some will be feeling stupid for stupid and evil reasons - HEY, TRUMP HASN'T DEPORTED ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE YET - and some will feel stupid for good reasons, such as that he lied about everything. But I think being made to feel stupid is damage.
I read a lot of conservatives. They are thoughtful and intelligent and annoying, and I always read them because they have viewpoints that challenge my own, even thought they are wrong. But this does me no good because, being intelligent and sophisticated human beings, they are all contemptuous of Trump. They hate him. They find him...vulgar.