Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The law can seem remote, arcane, the stuff of specialists. But it isn't, because for those of us who live in democracies, the law begins with us.
While it is entirely untrue that Canadians lack a sense of humour, the funniest ones tend to head south: Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox.
The nanny seemed to be extinct until 1975, when, like the coelacanth, she suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared in the shape of Margaret Thatcher.
Poor Harper Seven Beckham, having to live with that name all her life. It's the Boy Named Sue syndrome; at the very least it will toughen her up.
A crenelated wall of books encircles my bed, its tottering towers looming ever taller, always on the verge of collapsing onto oblivious sleepers.
'The Daily Beast' competes in the highly Darwinian media world filled with hyper-smart, highly adaptive, tool-using people with opposable thumbs.
In your pursuit of your passions, always be young. In your relationship with others, always be grown-up. Set a standard, and stay faithful to it.
I had gone to all the big stories of the '80s, which was one of the most fertile times in American journalism, around the world and here as well.
In our family, where we began with no money, we like to say that we have discovered that God invented money so those who have it can help others.
Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit.
There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.
You can never win as a sight-seer. Somebody else, more often than not the first person you meet when you get back home, has been there before you.
The South is one of those kingdoms of the mind, like India or Scotland, that are neat and understandable only to people who have never been there.
If the children acquiesce, they may learn to suppress their anger to avoid retribution. But the rage remains inside, often just below the surface.
Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.
We must build a trickle-up media that reflects the true character of this country and its people. A democratic media serving a democratic society.
Everyone says buying your first apartment makes you feel like an adult. What no one mentions is that selling it turns you right back into a child.
From the time I was growing up, if I felt that there was some, like, pot of gold waiting for me, I don't know that I would have been so motivated.
I founded io9 back in 2008, and I watched it journey from the farthest reaches of space to its current home under this atmosphere bubble on Ceres.
I think a lot of us responded intensely to 'True Detective' because it was so incredibly earnest. That's what made it heartbreaking and involving.
The fact that he gave her was to him a proof, and ought to be one for her as well that she belonged to him: one can only give what belongs to you.
The geologist takes up the history of the earth at the point where the archaeologist leaves it, and carries it further back into remote antiquity.
New York state ethics rules prohibit lawyers from soliciting gifts from clients 'for the benefit of the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer.'
Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze. It maketh me to wake in green pastures: It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses. It restoreth my buzz.
The way I read Billy Carter's testimony, he was a model citizen himself until the voters went and ruined his life by making his brother President.
Once, in Lisbon, I tried my best to work the phone book in a way that would assuage a longing [Alice and I] had for certain Chinese dishes . . . .
One of my greatest extravagances is smelly candles. I'm embarrassed to say, but I spend a disproportionate amount of money on candles. It adds up.
The charges are false and despicable. I have not received a fair hearing. This is un-American. All the lawyering will provoke an untoward outcome.
I much preferred the peaceful life on the road, where I didn't have to ask embarrassing questions and do all the things real reporters have to do.
To be crazy is not necessarily to writhe in snake pits or converse with imaginary gods. It can sometimes be not knowing what to do in the morning.
The most interesting persons are always those who have nothing special to do: children, nurses, policemen and actors at 11 o'clock in the morning.
I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.
Although baseball actually began as a game played largely by urban toughs, its image was soon reconstructed to mirror the country's pastoral myth.
We citizens don't need to know every detail of every military operation in this new kind of war. Nor should the media tell us and hence our enemy.
Yes, Europe needs to be more welcoming, but that's only half of it. Muslims need to embrace the obligations of European residence and citizenship.
The Founding Fathers' instructions were clear: The right to free speech includes bad speech; it means tolerance of ideas that many find obnoxious.
Hedge-fund managers make too much money relative to their social utility. I wish their rewards were a bit closer to those of, say, schoolteachers.
'Cyber-security' is one of those hot topics that has launched a thousand seminars and strategy papers without producing much in the way of policy.
We have to find a way to let everyone know when they're watching that we hear them, that we're asking their questions on all ends of the spectrum.
As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in Philadelphia.
The market is a tool, and a useful one. But the worship of this tool is a hollow faith. Far more important than any tool is what you make with it.
The most interesting lessons often lie in the mundane - those aspects of everyday life that locals take for granted and tourists tend to overlook.
Seventy years after China emerged from the Second World War, the greatest threat facing the nation's leadership is not imperialism but skepticism.
'419 scams,' named for a clause from the Nigerian penal code, are such a part of the white noise of the digital age that we no longer notice them.
Democracy is also a single ideology, and, like all such templates, it has its limits. what works in a legislature might not work in a corporation.
The Web forces me to be disciplined and not to waste time - but before the Web was invented, there were plenty of opportunities to do that anyway.