Quotes by Journalists - Page 221

Perhaps eggs are like neurons, which also are not replenished in adulthood: they know too much. Eggs must plan the party. Sperm need only to show up- wearing top hat and tails, of course.
Natalie Angier
Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.
Frank Herbert
In a nutshell, the universe is 4% visible, 23% undetectable and 73% unimaginable. Welcome to the cosmos, full of mass you can measure but not manhandle, driven by a force you can infer but not explain.
Tim Radford
[Patricia Greenfield] concluded that “every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others.” Our growing use of the Net and other screen-based technologies has led to the “widespread and sophisticated development of visual-spatial skills.” We can, for example, rotate objects in our minds better than we used to be able to. But our “new strengths in visual-spatial intelligence” go hand in hand with a weakening of our capacities for the kind of “deep processing” that underpins “mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection.
Nicholas Carr
This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism.
Susan Jacoby
No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you.
Mark Helprin
Be sceptical, ask questions, demand proof. Demand evidence. Don't take anything for granted. But here's the thing: When you get proof, you need to accept the proof. And we're not that good at doing that.
Michael Specter
God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.
Christopher Hitchens
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's so important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.
Joshua Foer
Before it is science and career, before it is livelihood, before even it is family or love, freedom is sound sleep and safety to notice the play of morning sun.
Richard Rhodes
We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones.
Robert Wright
People wrap themselves in their beliefs. And they do it in such a way that you can't set them free. Not even the truth will set them free.
Michael Specter
A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
Frank Herbert
Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.
Christopher Hitchens
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Christopher Hitchens
I had heard of Virginia before only in passing, a "crazy ex" with whom things had not ended well. I was accustomed to this lazy shorthand for men who dislike the emotions of women.
Alana Massey
Please ejaculate", I silently urged the man, "so I can go to sleep". (In this way I imagine I was like millions of women before me
Jon Ronson
When D's cabin caught fire, D was out of the country. Half the town-Christians and drinkers alike-came out to fight the fire and loot the cabin. There were individual piles of loot, and fights over the piles. "That's my pile." "The hell it is, it's mine.
John McPhee
Rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn't always pretty.
Mitch Albom
It's not just the cheerleading thing I have a problem with, it's the whole jock enchilada. I'm all for a good game of basketball in teh driveway or a killer bike ride. But when there's tackling and grunting involved-- no thanks.
Linda Ellerbee
Let’s put to rest one cliché. You can sell refrigerators to Eskimos. The people of Savoonga are Yupiks, the westernmost of the Eskimo tribes, closer to Siberians than American Eskimos in their appearance, and their customs, and their distinctive, liquidly sibilant native language. And, yes, they all have refrigerators. In the winter, food gets freezer burn if left out in the elements. Eskimos need refrigerators to keep their food warm.
Gene Weingarten
In one of his puckish moods Saul talked the president of a university into letting him anonymously take an examination being administered to candidates for a doctorate in community organization. "Three of the questions were on the philosophy of and motivations of Saul Alinsky," writes Saul. "I answered two of them incorrectly.
Nicholas von Hoffman
You think that killing people will make them like you more, but it doesn't,it just makes them dead.
Joe Walker
Furthermore--though it was quite irrelevant now--he had no idea his killer, Kazuo Kiriyama, had, in his mansion that was much larger than Toshinori's home in Shiroiwa-cho, mastered the violin at a level far superior to Toshinori's a long time ago--and then tossed his violin into the trash.
Koushun Takami
Says O'Sullivan to me, "Mr. Fay, I'll have a word wid yeh?" "Certainly," says I; "what can I do for you?" "Sell me your sea- boots, Mr. Fay," says O'Sullivan, polite as can be. "But what will you be wantin' of them?" says I. "'Twill be a great favour," says O'Sullivan. "But it's my only pair," says I; "and you have a pair of your own," says I. "Mr. Fay, I'll be needin' me own in bad weather," says O'Sullivan. "Besides," says I, "you have no money." "I'll pay for them when we pay off in Seattle," says O'Sullivan. "I'll not do it," says I; "besides, you're not tellin' me what you'll be doin' with them." "But I will tell yeh," says O'Sullivan; "I'm wantin' to throw 'em over the side." And with that I turns to walk away, but O'Sullivan says, very polite and seducin'-like, still a-stroppin' the razor, "Mr. Fay," says he, "will you kindly step this way an' have your throat cut?" And with that I knew my life was in danger, and I have come to make report to you, sir, that the man is a violent lunatic.
Jack London
She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind.
Stieg Larsson
Expired condoms are like nuclear waste: there's nothing sensible you can do with it.
Andrew Smith
Tried to escape, to block out the fact that I was being eaten alive by arachnids. For some reason the only thing I could replace it with was the image of being eaten by tiny clowns.
David Wong
New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly.
Jeannette Walls
But you won’t abdicate."Of course not. It’s my duty to go on, to maintain the line. I can’t possibly fail in that. It’s as if you and I were throwing a ball back and forth to establish a record, and had been doing so for a millennium. You cannot drop a ball that has remained airborne through good effort for most of a thousand years. You cannot stop an unlikely heart that has been beating for so long. I would rather die than betray continuity, for its own sake if for nothing else. And Britain needs a king, just as it needs motormen and cooks and a prime minister. Just as it needs soldiers who will die for it if they must. It’s my job, or it will be, but you should know that I’ve never wanted it. I was only born to it, as if with a deformity, to which I hope I can respond with grace."Fredericka had been running her finger over the carpet, tracing a pattern in the way children do when they have learnt something overwhelming and are moved, but cannot say so. Freddy expected her to look up, with tears, and that in this moment she might have begun the long and arduous process of becoming a queen. She was so beautiful. To embrace her now, with high emotion flowing from her physical majesty, was all he wanted in the world. Her finger stopped moving, and she turned her eyes to him.Freddy?"Yes?" he answered.What’s raw egg? I read a recipe in She that called for a cup of raw egg. What is that?"After a long silence, Freddy asked, "Which part of the formulation escapes you? Egg? Raw? The link between the two?"The two what?"Fredericka?"Yes, Freddy?"Would you like to go dancing?"Oh, yes Freddy!"Come then. We will.
Mark Helprin
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H.L. Mencken
Neither sleet nor rain nor a half inch of snow will compel me to dress like a lumberjack.
Gayle Forman
Only then did I see. Something was amiss with Patrick's snap-on one piece, or "onesie" as we manly dads like to call it. His chubby thighs, I now realized, were squeezed into the armholes, which were so tight they must have been cutting off his circulation. The collared neck hung between his legs like an udder. Up top, Patrick's head stuck out through the unsnapped crotch, and his arms were lost somewhere in the billowing pant legs. It was quite a look.
John Grogan
My melon soulCrushed by your Gallagher of apathy
David Wong
What do you want? Where's the goddamn ice I ordered? Where's the booze? There's a war on, man! People are being killed!
Hunter S. Thompson
Women will buy products in an attempt to become the impossible goal. Men will buy products in an attempt to mate with the impossible goal.
David McRaney
Getting money from my dad is a finesse job. Luckily, I have finesse coming out of my arse. I barged into his study without knocking, marched across to his desk, and held out my hand. “Give me twenty pounds,” I snapped. “I need twenty pounds. Give it to me. Now!
Sarra Manning
And you'd think that killing people would make them like you, but it doesn't. It just- it just makes them dead.
Joe Walker
Harley-Davidson," she said. "Sweet.
Stieg Larsson
There was the smell of old books, a smell that has a way of making all libraries seem the same. Some say that smell is asbestos.
Scott Douglas
Plus, in one of his e-mails, the guy said he didn't like pancakes. What kind of asshole doesn't like pancakes?
A.J. Jacobs
SHUT UP. Both of you. You're coming with me." To me he said, "Put some pant
David Wong
He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.
David Frost
She didn't care that people called her a bitch. 'It's just another word for feminist,' she told me with pride.
Gayle Forman
Long live the dead because we live in them.
Clarice Lispector
But when they changed their plans time and time again, the dates became confused, the periods were mislaid, and one day seemed so much like another that one could not feel them pass.
Gabriel García Márquez
I have been in love only once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It's a sweet idea, but the reality is terror itself. To be faced with all those lonely years after. To exist when the point of you has gone.
Matt Haig
There are too many years around this table, too much time confined in one place.
Richard Smyth
The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves.
Mitch Albom
Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?.. He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Mitch Albom
When big things happen," he hold her, "time flows differently. For instance, who says the world was created in six days? Maybe a day was like sixty years. Or even a thousand of a million, like it says in Psalms: For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past.
Anat Talshir
After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough. No more playing music at half-empty night clubs. No more writing songs in my apartment, songs that no one would hear.
Mitch Albom
No really. If you only have seven years left, that means the Reaper will be dropping round for tea and buns in about 61,000 hours from now. You therefore shouldn’t be wasting time by pootling to the garden centre at walking pace. So come on, grandad. The clock’s ticking. Pedal to the metal. Or you’ll be in your flowerbed before the plants you bought.
Jeremy Clarkson
Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the fetid detail of the moment to spot where it is leading us. But not this time. I was experiencing one of my dad’s deafening moments. If my life could be understood as a meal of many courses (and let’s be honest, much of it actually was), then I had finished the starters and I was limbering up for the main event. So far, of course, I had made a stinking mess of it. I had spilled the wine. I had dropped my cutlery on the floor and sprayed the fine white linen with sauce. I had even spat out some of my food because I didn’t like the taste of it.“But it doesn’t matter because, look, here come the waiters. They are scraping away the debris with their little horn and steel blades, pulled with studied grace from the hidden pockets of their white aprons. They are laying new tablecloths, arranging new cutlery, placing before me great domed wine glasses, newly polished to a sparkle. There are more dishes to come, more flavors to try, and this time I will not spill or spit or drop or splash. I will not push the plate away from me, the food only half eaten. I am ready for everything they are preparing to serve me. Be in no doubt; it will all be fine.” (pp.115-6)
Jay Rayner
The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.
Tahir Shah
The smoke detectors began to ring; for they were battery-powered and thus still functioned, just as a record can still be played after the death of every member of the orchestra.
William T. Vollmann
Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
Tahir Shah
Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.
Tahir Shah
[T]he people who are close to Allah worry so much about wasting time that they call themselves to account for every breath they spend - how many of us wonder about how we spend our day, let alone each breath?
Ethar El-Katatney
[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy...Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.
Mark Helprin