Journalism enjoyed a unique sunlit holiday of public trust, beginning with Murrow and ending with Woodward and Bernstein, which evokes intense nostalgia in journalists of a certain age. The historical norm, to which we have now reverted, is No Confidence Whatsoever.
In sane times prizes are useless. They become useful in mad times, as negative indicators.
The man who has done nothing is nothing, and “identity” is the futile quest to conceal it.
Dog-whistling, n. The theory that demagogues communicate esoterically.
What I cannot brook is agreement.
Every policy I support seems to threaten democracy itself.
Islam is monotheist: Allah is always and everywhere the same. Christianity is polytheist: there are German, English, Latin, African, and American Christian gods, along with extinct historical versions, all incompatible and eternally at odds
Kings, prime ministers, and presidents are often imbeciles, but regents never are.
At first the artist concerns himself with what to put in, and later, as he matures, with what to leave out.
When you encounter what seems inexplicable, check that it exists.