QuoteLog

“Still here, ready to bathe in the frothy spume of my bull-headed ignorance? Well, I warned you.”

“All children are lawyers at heart. Looking for the loophole.”

“I am struck once again by the incomparable hold VIETNAM has over some people. They don’t seem to realize how the use of this inapt example demonstrates their inability to grasp the nature of new and different conflicts. When I was in college, El Salvador was Vietnam. When I was in Washington, Kuwait was Vietnam. Afghanistan was briefly Vietnam when we hadn’t won the war after a week. It’s Warholian: in the future, all conflicts will be Vietnam for 15 minutes.”

“The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one.”

“This is why I left Metafilter right after 9/11. They don’t mind if you’re angry. You can be angry about important things, like Microsoft security lapses and Ashcroft crusades. But 200 stories of skyscraper falling to the ground? Thousands dead, ten thousand orphaned, ten million mourning? Dude. Get a grip.”

“But nowadays the phrase never again is met with sneers: of course again. And again and again, as often as possible. Fascists in thrall to a death-god, again. Creed-addled men who shrug at the death of babies, again. Poison-fed people who pass out candy to celebrate the murder of Jews, again. Never again has become please, not tomorrow.”

“I am always mystified by people who would rather die pure than live with imperfections. Every candidate will always disappoint, somehow. Any candidate with whom you agree 100% is probably unelectable.”

“Yes, you can take some stringer’s notes and compose a story, but the difference between that an a piece you wrote from your own research is the difference between a Penthouse Forum letter and your recollection of your wedding night.”

“It reminded me again of an interview I heard a few weeks ago with the CEO of some big Middle-eastern Internet company; he said that Arabs hate the US because of the oppressive governments we support. The host asked if people were pleased when the Taliban was deposed, and he said of course not - the US was attacking a Muslim nation!”

“Suicide bombers, armies of boys - took Tojo and Hitler five years to get to that point. Took Saddam two weeks.”

“Well, that’s it. War’s lost. It’s amazing how fast things change; in Afghanistan, it took three weeks before someone whispered ‘Quagmire’ and all was forsaken; this time it took but five days before an intrepid reporter stood up at a briefing and asked the military spokesman whether the specter of Vietnam loomed again over the swaggering, clay-footed giant of American power.”

“Note to Atta et al, no doubt dogpaddling in hell and bobbing in sulferous feces for nail-studded raisins: a lovely day in September reminds me that I’m alive, and you’re not.”

“I’m sticking with ‘suicide bomber.’ Reason: suicide is a sin in Islam, and the pliant mullahs have come up with all sorts of theological contortions to explain why the bombers are not committing suicide, but are dying in jihad as martyrs. I won’t concede that. They’re committing suicide. They’re committing a sin. And they’re going to Hell.”

“I’m surprised more novice web designers don’t put their fist through the computer screen, especially since monitor prices have come down so much lately.”

“The warblogger world is more diverse than it appears, but it has one unifying meme: Never again. This used to be the oath of the Jews, but it’s shared now by millions who saw the towers tumble.”

“In the future, everyone will be Hitler for 15 minutes.”

“TV relies on pictures; radio on emotive voices. Blogs are about words, period, and you stand or fall on how well you use them.”

“Someone had put flavored coffee in the unflavored grinder. This coffee tasted like hazelnut. And I’d contamined my entire supply. I had nothing but hazelfargin-nut flavored coffee. Why? What was it about the big sign UNFLAVORED COFFEE ONLY that didn’t connect with whatever dullard did this? Why, for that matter, is there flavored coffee? COFFEE IS FLAVOR. No one expects to see coffee-flavored hazelnut, after all. You want flavored coffee, go get your General Mills International Blend powder and sit on the sofa with your girlfriend and giggle over Jean Luc, the Parisian waiter like the bloody commercials. Bastards!”

“Contempt for the things people choose of their own free will is, at its heart, contempt for free will.”

“In some ways, it feels as if Tuesday’s attacks blew a crust of rancid sugar off the nation; suddenly the vulgar nature of popular culture seems not only juvenile, not just banal, but wrong. Eminem: Shut up. Go away. Miss Spears: Put some clothes on, young lady, and stop writhing around with snakes. Grow up.”

“You don’t have to be in New York to be a New Yorker this week. You don’t have to be in the Lower 48 to feel your heart buried in the rubble of Manhattan. You do not have to be an American to be part of the struggle to come.”

“Self-defense is not retribution. The day we impose a dictatorial theocracy, strip women of the most basic human rights, dynamite the art of other religions, train our children to hate Jews, and give aid, comfort and money to a man who exults in the deaths of innocent people, then we’re down at the Taliban’s level.”

“I hold on to the anger; I turn it on the lathe, hold it up to the light, test its point. Because the moment I put it down I will lose all composure, and there will be no end to the tears.”