“You cannot fight terrorism with terrorism.”
“Never underestimate a politician s ability to screw up in repeatedly more colossal ways given proper time.”
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”
“Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears”
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
“In response to be asked about Boris Johnson becoming UK Prime Minister... I m delighted. As the UK continues to plunge ever faster into a future akin to a dystopian novel I ll never run out of material to write more books. Although now that reality is more bizarre than fiction maybe plot-lines will need to be more ambitious. Perhaps a book where Boris Johnson is really an accidental sentient snafu of Trump s scrotum lint. Kind of a sequel to the Bush-Blair story. I see musical rights being drawn up as we speak.”
“It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.”
“Since childhood, I’d believed it was important to speak out against bullies while also not stooping to their level. And to be clear, we were now up against a bully, a man who among other things demeaned minorities and expressed contempt for prisoners of war, challenging the dignity of our country with practically his every utterance. I wanted Americans to understand that words matter—that the hateful language they heard coming from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it. It was dignity I wanted to make an appeal for—the idea that as a nation we might hold on to the core thing that had sustained my family, going back generations. Dignity had always gotten us through. It was a choice, and not always the easy one, but the people I respected most in life made it again and again, every single day. There was a motto Barack and I tried to live by, and I offered it that night from the stage: When they go low, we go high.”
“There is a reason why it used to be that politics, religion, and sex were not topics for polite conversation. It is because our grandparents knew that while everyone is legally entitled to vote, pray, and fuck, the vast majority of people aren’t competent to do any one of the three properly.”
“One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.”
“There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women s bodies by men. The woman s body is the terrain on which patriarchy is erected.”
“A diplomat who says “yes” means “maybe , a diplomat who says “maybe means “no”, and a diplomat who says “no” is no diplomat.”
“Anyone who thinks politics equals power has no understanding of either politics or power. The games of politics are sponsored by the powerful, and are designed to deliver a single end - to secure their power.”
“I have two enemies in all the world, Two twins, inseparably fused: The hunger of the hungry and the fullness of the full.”
“E eu pergunto aos economistas políticos, aos moralistas, se já calcularam o número de indivíduos que é forçoso condenar à miséria, ao trabalho desproporcionado, à desmoralização, à infâmia, à ignorância crapulosa, à desgraça invencível, à penúria absoluta, para produzir um rico?”
“I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.”
“There is no justification whatsoever for waging war on undesirable regimes, because these wars ultimately do not favour democracy on the ground.”