Journalists From England

"This is an industry, it's a business. We exist to make money. We exist to put commercials on the air. The programming that is put on between those commercials is simply the bait we put in the mousetrap."

"The [NYT] Times is absolutely committed to making sure that this guy does not get elected. So his perception that the establishment press is out to get him doesn’t mean that great journalism is not being done. It is. But the notion that most of us look upon Donald Trump as being an absolute fiasco, he’s not mistaken in that perception, and he’s not mistaken when so many of the liberal media, for example, described themselves as belonging to the Resistance. What does that mean? That’s not said by people who consider themselves reporters, objective reporters of facts. That’s the kind of language that’s used by people who genuinely believe, and I rather suspect with some justification, that Donald Trump is bad for the United States, and they’re betting that the sooner he’s out of office, the better they will like it. Whether that happens by virtue of indictment, impeachment or election, we’ll see… We are not the reservoir of objectivity that I think we were."

"I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days, when you talk about The Washington Post these days, we’re not talking about the New York Times of 50 years ago. We are not talking about the Washington Post of 50 years ago. We’re talking about organizations that I believe have, in fact, decided as organizations that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States. We have things appearing on the front page of the New York Times—right now that would never have appeared 50 years ago—analysis, commentary—on the front page."

"In other words, the listener’s own picture was painted in the shining coulours St Odhran provided. By seeing what they wished, they also saw what he wished them to see. “They are the Orchestra,” he had told me earlier, “and I am merely the Conductor.”"

"Moorcock is an erudite Left-anarchist and a giant of fantasy literature. Almost everything he’s written is of interest, but Hawkmoon is chosen here in honor of Moorcock having said about it: “In a spirit consciously at odds with the jingoism of the day, I chose a German for a hero and the British for villains.”"

"A whole tangle of series, possibly including everything Moorcock's written, not excluding his grocery lists, but I'm not sure; certainly includes most of his fantasy. Various subseries are declared complete every so often, as for example in an ad for the Last Elric Book in the current issue of F&SF; such declarations sometimes prove true, but on the other hand, I've seen several previous Last Elric Books."

"Thus woman trusts in man down all the years and so, as always, is betrayed."

"You are martyred, as woman is ever martyred, particularly if she seeks her own power."

"You’re as worthless as one of that decrepit mob. Lucifer has rejected you. Now mankind rejects you. Have the good taste, Sir, to accept a fact!"

"He had thought his wars over. Now he realized peace had been merely a lull."

"You may be abandoned by Satan, Sir, and I abandoned by God, but that does not put us in the same cart, nor even upon the same road."

"“Are you aware we anticipate the Apocalypse, von Bek?” “The obsession’s common enough, Montsorbier, amongst ignorant folk.”"

"We’ll build a world where Order shall prevail. A few more deaths are inconsequential, surely, if they guarantee us eternal life and absolute fulfillment?"

"I must believe you doomed to eternal life, but also to eternal repetition! Your true doom is simple to me. You lack brains, Sir."

"My own self-deception at least promised some kind of pleasure. Theirs offered nothing but terror and guilt."

"Redefine the terms by which Man views the world, and thus eventually you redefine the world itself."

"My bargain with God included the undertaking that I should play no direct part, merely supervise mankind’s self-redemption. Like yourself, my agents are those whose independence of thought is already well-established."

"Better wicked Lucifer for a master, thought I, than a pious Tyrant!"

"I guessed he experienced the terrible confusion of a true solipsist when the outer world impinges."

"Destiny was apparently a word describing an individual’s desperate need for certainty."

"Warlocks and witches debate to determine how to make their broomsticks fly again. But how shall they ever come together in strength? Even if your ideas had any truth, they’re so frequently, by their very character, at odds. Each claims to hold the key to the only wisdom. That’s where natural philosophers, who do not impose what they need to believe (or at least not so readily!) upon the world, but analyze what they see, have the strong advantage."

"Did God truly build and populate a small planet for His own purposes; perhaps merely to relieve His boredom?"

"My instinct shouted “Conspiracy” but my head reasoned “Coincidence”."

"Do you know what damnation can be, Sir? It can be a state of permanent caution, making one chronically unable to risk anything, even a risk which might save one from extinction."

"It had been some years since I had lost my Faith, save in my own capacity to survive a world at War, but evidently in the back of my mind there had always been some sense that through God one might find salvation. Now, as I journeyed in quest of the Holy Grail (or something identified as the Holy Grail), I not only questioned the possibility that salvation existed; I questioned whether God’s salvation was worth the earning. Again I began to see the struggle between God and Lucifer as nothing more than a squabble between petty princelings over who should possess power in a tiny, unimportant territory. The fate of the tenants of that territory did not much seem to matter to them; and even the reward of those tenants’ loyalty seemed thin enough to me."

"At that moment I railed against a God who could condemn such an innocent soul to Purgatory. What had Sedenko done that was not the result of his upbringing or his religion, which encouraged him to kill in the name of Christ? It came to me that perhaps God had become senile, that He had lost His memory and no longer remembered the purpose of placing Man on Earth. He had become petulant, He had become whimsical. He retained His power over us, but could no longer be appealed to. And where was His Son, who had been sent to redeem us? Was God’s Plan not so much mysterious as impossible for us to accept: because it was a malevolent one?"

"“I understand you now. But surely, if Lucifer is successful, we shall all be saved.” The Wildgrave’s smile was bitter. “What logic provides you with that hope, von Bek? If God is merciful, He provides us with little evidence.”"

"I had always claimed to welcome the truth; yet now, in common with most of us, I was resentful of the truth because it called upon me to take an unwelcome course of action."

"I said: “Then in reality I had little choice.” “Let us say that your character has already determined your choice.”"

"“In Hell you become what you fear yourself to be. In Heaven you may become what you hope yourself to be,” said Lucifer."

"Scholarly men were suspect in my town. Women could not admit to scholarship at all. Men are afraid of two things in this world, it seems—women and knowledge. Both threaten their power, eh?"

"“Could you punish a heretic?” “Madam, I do not know what a heretic really is. The word is made much of, these days. It seems to describe anyone you wish dead.”"

"One can act too much in the cause of self-preservation and experience nothing fresh as a result."

"That evening I lit many candles and sat in the library wearing fresh linen and drinking good wine while I read a treatise on astronomy by a student of Kepler’s and reflected on my increasing disagreement with Luther, who had judged reason to be the chief enemy of Faith, of the purity of his beliefs. He had considered reason a harlot, willing to turn to anyone’s needs, but this merely displayed his own suspicion of logic. I have come to believe him the madman Catholics described him as. Most mad people see logic as a threat to the dream in which they would rather live, a threat to their attempts to make the dream reality (usually through force, through threat, through manipulation and through bloodshed). It is why men of reason are so often the first to be killed or exiled by tyrants."

"Only Law could create such perfection and, Elric thought, such perfection defeated progress. That the twin forces complemented one another was now plainer than ever before, and for either to gain complete ascendancy over the other meant entropy or stagnation for the cosmos. Even though Law might dominate the Earth, Chaos must be present, and vice versa."

"Regret is useless since it can achieve nothing."

"Are the gods mad or are they so subtle we cannot fathom the workings of their minds?"

"Elric knew that in reality Chaos was the harbinger of stagnation, for though it changed constantly, it never progressed."

"A man who can’t forget the past is a man who cannot plan for the future."

"Why do we worship such a god when whim decides him so often?"

"“Thanks,” said Elric, “and what did you give in the first place for the power to summon such a demon?” “Why, my soul, of course. But it was an old one and not of much worth. Hell could be no worse than this existence.”"

"“Assassins have attempted to eliminate the trader, but unfortunately, they were not lucky.” Elric laughed. “How disappointing, my friends. Still assassins are the most dispensable members of the community—are they not? And their souls probably went to placate some demon who would otherwise have plagued more honest folk.”"

"“I did not say that we would not fight,” her sister said firmly, “I said that we would not resort to the building of empires. These are two distinct things.” “I understand you, my lady,” said the albino, “and I accept the difference. I have no liking for my people’s penchant for empire-building.” “Well, my lord, there are many other ways to achieve security.”"

"I must admit, sir, that I have modified the verses a little, to allow for the new things I have learned, so I am an unreliable source of truth, sir, save in its most fundamental sense. Like a majority of poets, sir."

"For this was the other thing that Elric knew; that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance."

"“As I believe I observed earlier,” said the albino prince to the still-cowed Gaynor, “the most powerful of beings are not necessarily the most intelligent, nor, indeed, sane, nor well-mannered. The more one knows of the gods, the more one learns this fundamental lesson...”"

"“In my own world, sir, sad to say, human prejudice is matched only by human folly. Not a soul claims to be prejudiced, of course, as there are few who would describe themselves as fools...” Elric, chewing on a piece of barely palatable salt beef, remarked that this seemed a quality of a good deal of society, throughout the multiverse."

"You desire power only for that most selfish of all ends, and therefore you know no boundaries in the seeking and the gaining of it."

"Did you not tell me once that patronage of the artist was the only valuable vocation to which a prince might aspire?"

"One by one, with appalling deliberation, the villages of the Gypsy Nation crawl to the edge and plunge into the abyss. To stop is obscene. They do not know how to stop. They can only die. Elric, too, is screaming now, as he forces his horse forward. But he screams, he knows, at the apparent inevitability of human folly, of people who can destroy themselves to honour a principle and a habit that has long since ceased to have any practical function. They are dying because they would rather follow habit than alter their course."