Editors From The United States

"Mr. Marx has very decided opinions of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing, but those who do not read his letters are neglecting one of the most instructive sources of information on the great questions of current European politics."

"If any young man is about to commence the world, we say to him, publicly and privately, Go to the West."

"It was an earnest, extreme, and irreverent book, a book that, in its mockery of authority, its relentless logic, its relentless hewing to the line of Reason, letting the sacred cows fall where they might, followed the old familiar script: CAMPUS REBEL FLAYS FACULTY. But the script was all balled up, for the author was more reactionary than any of the dignitaries in their black robes, and his book damned Yale as a hotbed of atheism and collectivism."

"Pacifism, to me, is primarily a way of actively struggling against injustice and inhumanity... My kind of pacifism may be called "non-violent resistance.""

"By 'socialism' I mean a classless society in which the State has disappeared, production is cooperative, and no man has political or economic power over another. The touchstone would be the extent to which each individual could develop his own talents and personality."

"The Anarchists' uncompromising rejection of the State, the subject of Marxian sneers for its "absolutist" and "Utopian" character, makes much better sense in the present era than the Marxist relativist and historical approach. The pacifists also seem to be more realistic than the Marxist both in their understanding of modern war and also in their attempts to do something about it..."

"Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion."

"Can one imagine that The Bomb could ever be used "in a good cause"? Do not such means instantly, of themselves, corrupt any cause? The bomb is the natural product of the kind of society we have created. It is as easy, normal, and unforced an expression of the American way of Life as electric ice-boxes,banana splits, and hydro-matic drive automobiles."

"I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist."

"My own personal theory is that this is the very dawn of the world. We're hardly more than an eyeblink away from the fall of Troy, and scarcely an interglaciation removed from the Altamira cave painters. We live in extremely interesting ancient times. I like this idea. It encourages us to be earnest and ingenious and brave, as befits ancestral peoples; but keeps us from deciding that because we don't know all the answers, they must be unknowable and thus unprofitable to pursue."

"...MacDonald, in a veritable furor of intellectual integrity and moral honesty sets out to hunt down his "mistakes" without ever changing the record in the slightest, his technique being to annotate his earlier articles with refutations of himself."

"[F]or me, superheroes will always spark the imagination of people around the world regardless of their background, because I think that people are always looking for something that represents the ideal person or the ideal situation. Almost all of us have loved fairy tales when we were young. Just remember stories of giants and witches and wizards and monsters and things that were so colorful and bigger than life. But then, you get a little older and you’re too old to read fairy tales. But you never outgrow your love of that type of story. And if you think about it, superheroes stories today are really like fairy tales for grown-ups. The characters are bigger than life, just like in fairy tales. They have the same type of superpowers: some can fly, some are extra-strong, some can be invisible. It gives the viewer and the reader a chance to relive the excitement he or she had when they were young. They’re really reading fairy tales for grown-ups when they read or when they see superhero stories today, and that’s why I love them so."

"Our faiths are similar — it's merely our religions that may differ. I have faith in the inherent goodness of man and I'm sure you feel the same. ... I have the greatest respect for any discipline that preaches kindness and charity and love for one's fellow man. Most important of all, to me — "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" is the greatest phrase ever written. If everyone followed that creed, this world would be a paradise."

"Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people's well-being, and will go out of his or her way to help them -- even if there is no chance of a reward. That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero."

"We tried to make our characters as human and empathetic as possible. Instead of merely emphasizing their super feats, we attempted to make their personal life and personal problems as realistic and as interesting as possible. We wanted to make them seem like real people whom the reader would like to spend time with and want to know better."

"What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say "I want to rule the world," and there's nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four's greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!"

"As comics writers we had to have villains in our stories. And once World War II started, the Nazis gave us the greatest villains in the world to fight against. It was a slam dunk."

"To me you can wrap all of Judaism up in one sentence, and that is, 'Do not do unto others...' All I tried to do in my stories was show that there's some innate goodness in the human condition. And there's always going to be evil; we should always be fighting evil."

"They are working on The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, The Hulk— they're doing a sequel to Spider-Man, a sequel to X-Men, and probably a third sequel to Blade. They still haven't gotten around to Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.— they have to do the Ghost Rider."

"In the early days, I was writing scripts for virtually all the books, and it was very hard to keep all the artists busy; poor little frail me, doing story after story. So I'd be writing a story for Kirby, and Steve Ditko would walk in and say, 'Hey, I need some work now.' And I'd say, 'I can't give it to you now, Steve, I'm finishing Kirby's.' But we couldn't afford to keep Steve waiting, because time is money, so I'd have to say, 'Look Steve, I can't write a script for you now, but here's the plot for the next Spider-Man. Go home and draw anything you want, as long as it's something like this, and I'll put the copy in later.' So I was able to finish Jack's story. Steve in the meantime was drawing another story.....Okay, it started out as a lazy man's device...but we realized this was absolutely the best way to do a comic.....Don't have the writer say, 'Panel one will be a long shot of Spider-Man walking down the street.' The artist may see it differently; maybe he feels it should be a shot of Spider-Man swinging on his web, or climbing upside-down on the ceiling or something."

"Face front, true believer!"

"Excelsior!"

"'Nuff Said!"

"Reflecting back on some of his co-creations in 1975, Stan Lee dubiously claimed that "Marvel Comics has never been into politics" or beholden to an "official party line" before offering a near-apology for the moral simplicity of the portrait of the Vietnam conflict in 1963's "Iron Man Is Born!" (Son of Origins 47.) A disinterested observer would find much evidence to counter these claims in the pages of Tales of Suspense between 1963 and 1968."

"When my father died, no one from Marvel or Disney reached out to me. From day one, they have commoditized my father's work and never shown him or his legacy any respect or decency. In the end, no one could have treated my father worse than Marvel and Disney's executives."

"WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME----------GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!"

"The worst advice Stan Lee ever gave me: “Work with the devil himself if he has talent.”"

"“Human nature doesn’t change. It’s the environment. What’s happened to us is, the world has been wildly changing,producing new sets of rules each time you blink your eye.None of us is all that different from each other. We all want essentially the same things out of life. A measure of security, some fun, some romance, friendship, and respect of our contemporaries. That goes for Indians, Chinese, Russians, Jews, Arabs, Catholics, Protestants, Blacks, Browns, Whites, and green-skinned Hulks. So why don't we all stop wasting time hating the other guys? Just look in the mirror, mister - that other guy is you! Excelsior! ” - Dialogue from Marvel's Behind The Mask"

"“You know, I guess one person can make a difference. 'Nuff said...” - Dialogue from Spider-Man 3"

"[M]ost writers — and I think it’s an unfortunate thing — they try to write something that they think a certain audience might enjoy. I’ve never been able to do that, because I can’t put myself in the mind of other people. I only know what I enjoy. So every time I’ve written a story, I’ve always tried to write the sort of story that I, myself would enjoy reading, a story that would interest me while I’m writing it as I’m waiting to find out what happens next. And I can’t know what other people think, but I can know what I think, and I feel. I’m not that unusual. If there’s a type of story I like, there must be lots of people who like the same type of stories. Therefore, I have always written to please myself, not to please a certain type of audience, because you can’t know the audience as well as you know yourself."

"To me, the human aspect of superheroes has always been, perhaps, the most important part. By that, I mean: Okay, we assume your superhero might be extra-strong, or might be able to fly or run as fast as a comet. But unless you care about the superhero’s personal life, you’re just reading a shallow story. Just because a person has a superpower doesn’t mean he might not have the same personal problems that you or I might have. Maybe he doesn’t have enough money, maybe he has a family problem, maybe the girl he loves doesn’t love him. Or maybe the girl he loves doesn’t want to be involved with a superhero. There are so many things you can think of that round out the character and the personality, so the superhero isn’t just one or two dimensional. You want a three-dimensional superhero who lives and breathes and worries and experiences things just the way you and I do, except for the fact that she or he has a superpower."

"Patrick Buchanan, for one, claims that his views represent the true faith of the American right. He wants to drive the neocon infidels from the temple (or, more accurately, from the church). Unfortunately for Mr. Buchanan, his version of conservatism--nativist, , Isolationist--attracts few followers, as evidenced by his poor showings in Republican presidential primaries and the scant influence of his inaptly named magazine, the American Conservative. Buchananism isn't American conservatism as we understand it today. It's , a poisonous brew that was last popular when Father Charles Coughlin, not Rush Limbaugh, was the leading conservative broadcaster in America. ... Pretty much all conservatives today agree on the need for a strong, vigorous foreign policy. There is no constituency for isolationism on the right, outside the Buchananite fever swamps."

"I congratulate you on your victory. From the cosmopolitan United States of America we have finally heard the voice of a patriotic leader. Your slogans are close to our hearts, especially the words "America for Americans." Your goals are noble. Mr. Buchanan! Both of us are free-spirited and independent politicians. I congratulate you as a brother in arms in the struggle for national liberation. Today in our press both the democrats and the communists are whining about politicians like us, which again confirms that democrats and communists in all countries are enemies of the people. Because of this, the slogan "Patriots of all countries, unite!" is more relevant than ever. You call Congress "Israeli-occupied territory." We have the same situation here in Russia. The USA and Russia are not free countries. They are two great powers, but they are occupied. Therefore, in order to survive, we should set aside territory in both the US and Russia for the settlement of this bothersome tribe. I sincerely wish you victory in the upcoming presidential elections and I hope you can realize your slogans, and especially your policy of protectionism. If both of us come to power, I promise you that we will be able to resolve all our troublesome problems for the good of both nations. In the shortest possible time we will end fighting in the Balkans and untangle the problems in the Middle East. We will establish a strong peace throughout the whole world, and we won't let anyone violate it."

"[On his attempts to run for president] All those efforts failed, but their stark themes of isolationism, lost national greatness, immigrant invasion, and racial fear provided a template for Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign a quarter-century later. "American carnage" was the favored far-right image at least two decades before Trump. Meanwhile, a step away from Buchanan—how distant a step has long been subject to debate—an assortment of antisemitic and white nationalist organizations remained on the political fringes during the Reagan period."

"The Reagan White House also harbored the former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan as its communications director. Buchanan's politics were rooted in the 1930s America First isolationism of Charles A. Lindbergh and the diatribes of the right-wing "radio priest" Father Charles Coughlin, with their eccentric fixations on imaginary Jewish internationalist cabals. In the waning days of Reagan’s presidency, Buchanan remarked that "the greatest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan.""

"I'm on the conservative side, but Buchanan is Attila the Hun."

"The post-1972 primary system was especially vulnerable to a particular kind of outsider: individuals with enough fame or money to skip the “invisible primary.” In other words, celebrities. Although conservative outsiders Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, and Steve Forbes did not manage to overcome the effects of the invisible primary during the 1980s and 1990s, their relative success provided clues into how it might be done. Forbes, an extraordinarily wealthy businessman, was able to buy name recognition, while Robertson, a televangelist who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Buchanan, a television commentator (and early Republican proponent of white nationalism), were both colorful figures with special media access. Although none of them won the nomination, they used massive wealth and celebrity status to become contenders."

"It wasn’t as much what Buchanan had said as how he said it. Others had taken similar positions before: protectionism; putting the American workers first; cultural conservatism. None of these were particularly objectionable, even in combination. But to dub political disagreements as a war, to imply that those on the other side were an enemy to be defeated, was a bridge too far. It’s 1992! How could we be having this conversation? The Cold War had ended, and it had given way to a New World Order. America was supposed to be a “kinder, gentler” nation. Everyone knew that it was time to melt down the knives and put the pitchforks away. “Everyone,” that is, except for those completely outside the mainstream of political discourse."

"Many people did not care for Pat Buchanan's speech; it probably sounded better in the original German."

"Buchanan had never held elective office, but he'd worked as an advisor in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations, and was an outspoken pundit on the far right of American politics, with regular appearances on PBS, CNN, and his own syndicated radio show. He was a principal architect of the "southern strategy," which he'd laid out in a 1971 memo to President Nixon, whereby the Republican Party captured white Democratic voters in the South by appealing to their racism. In a 1993 column, Buchanan wrote, "How long is this endless groveling before every cry of 'racism' going to continue before the whole country collectively throws up?""

"I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism. If you ask, do I think Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite, my answer is he is not one. But I think he's said some anti-Semitic things"

"Trump did not create the forces that propelled his candidacy. But he recognized them, tapped into them, and unleashed a gusher of nationalism and populism that will not soon dissipate."

"America’s media seem utterly lacking in introspection. Do they understand why so many people hate them so? Do they care? Are they so smugly self-righteous and self-regarding they cannot see?"

"the folks Obama and Clinton detest, disparage, and pity are the white working- and middle-class folks Richard Nixon celebrated as Middle Americans and the Silent Majority. They are the folks who brought America through the Depression, won World War II, and carried us through the Cold War from Truman in 1945 to victory with Ronald Reagan in 1989. These are the Trump supporters. They reside mostly in red states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Middle Pennsylvania, and Southern, Plains and Mountain states that have provided a disproportionate share of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who fought and died to guarantee the freedom of plutocratic LGBT lovers to laugh at and mock them at $2,400-a-plate dinners."

"What America has in Hillary Clinton is a potential president with the charisma but not the competence of Angela Merkel, and the ethics of Dilma Rousseff."

"The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of social revolution in America, and President Nixon, by ending the draft and ending the Vietnam war, presided over what one columnist called the “cooling of America.” But if Hillary Clinton takes power, and continues America on her present course, which a majority of Americans rejected in the primaries, there is going to a bad moon rising."

"“Angry white male” is now an acceptable slur in culture and politics. So it is that people of that derided ethnicity, race, and gender see in Donald Trump someone who unapologetically berates and mocks the elites who have dispossessed them, and who despise them. Is it any surprise that militant anti-government groups attract white males? Is it so surprising that the Donald today, like Jess Willard a century ago, is seen by millions as “The Great White Hope”?"

"What is the moral argument for an affirmative action that justifies unending race discrimination against a declining white working class, who have become the expendables of our multicultural regime?"

"Military intervention for reasons of ideology or nation building is not an Eisenhower or Nixon or Reagan tradition. It is not a Republican tradition. It is a Bush II-neocon deformity, an aberration that proved disastrous for the United States and the Middle East."

"Given the shrinking populations inside Europe and the waves of immigrants rolling in from Africa and the Middle and Near East, an Islamic Europe seems to be in the cards before the end of the century."