journalists-from-new-jersey

"“I knew I wanted to write the book because I felt that it would be a catharsis. But publishing it, I was scared. There's something about an anchor woman where you are seen as pristine, with this mask of makeup. You're tabula rasa. Nobody thinks that you've ever had a hard day. And I thought, can the audience handle this?”"

""Everyone has a survival story of some kind, and that can be a bridge,”"

"I am an obsessive-compulsive reader and a history junkie. I brake by rote at every , I buy out museum bookstores, and for years my interest in colonial forts and villages so exhausted my two children that they are now permanently allergic to the past. I can tell you, right down to the hour, everything that happened at , and each setback that Franklin Roosevelt endured during World War II feels like it happened to me."

"... Childers had been an exemplary, even remarkable . After enlisting in the U.S. Marines fresh out of high school in , in 1990, Childers had scored high marks at , and then at a Light Armored Driver's course in California. Eight months after enlisting, Childers had briefly served in combat during the . After seasoning in a combat platoon at , Childers had been selected for a particularly coveted duty, marine security guard service at foreign embassies, and eventually had been stationed at embassies and consulates in ; Paris; and Nairobi, Kenya. In a variety of disciplines—platoon tactics, light armored reconnaissance, guard command, and especially physical fitness—Childers had consistently achieved the highest training and personal evaluations, and scored average in only one area, marksmanship."

"I didn't spend a year building a wooden and then sailing it two thousand miles down the Mississippi to simply because I was suffering from a complex although that certainly played a part. It was hot that spring on the Tennessee farm where we built the boat and I often relieved the tedium of nailing on deck planking or raising roof stringers by daydreaming about spinning lazily down through the muddy boils, exploring remote islands and s, or pulling off at sunset into s thick with s and stumps. Mostly, though, I was entranced by history. I hungered to see that river country when I stumbled across an account of that America followed toward prosperity and greatness."

"The extraordinary shape had conceived for , inspired the architect , who toured the museum a few months before its completion, to proclaim it "the greatest building of our time." It stood as evidence of Gehry's ability to envision form that had not existed before: exhilarating, robust, and baroque in its richness and complexity. The museum could not be called anything but modern, but it was not your father's modernism. Its unusual form bore no resemblance to the stark glass boxes that most people identified with modern architecture."

"Three years are gone, and the has faded from New York. Sorrow and rage have ebbed. The void of ground zero is another construction site. Its fate is now part of a story of process. In this fine book, Paul Goldberger weaves a vivid tale of that process, its hopeful visions, its small triumphs, its ultimate stalemate. His credentials are obvious: more than 30 years as architecture critic of ' and '; author of respected books on city buildings. He saw the go up; 30 years later he gazed at its rubble."

"There is a fragility inherent in the symbolism of every great street in New York: stands for a theater that is perpetually in crisis, for financial empires that seem ever ready to decamp to New Jersey, and , perhaps the most celebrated of them all, for a luxury and a style that once seemed unique to New York, but now feels more and more like what can be found in every medium-sized city and shopping mall from here to ."

"... , writing in ancient Rome around 30 , set out the three elements of architecture as "commodity, firmness, and delight," and no one has done better than his tripartite definition, for it cogently sums up the architectural paradox: a building must be useful while at the same time it must be the opposite of useful, since art—delight, in Vitruvian parlance—by its very essence has no mundane function. And then, on top of all that, a building must be constructed according to the laws of engineering, which is is to say that it must be built to stand up. ... The builders of the , the s, s, and were all engineers as much as architects; to them these disciples were one. So, too, with and his , or at . In our time, the disciplines have diverged, and engineers are not architects. But every great structure of modern times, from 's to 's , is a product of engineers as much as of architects; without firmness, there will be no delight. All three elements of architecture are essential."

"I once heard a prominent museum director call the of architecture. Her fame as an architect owes much to her image as a flamboyant diva who produces striking, over-the-top buildings—a wild woman who makes wild things. Perhaps this is why, despite being the first woman to win the , she has had so little success in the United Kingdom, where her practice was founded, in 1980, and has been based ever since. When the British build modern things, they tend to like them cool and buttoned-up, and Hadid’s buildings are almost explosive in their energy. They look as if they could fly you to the moon."

"There is one architectural firm in New York City that has been notably successful in obtaining commissions in the , so much so that the blocks behind and just north and south of the seem at first glance to consist entirely of structures of its design. The firm is , and unlike most of the other politically well-connected architects who operate in New York, the standard of design has been relatively decent. The firm's impact here has been enormous. Most notable is the , completed in 1973 ..."

"Books about technical subjects for nontechnicians tend to be obtuse, condescending, or both. The Tower and the Bridge is neither. It is a clear, concise introduction to a difficult subject, and it is written with respect and even passion — something one rarely finds in a book with the word engineering in its title. David P. Billington is clearly moved by great structures — he means it when he says that major works of structural engineering are like the art of poetry, while architecture is the art of prose. ... Mr. Billington creates a set of standards for judging the great structures of the 19th and 20th centuries, and he applies them fairly and consistently. He admires most those works that bring beauty out of relatively spare physical form — the , 's skyscrapers — and he has a good enough eye to distinguish between what is simple and elegant and what is simple and plain."

"Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iran’s Supreme leader, has agreed to conduct an inquiry into claims that the election was rigged in favor of President Ahmadinejad. Saturday Khameni said that the election was fair, but Sunday he agreed to meet with former Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi to discuss his concerns over what Moussavi called an unfair election- leaving many to think that Iran's leadership may be reconsidering their position. Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the election -at least one person has been killed and the protests are expected to get more violent--James Rosen reports from the State Department and Brit Hume shares his commentary."

"It’s fair to say that if news sites were people, most would be diagnosed as clinically depressed right now."

"I believe my dear Master has been pleased to try my faith and obedience, by teaching me that I ought no longer to partake of any thing that had life."

"My spirit was often bowed in awful reverence before the Most High, and covered with feelings of humility and tenderness; under which I had to believe that we ought to attend to Divine instruction, even in disposing of and governing the inferior part of his creation."

"I considered that life was sweet in all living creatures, and the taking it away became a very tender point with me. The creatures, or many of them, were given, or as I take it, rather lent us to be governed in the great Creator's fear."

"One recent history of economic thought (Jürg Niehans’s A History of Economic Theory) devotes twenty-four pages to Samuelson’s ideas. Adam Smith only gets thirteen. Samuelson’s work on stock markets and the random walk takes up less than two of those twenty-four pages. He was “the last generalist in economics,” as he liked to say, and for him financial market studies were just a side project that he at times seemed deeply ambivalent about. His intervention was, however, crucial to the triumph of the random walk. Here was one of the most important economists of all time, and he didn’t think the relationship between coin flips and the stock market was a dinner-speech triviality."

"Psychologist Philip Tetlock (following the lead of Isaiah Berlin), divided the world of political forecasters into hedgehogs and foxes."

"The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face."

"What makes a good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who'd rather write a good story."

"Probably there is no department of science, no form o humanity, in which greater advances have been made of late years, than in the medical and moral management of the insane. When we contrast the spacious and airy apartments of the insane. When we contrast the spacious and airy apartments and the grounds of our asylums, with the dark, and narrow, and dirty cells, in which, twenty years ago, the best accommodated of these poor creatures were immured - their neat and confortable dress, with their former rags and nakedness - their wholesome food, with their former rags and nakedness - their wholesome food, their former rations - and abovel all, the kindness and affection which is shown to them noew, with their ulter neglect in the days when they were executed from the privileges and society of men, we find ourselves shuddering at the thought of what we have seen, and lost in admiration of what we now see. Wherever the Christian religion exists,we find the same rapid advances making towards the accomplishment of the great purposes of humanity. It seems as if the miracles of our Saviour were meant as protoypes of what his religion was to accomplish. It is by the influence of this religion of the march of science and philosophical discovery, that, by all Christian nations, the winds and the waves have been rebuked - that man is enabled to ride out the storm upon the ocean, as if it were hushed, and, like Peter of old, to walk upon the sea as on dry land."

"A religious spirit animates the infancy of our literature, and must continue to gloe in its maturity.The public taste calls for this quality, and would relish no work in which it might be supplanted by a principle of infidelity. Our best authors have written under the influence of Christian feeling; but had they been destitute of this sentiment, they would have found it necessary to accommodate themselves to the opinions of the people, and follow Christian precedents. The beneficent influence of religion on literature, is like that of our evening sun, when it awakens in the clouds those beautiful and burning tints, which clothe the firmament in gold and purple. It constitutes the heart of learning - the great source of its moral power.Religion addresses itself to the highest and holiest of our sentiments - benevolence and veneration, and their excitement stirs up the imagination, strengthens the undeerstanding, and purifies the taste. Thus, both in the mind of the author and the reader, Christianity and literature act and react on each other, with the effect of elevating both, and carrying the human character to the highest perfection which it is destined to reach. Learning should be proud of this companionship, and exert all her wisdom to render it perpetual."

"Those who hold that it is no matter what happens after them, hold a wicked and inhuman doctrine... When we feel in our hearts this indifference to the fleeting, and this warm regard for the permanent, let us believe that God has implanted the instinct for a wise purpose; and then follow it as a heavenly guide. It is manifestly intended to turn us from the labors of the day — from the things which perish when the hand which formed ceases to uphold them — to tile things and objects which endure through indefinite ages — renewing, I should rather say augmenting their magnitude and their benificent fruits with every successive generation."

"In the unexamined American Dream rhetoric promoting mass higher education in the nation of my youth, the implicit vision was that one day everyone, or at least practically everyone, would be a manager or a professional. We would use the most elitist of all means, scholarship, toward the most egalitarian of ends. We would all become chiefs; hardly anyone would be left a mere Indian."

"Where a generation ago people felt entitled to a chance at education, they now feel entitled to the credential affirming that they have completed a course of study regardless of their actual mastery."

"It is a commonplace observation that liberals believe in the perfectibility of man while conservatives believe in the endurance of original sin. Superficially, that would suggest that conservatives take a more understanding and indulgent view of individual lapses, while liberals take a more harshly judgmental one. In fact, we know, quite the opposite is the case."

"Ultimately it is the yearning to believe that anyone can be brought up to college level that has brought colleges down to everyone's level."

"No longer a mark of distinction or proof of achievement, a college education is these days a mere rite of passage, a capstone to adolescent party time."

"One's worth and self-regard ought to come from individual competitive performance, not from group identity. Pride based on clan or tribal connections is atavistic. It appeals to people who fear they cannot succeed as individuals, and by diverting their energies it all but ensures they will not succeed as individuals."

"In my mind, partial failure is always better than delusory success."

"The dominant mood of contemporary American culture is the self-celebration of the peasantry."

"The Smile of her I love is like the dawn Whose touch makes Memnon sing: O, see where wide the golden sunlight flows— The barren desert blossoms as the rose!"

"I love her doubting and anguish; I love the love she withholds; I love my love that loveth her And anew her being moulds."

"From all the misty morning air, there comes a summer sound,— A murmur as of waters from skies, and trees and ground. The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo."

"Not from the whole wide world I chose thee— Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea! The wide, wide world could not inclose thee, For thou art the whole wide world to me."

"I am a woman—therefore I may not Call to him, cry to him, Fly to him, Bid him delay not."

"O white and midnight sky, O starry bath, Wash me in thy pure, heavenly crystal flood: Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath— Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!"

"Through love to light! Oh wonderful the way That leads from darkness to the perfect day!"

"Heaven from the hopeless doubter The true believer makes: Against the darkness outer The light God's likeness takes."

"War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice."

"A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas — a place where history comes to life."

"What a man really says when he says that someone else can be persuaded by force, is that he himself is incapable of more rational means of communication."

"What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth."

"The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness."

"Inevitably, an individual is measured by his or her largest concerns."

"Laughter is a form of internal jogging. It moves your internal organs around. It enhances respiration. It is an igniter of great expectations.."

"Cynicism is intellectual treason."

"[The recovery] began, I said, when I decided that some experts don't really know enough to make a pronouncement of doom on a human being. And I said I hoped they would be careful about what they said to others; they might be believed and that could be the beginning of the end."

"Optimism doesn’t wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time."