Jews From The United States

"For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt."

"Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth."

"There are people who eat earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it. (Softly) Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it."

"I liked him [Arthur Rubinstein] as a pianist. He was a good musician and had a fantastic repertoire. He never had a great technique, but certain things he played well. I heard him play some of the Chopin etudes, the easier ones with great panache and I told him I had never heard them played better. He said, "Do you mean it?" and I said, "Yes, I do mean it.""

"I heard Edwin Fischer, who did not mean much to me. I heard another pianist in Berlin who had a big success and I thought he was awful — Mischa Levitzki. Just fingers, and you cannot listen only to fingers. There is a difference between artist and artisan. Levitzki was an artisan. But Ignaz Friedman, who I admired, was a great artist. He had wonderful fingers and a very personal, individual way of playing, even if some of his ideas were very strange to me. He had no hesitation touching up the music. I got annoyed with him at one concert when he changed the basses in Chopin's F minor Ballade. I didn't like that. For some reason he was happier making records than he was on the stage."

"I was impressed mostly by Gieseking [Horowitz said in 1987]. He had a finished style, played with elegance, and had a fine musical mind."

"Of the Russian pianists I like only one, Richter. Gilels did some things well, but I did not like his mannerisms, the way he moved around while he was playing."

"Perfection itself is imperfection."

"Interesting pianist, but I think he is just a little bit meshuga."

"No pianist, it is unnecessary to say, has an all-embracing culture. Like any other, Horowitz has had his specialties. Most professionals would agree that Horowitz played Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Scriabin and Prokofieff with more flair than any pianist of his time. And one of the curious things about this extraordinary technician was that he had a surprising affinity for the miniatures of the repertoire. Scarlatti; Chopin mazurkas and waltzes; isolated pieces by Schumann; salon music by Moszkowski — these he played with grace, charm and unaffected simplicity. In the larger Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin works, he sometimes would become too engrossed in detail, and at those moments his playing could sound disconnected. At times, too, the nervous intensity with which he approached music could be unsettling. Inner repose was lacking. Yet he could turn around and play Schumann's Arabesque in a calm, rippling, spacious manner, or sing out the last movement of the C major Fantasy with with wide-arched lines and a luminous quality of tone. A paradoxical and fearsome pianist."

"Nearly five years have passed since I had the opportunity to admire this magician of the keyboard. My impatience to hear him again was shared by the public, who actually assaulted the doors of the great Salle Pleyel in order to attend the Horowitz recital. I expected to hear the 'demonic' virtuoso who amazed the world at his debut. Instead I found him transformed-but not for the better. He still remains the same extraordinary pianist, but I had the impression-and I hope I am not the only one-that Horowitz is trying a tout prix to 'purify' his interpretations, to strip them of anything approaching artificiality. Yet, he accomplished this in such a way as to produce the contrary effect: his playing becomes mechanical and deadly artificial!"

"I don’t believe that about his Chopin, actually. I think his Chopin was extraordinarily perceptive and terribly personal. ... On the criticism of Horowitz’ Chopin, I haven’t heard that myself, but I think that comes down to taste."

"there are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists."

"The moral of Katrina is mostly being missed. It is not just a failure of execution (William Kristol), or that bad things just happen (Laura Bush). It was not just indifference by the President, or a lack of accountability, or a failure of federal-state communication, or corrupt appointments in FEMA, or the cutting of budgets for fixing levees, or the inexcusable absence of the National Guard off in Iraq. It was all of these and more, but they are the effects, not the cause. The cause was political through and through — a matter of values and principles. The progressive-liberal values are America's values, and we need to go back to them. The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. In short, promoting the common good is the central role of government."

"The Democrats had begun to use the basics of framing issues in terms of their own values and principles... Had they continued to argue with unity on the difference between 911 and Iraq, and on the fact that George Bush betrayed our troops and is weakening our country, they might have made it impossible for Bush to once again link Iraq with 911. Then they lost it. Karl Rove outsmarted the Democrats again. And he used the most basic trick in the book to do it... This time John Kerry stepped in to help Bush, basically supporting the president’s position but offering policy-wonk modifications. The message: Bush is basically right, except for some minor twiddles."

"Do we really think that the United States will have the protection of innocent Afghans in mind if it rains terror down on the Afghan infrastructure? We are supposedly fighting them because they immorally killed innocent civilians. That made them evil. If we do the same, are we any less immoral?"

"We know that someone who has channeled his anger into something constructive has not had a cow. How do we know these things?"

"Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is bad public policy that has no place in the budget process,. The Budget Committee needs to leave drilling in the Arctic Refuge behind and focus on crafting this year’s budget package."

"The president and others say that if we leave, it will just be chaos in Iraq. Well, right now when you come to Iraq, you can't even drive from the airport to the Green Zone."

"Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper. They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both, and we can if we try, we have failed."

"I voted against NAFTA, GATT, and Permanent Most Favored Nation status for China, in great part because I felt they were bad deals for Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsin workers. At the time I voted against those agreements, I thought they would result in lost jobs for my state. But, Mr. President, even as an opponent of those trade agreements, I had no idea just how bad things would be."

"Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America."

"I strongly disagree with the President's characterization today of NAFTA as a "success", and with his call on Congress to pass CAFTA this year. These comments are out of touch with American businesses and workers who have been forced to compete on an uneven playing field for years under bad deals like NAFTA."

"That’s what I like about you, senator, you’re kicking it old-school."

"I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight."

"Senator Russ Feingold is an embarrassment to the US Senate, which makes him an authentic hero of the Republic. The Wisconsin senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day."

"I don’t want there to be a catastrophe, I hope there never is another one, there probably will be, but it is really terrible that we need, we seem to rely on very bad things happening in order to come together. We’ve got to do better than that."

"Anything short of radical change to the Republican party’s war on voters of color is merely feigned outrage. Even if the white supremacists are condemned, even if the entire Republican party rises up in self-professed outrage at white supremacists, if voter suppression and other such racist policies survive, the white supremacists are winning. And America is losing."

"Now that you have seen how I help people transition from homosexual to straight, you can buy my new book or you can purchase my therapeutic tapes, and don’t forget my hope and healing videos. I’m also available for speaking engagements. And, of course, I take credit cards. God bless. Amen. Be straight."

"The lesson from Charlottesville is not how dangerous the neo-Nazis are. It is the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of last weekend’s horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants."

"I would urge you to be as restrained as you can be as the next steps occur. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to be, this could be one of the most challenging times in the history of our country."

"Something is happening in this country tonight. I don’t understand it completely. I don’t think anybody does."

"In 2001, I first voted against the PATRIOT Act because much of it was simply an FBI wish list that included provisions allowing our government to go on fishing expeditions that collect information on virtually anyone. Today’s report indicates that the government could be using FISA in an indiscriminate way that does not balance our legitimate concerns of national security with the necessity to preserve our fundamental civil rights. This is deeply troubling. I hope today’s news will renew a serious conversation about how to protect the country while ensuring that the rights of law-abiding Americans are not violated."

"For so many who had been driven from their office buildings, these five weeks were only the prelude to spending months cloistered in cramped and inadequate office space while they advised senators on some of the toughest calls they would ever have to make ... As the gap widened between perceptions of fear or danger in Washington and in much of the rest of the country, I believe it had a significant influence on why representatives reacted to terrorism concerns in a way that was fundamentally different from most of their constituents."

"We, as a Congress, have to stand up to a president who acts like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were repealed on September 11."

"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors."

"I like a bush. A nice big, hairy, stinky, smelly fucking bush. And I hate when they put cologne on it. They dummy it up with cologne like you don’t know where you are. I like that nice natural scent of salmon."

"[to a fan that called out to him] What'd you yell out?...Mother Goose. So what you're saying is you wanna review 1989?"

"Go ahead, marry her. Don't marry her, man. How do you know where she's been? Huh! How do you know she's not the biggest fucking whore to ever walk this fucking town, man? I went with this one girl, she was such a fucking tramp, I had to double park my dick on her ass and wait an hour to get in. It's unfuckingbelievable, I'm telling ya."

"You know, a lot of guys, you know, like, what I'll do, you know, especially in New York - out in L.A., they don't have a subway system. But here they do, and a lot of people don't like it, but I know how to use the subway system. Like, I'll set my alarm clock for 8 o'clock, 'cause I don't even have a day job. This is what I do, you know - but I'll get on those rush-hour trains at 8 o'clock for that 8 o'clock grind...you're passin' every chick in the train, you got your dick lodged behind 400 asses before you hit DeKalb Avenue...you drop a load, you turn around, you're back in bed before 9 o'clock, your day has started."

"You ever date a chick with a hunch-fucking-back? I did. I’m in a grocery store with this chick. The security guards were all over her because they thought she was trying to smuggle a turkey under the back of her fucking jacket. I had a hunch. I had a hunch they’d stop her with that bad fucking back. They should have a telethon for hunchbacks. That’s- that’s what I think. They bring ‘em out on a string like a pack of camels. [mimics a hunchback walking] “Bump be dump bump.” I think something could be done. Chip the fucking thing off. You ever date a chick with buck-fucking-teeth and a hunch-fucking-back? Huh? Oh, just trying to talk to a bucktooth fucking chick is incredible. [Forces his mouth into an overbite] “Hey, you want to go to a movie?” “Shut up, stupid! Pop the cork on this bottle.” And to make love to a chick with buck-fucking-teeth and a hunch-fucking-back is a complete horror show. You’re in bed with them and it’s like you’re on a seesaw. You know what I’m saying? They’re like, [forces his mouth into an overbite again] “Ugh, it feels so good. It feels so good.” Shut up!"

"How come there's no parking for midgets? You ever notice that? Not one spot in the fucking mall for midgets. Unbelievable. You want to know why? 'Cause there's no telethon for midgets. Nobody gives a fuck. The kind of humidity you get in Manhattan during the summer... by the time you even get to the front doors of the mall, they're passing out. You've got to piss on them to revive them. And I love midgets with those pumpkin heads, little bug legs. I never fucked one, I'll admit that. But I would do it. They're people. So they're a little light, all right. So, so you stick 'em on your dick, you can shave, shower, they don't get in the way. You throw 'em in a drawer when you're done. "Yeah, use my socks as a pillow honey." "Wait, a mouse went under the table, get the fucker." Could you imagine being a maitre d at a fancy restaurant and a couple midgets come in for dinner? What do you say? “Table for, ugh, I don't know, fuck, three quarters?" Midgets, man. What do they do when a midget is missing? Put 'em on the back of a container of Half & Half?"

"Korean delis, Indian newsstands, Greek diners, and ass-fuckin' parties every night of the week! That's New York, how are ya?!"

"What am I looking at? I want to eat you like a tossed fucking salad!"

"When you jerk off, you’re saying, “Hey, I care about me.”"

"A scientist studies what is, whereas an engineer creates what never was."

"Everyone knows it takes a woman nine months to have a baby. But you Americans think if you get nine women pregnant, you can have a baby in a month."

"I came to realize that exaggerated concern about what others are doing can be foolish. It can paralyze effort, and stifle a good idea. One finds that in the history of science almost every problem has been worked out by someone else. This should not discourage anyone from pursuing his own path."

"The , it's called—written and spoken with capital letters. So remote, it is almost a nation unto itself. On maps, it is labeled the , a blade of land thrusting north by northeast into the frigid waters of . Running lengthwise down the peninsula's center, like the blood gutter of a bayonet, are the richest s on earth. collected chunks of the red metal from streams and shallow pits: float copper so pure it hardly needed refining at all, so beautiful and malleable that it could be made into that were traded as far south as Arkansas."

"One minute, she was in the State of Puerto Rico and the next minute, she was in the State of Persistent Vegetables."