Editors From The United States

"It only makes sense in an academic culture in which transgression is by definition political and in which any kind of rage against society can be considered radical."

"In his heart, Simon Yakida knew he was digging his own grave."

"Investigators identified 29 members of the 173rd Airborne as suspects in confirmed cases of torture. Fifteen of them admitted the acts. Yet only three were punished, records show. They received fines or reductions in rank. None served any prison time."

"I truly think you can say that without Michael O’Donoghue, there wouldn't have been a Saturday Night Live, and I think it’s important to remember that. I think Lorne would probably be generous enough to acknowledge that."

"I’ve seen this attributed to John Lennon, but I know Michael O’Donoghue said it, because I was there when we heard Elvis died. My secretary came in and she said, “Elvis is dead,” and Michael O’Donoghue said, “Good career move.”"

"When Michael O’Donoghue got fired, he left this amazing note: “I was fired by Dick Ebersol. I did not leave the show, and if he should claim otherwise, he is, to steal a phrase from Louisa May Alcott, a lying cunt.” It’s very Michael."

"Late April, early May, Lorne started laying out the cast. One day he’s got this really bizarre guy with smoked glasses, Michael O'Donoghue, and I’m thinking, “Oh God, what have we gotten into here?”"

"The key to a successful restaurant is dressing girls in degrading clothes."

"Nothing important has ever come out of San Francisco, Rice-A-Roni aside."

"After a number of meetings, including one at the show’s, barren office space at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, [Lorne] Michaels asked O’Donoghue and Beatts to join Saturday Night. At first Beatts refused, citing her book deal and the amount of work that was needed to finish it on deadline [...] O’Donoghue, on the other hand, offered no resistance: He needed the work and he saw television as a step above the drudgery of magazines. After all, he had always been attracted to “hotter” forms and was in no way contemptuous of show business — so long as he could make it his own."

"I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines."

"Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy."

"Any time a whole bunch of kids like something, they find a reason to ban it. If kids suddenly started stuffing napkins into their pockets and really liked doing that, they'd find a reason to forbid it."

"[Trump] keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we're some kind of fools for asking the question. Really? Your opposition was hacked and the Russians were responsible for it and your people were on the phone with Russia on the same day it was happening and we're fools for asking the questions? No sir. We are not fools for asking this question, and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people. Your supporters will support you either way. If your people were on the phone, what were they saying? We have a right to know, we absolutely do and that you call us fake news and put us down like children for asking these questions on behalf of the American people is inconsequential. The people deserve an answer to this question at very least."

"J. Lo's new song 'Jenny From the Block', all about Lopez' roots. About how she's still a neighborhood gal at heart. But folks from that street in New York, the Bronx section, sound more likely to give her a curb job than a blow job. Or, uh. A block party. [...] Sorry about that slip-up there. I have no idea how that happened, but it won't happen again. And that's your news and the G Block as Fox reports this Monday, November the 4th, 2002."

"It's my show, and there's no place for opinion on my show. It's uninteresting to me. I don't care what Sean Hannity thinks and I don't care what Alan Colmes thinks and I guarantee they don't care what I think and they don't know, either. You know what's interesting to me? What's interesting to me is that the thing people want to know about is the part on which I spend absolutely no time."

"We are America! I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! We are America! We do not fucking torture! We don't do it!"

"And on that day, at that time, we as a collective being must not give in. On that day, we don’t have to change everything about our lives, we don’t have to add things that make us not a free people ... if we want to have a free nation, there’s give and there’s bend. If you see something, say something, but beyond that don’t freak out when it happens. Easier said than done, isn’t it?"

"The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth."

"I have no patriotism, for patriotism, as I see it, is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles."

"The great problems of the world - social, political, economic and theological - do not concern me in the slightest...If all the Armenians were to be killed tomorrow and if half of Russia were to starve to death the day after, it would not matter to me in the least. What concerns me alone is myself and the interests of a few close friends."

"Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible a plea as baseball in Italian."

"No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched."

"The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism."

"One does not go to the theater to see life and nature; one goes to see the particular way in which life and nature happen to look to a cultivated, imaginative and entertaining man who happens, in turn, to be a playwright."

"Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness."

"It’s easy to say that if you were there you would have refused, that you would rather die than participate in the slaughter, but it all looks very different when it’s real, when the moment comes to choose."

"“Now I’m going to make you angry again.” “Really?” I asked, drily. “Aren’t you getting tired of that?”"

"We have a saying where I come from: Power requires neither permission nor forgiveness."

"If you’re going to do something that crazy, save it for when it’ll make a difference. But absent near-omniscience there’s no way to know when that is. You can only make your best approximate calculation. You can only make your throw and try to puzzle out the results afterward."

"What, after all, was the point of civilization if not the well-being of citizens?"

"People often think they would have made the noblest choice, but when they find themselves actually in such a situation, they discover matters aren’t quite so simple."

"“Not safe?” I asked, all innocence. “Surely it isn’t illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs.”"

"You might also see why it seemed a bit odd, to Radchaai ears, to hear someone who believed gravity wells were the land of the dead call people superstitious for worshiping a lizard."

"I don’t confuse abstract philosophical concepts with reality."

"You don’t like me saying that, but here’s the truth: luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one generally doesn’t have to see that, if one doesn’t wish. You’re free to enjoy its benefits without troubling your conscience."

"Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It’s just easier to handle those with emotions."

"Her respectful tone sounded almost sincere."

"No substance in nature, as far as yet known, has, when it reaches the brain, such power to induce mental and moral changes of a disastrous character as alcohol. Its transforming power is marvelous, and often appalling. It seems to open a way of entrance into the soul for all classes of foolish, insane or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in contact with the brain, are able to hold possession."

"The gratification of one desire only makes way for another still more exacting."

"How vastly important is it, then, for mothers to have a higher regard for their duties—to feel deeply the immense responsibilities that rest upon them! It is through their ministrations that the world grows worse or better."

"Apple is getting its clock cleaned by Samsung, which is now by far the dominant smartphone maker in the world."

"Once again, Apple has seized the early lead, launching a revolutionary product that is taking the world by storm. … In its short life, Google's Android operating system has captivated developers and stolen mindshare from Apple... [Apple] is coming under increasing scrutiny for being a domineering control freak hell-bent on secretly undermining its competitors … the movie is starting the same way. And so far, at least, Apple is showing no signs of doing anything differently."

"Apple fans should be scared to death … Apple is fighting a very similar war to the one it fought — and lost — in the 1990s. It is trying to build the best integrated products, hardware and software, and maintain complete control over the ecosystem around them. This end-to-end control makes it easier for Apple to build products that are 'better,' but it makes it much harder for the company to compete against a software platform that is standard across many hardware manufacturers (Windows in the 1990s, Android now)."

"Apple's emphasis on short term greed instead of long-term investment will end up hurting the company and its shareholders and customers over the long haul. … What Apple does not seem to understand … is the fate that almost all niche platform providers eventually succumb to — gradual loss of influence, power, and profitability, followed by irrelevance."

"Some people seem as if they can never have been children, and others seem as if they could never be anything else."

"Readers of Tom Masson's charming little stories, light essays and graceful verse, would hardly suspect the author of being a constant student of the philosophy of Kant, Schopenhauer and Plato; yet a philosopher Mr. Masson certainly is, and the depth of his philosophy is proven by this gem from his recent volume, A Corner in Women:"

"If you want to be a flaming youth, you must have money to burn."

"The love game is never called off on account of darkness."

"Hamlet is the tragedy of tackling a family problem too soon after college"