Jim Geraghty > Quotes

“You know what will bring family and social issues front and center? If 2012 America sees middle-schoolers reenacting Lady Gaga videos.”
― Jim Geraghty

“Late in the evening, someone in the White House decided to vent to Ben Smith: 'A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkansas. "Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise," the official said. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."'

Boy, good thing for this source there's no member of Obama's staff who's known for blowing his stack and venting furiously at political defeats. I'll bet he was pounding the desk like a battering Rahm and that he threw out the E-manual on how to talk to the press when he did it.”
― Jim Geraghty

“That tiny part of your soul that believes in a ‘good government’ ideal requires you to avert your eyes from the segment of the civil service that is attracted to the work precisely because it doesn’t really want to work.”
― Jim Geraghty, The Weed Agency: A Comic Tale of Federal Bureaucracy Without Limits

“Hey, the ubiquitous Leak-Cam is to 2010 as the bottom-of-the-screen news ticker was to late 2001: What you're seeing beneath the news anchor or talking head may not actually include any new information, but you feel like you're watching something dramatic.”
― Jim Geraghty

“A healthy agency does not require relevance to the national agenda so much as the APPEARANCE of relevance to the national agenda," Humphrey explained. "It is perhaps the second-most important tool in ensuring continued funding."
"And the most important?"
"A friend on the Appropriations committee.”
― Jim Geraghty, The Weed Agency: A Comic Tale of Federal Bureaucracy Without Limits

“The gargantuan, ever-growing, ever-less-accountable, impossible-to-uproot federal bureaucracy is actually the sleeper issue of our time. It’s at the heart of the conservative critique of modern government: faceless bureaucrats writing incomprehensible regulations that complicate our lives for no good reason.”
― Jim Geraghty, The Weed Agency: A Comic Tale of Federal Bureaucracy Without Limits

“Will Rogers said, ‘Diplomacy is the art of saying “nice doggie,” until you can find a rock.”
― Jim Geraghty, Gathering Five Storms: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Lake Natron.”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“And once we’ve got this country choking itself to death on its own hate and divisions? I’m no expert, but I’ll bet China and Russia and Iran and the rest will get frisky. They’ve been looking for a chance to kick this country when it’s down. Hacking, sabotage, disinformation, maybe even terrorism. By this time next year, you’ll be lucky if the United States is still one country.”
― Jim Geraghty, Gathering Five Storms: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“pangolins”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Your country’s a xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic Orwellian nightmare state?”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“They say God made man and woman, but Samuel Colt made us equal.”
― Jim Geraghty, Gathering Five Storms: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“The lake’s name came from the substance natron, a naturally occurring combination of soda ash and baking soda. Lake”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Illuminati”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“The English word ‘Satan’ comes from a Hebrew term, ‘Hashatan,’ which roughly translates to ‘the Adversary,’” Alec”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Knowledge is only power when it is applied,” Pittman replied curtly. “The Great Plague of Athens in 430 B.C. killed a hundred thousand people and began the process of ending the era of Athenian democracy. Thucydides wrote about how people ignored warnings and made the outbreak worse. They clung to whatever explanation reassured them the most, despite the evidence before their eyes. And once it was too late, when people could finally see the scale of the threat they faced—well, as Thucydides wrote, ‘for the violence of the calamity was such that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all law, human and divine … Men who had hitherto concealed what they took pleasure in, now grew bolder.’ The greatest democracy of its era collapsed when everyone felt they no longer had much to lose, or a future to plan for. Science cannot produce a vaccine against hedonistic nihilism.”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“On our seal, it’s going to say, ‘quae iuris est, si tu non adepto deprensus.’” Dee was intrigued. “I’m Latina, but I don’t speak Latin.” Alec responded with utter glee. “It means, ‘everything is legal if you don’t get caught.”
― Jim Geraghty, Gathering Five Storms: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Studying quantum physics, the interconnectedness of all living things.”
― Jim Geraghty, Gathering Five Storms: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Jin Goh,”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“A Belloq?” “Too bad the Hovitos don’t know you the way I do, Belloq!” Alec growled with a grimace, impersonating his favorite movie character. “Indiana Jones’ archenemy, his top rival, the Moriarty to his Sherlock Holmes!”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“They wanted to tear up our social fabric, and leave us scared, angry, Balkanized—a nation of suspicious little enclaves, always seeing the worst in each other, and unwilling to take the risk of helping each other. It”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Others said this was a sign the Glorious Revolution had born bitter fruit. We had become accustomed to lies, blind loyalty, too obsessed with appearing strong to openly discuss our weaknesses.”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“She wanted to spend money they didn’t have, to try ideas that had never worked, to solve problems that hadn’t manifested yet.”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“He and other scientists—Schrader, Otto Ambros, Gerhard Ritter, and Hans-Jürgen von der Linde—realized they had created one of the most effective poisons to ever taint the earth, and named it after an acronym of their initials—S for Schrader, A for Ambros, R for Ritter, and IN from der Linde. Today the poison was known as “sarin.”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Machiavellianism,”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Even the leaders of democracies like Trump and Modi were arrogant, narcissistic, reckless nationalists.”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Modern visitors were often surprised to learn that the names and ages of the children were changed, three children were deleted from the story, and that “Edelweiss” was not a traditional Austrian folk song but was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1959. Those who consulted a map would ask how landlocked Austria had a navy and learn that the real-life Georg von Trapp had been a World War I submarine captain in the navy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which controlled the port city Trieste (now part of Italy) and the Slovenian and Croatian coasts. Tourists would also learn that escaping Nazi-dominated Austria by hiking to Switzerland is not an option, as the border is roughly two hundred miles away. In fact, locals chuckled at the film’s closing scene, as the family is depicted hiking in the direction toward Germany and the Kehlsteinhaus, known to Americans and the British as Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest.”
― Jim Geraghty, Hunting Four Horsemen : A Dangerous Clique Novel

“You guys really think when push comes to shove, Americans are going to defend Taiwan from China? Or the Baltics or Ukraine from Russia? Or anyplace in the Middle East from Iran? Think a lot of Americans will be willing to make any sacrifices to protect South Korea from North Korea? You guys couldn’t even get your own people to take lifesaving vaccines. The Taliban’s back to their old tricks, all over Afghanistan. The forces of chaos are on the march.”
― Jim Geraghty, Gathering Five Storms: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“Ward closed his eyes, and sang, “Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history! Oh, I saw the decade in, when it seemed the world could change in the blink of an eye!” Raquel and Dee laughed as Alec nodded and joined in.”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel

“shrinking minority.”
― Jim Geraghty, Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel