James Reston Jr. > Quotes

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebearers, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.”
― James Reston

“In 1487 alone, two hundred heretics had-in one of the greatest euphemisms in the history of language-"relaxed," that is, burned at the stake.

Dogs of God, Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors”
― James Reston

“When the Mongols destroyed the caliphate in Baghdad in 1258, the independence of Al Andalus was solidified, and the Spanish Moors began to relate more to Europe than the Middle East. In arts and agriculture, learning and tolerance, Al Andulus was a beacon of enlightenment to the rest of Europe.”
― James Reston Jr., Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors

“James Watt, a Wyoming lawyer, would become a central player in the Vietnam Memorial saga. Before Watt resigned under pressure nearly three years later, he gained a reputation as the most hostile steward of the environment in history, pushing for aggressive drilling and mining on public lands and significantly reducing the number of endangered species under federal law.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“Of the 26.8 million men of the Vietnam generation, the majority—15.4 million men—received deferments or exemptions.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“think I was less mature but more sure of myself then,” Lin replied. “As you get older, you get more reflective and possibly question more. What protects you when you are young is the belief that you are right. There is a naivety of youth. One loses that naïve certainty when getting older. You understand that life is more complicated.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“By early 1971, only 28 percent of those polled supported the war, and 72 percent favored withdrawal.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“The rift pitted soldiers against protesters, sons against fathers, citizens against politicians, friends against friends, veterans against veterans, all in the context of a war that should never have been fought and that involved terrible loss, not only of the soldiers who were killed, maimed, or driven crazy but to the moral standing of the nation before the world.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“Now Luther suddenly proclaimed that his decision to become a monk had been wicked. It was a sin against his father’s authority, and neither free nor voluntary. It was taken out of terror and superstition as a hot youth. As a result he had become a prime target for Satan. Given Satan’s persistent effort to destroy or hinder him, he sometimes wondered “whether I was the only man in the whole world whom he was seeking.”
― James Reston Jr., Luther's Fortress: Martin Luther and His Reformation Under Siege

“With its fortresslike bell tower and its imposing walls, the stone abbey was situated in an alpine glade of fir and beech trees more than three thousand feet high, where the fog and snow enshrouded the place in a wild and lonely seclusion.”
― James Reston Jr., Galileo: A Life

“lugubrious”
― James Jr Reston, The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews

“I did not want to civilize war by glorifying it or by forgetting the sacrifices involved,” she wrote later. “The price of human life in war should always be clearly remembered.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“So, it was left to a stocky ex-Marine with curly red hair to express an unqualified love of country. “The key thing that’s been missing is simply according to the people who served, the dignity of their experience,”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“The eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap on the June 20, 1972, tape. Haldeman’s notes indicated that he and Nixon had discussed Watergate on this first working day back at the White House. The notes talked of a “PR offensive to top this” and “the need to be on the attack—for diversion.” The evidence indicated that only three people could have caused the erasure: Stephen Bull, the presidential assistant; Rose Mary Woods, the President’s secretary; or the President himself.”
― James Reston Jr., The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews

“The following Monday, May 4, Ohio National Guard soldiers opened fire on war protesters at Kent State University, killing four, only two of whom were demonstrating.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“Indian name, Maya, the name of Buddha’s mother, that means illusion and evokes emptiness. In Hinduism, Maya is a sobriquet for goddess.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“if you can’t accept death, you’ll never get over it.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“replied. “Our nation lost its will for the war, and yet didn’t have the courage to stop it; so, we left them on the battlefield, we left the men in the prisoner-of-war camps. … We brought these men home not as heroes, as they should have been brought home, but we neglected them and abused them after we brought them home.” The Vietnam veteran deserved a great memorial. Cut to Scruggs: “The veterans”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“She founded a memorial that was to be without form. Called “What Is Missing?” it is a Web-based celebration of the natural world: what it is now, what it used to be, how wonderful the things are that remain, and how many wonders have been lost.”
― James Reston Jr., A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial

“garrulous,”
― James Reston Jr., The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews