The New Republic Quotes

“News is only the first rough draft of history.”
― Alan Barth

“Pettiness often leads both to error and to the digging of a trap for oneself. Wondering (which I am sure he didn't) 'if by the 1990s [Hitchens] was morphing into someone I didn’t quite recognize”, Blumenthal recalls with horror the night that I 'gave' a farewell party for Martin Walker of the Guardian, and then didn't attend it because I wanted to be on television instead. This is easy: Martin had asked to use the fine lobby of my building for a farewell bash, and I'd set it up. People have quite often asked me to do that. My wife did the honors after Nightline told me that I’d have to come to New York if I wanted to abuse Mother Teresa and Princess Diana on the same show. Of all the people I know, Martin Walker and Sidney Blumenthal would have been the top two in recognizing that journalism and argument come first, and that there can be no hard feelings about it. How do I know this? Well, I have known Martin since Oxford. (He produced a book on Clinton, published in America as 'The President We Deserve'. He reprinted it in London, under the title, 'The President They Deserve'. I doffed my hat to that.) While Sidney—I can barely believe I am telling you this—once also solicited an invitation to hold his book party at my home. A few days later he called me back, to tell me that Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, had insisted on giving the party instead. I said, fine, no bones broken; no caterers ordered as yet. 'I don't think you quite get it,' he went on, after an honorable pause. 'That means you can't come to the party at all.' I knew that about my old foe Peretz: I didn't then know I knew it about Blumenthal. I also thought that it was just within the limit of the rules. I ask you to believe that I had buried this memory until this book came out, but also to believe that I won't be slandered and won't refrain—if motives or conduct are in question—from speculating about them in my turn.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“To walk into a modern-day bookstore is a little bit like studying a single photograph out of the infinite number of photographs that cold be taken of the world: It offers the reader a frame.”
― Nicole Krauss

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Never fight a battle of wits when iocane powder is involved. And never, never, never, never, never, never, never let the New Republic's editors choose the headline for your article.”
― Brad DeLong

“The questions that we must ask ourselves, and that our historians and our children will ask of us, are these: How will what we create compare with what we inherited? Will we add to our tradition or will we subtract from it? Will we enrich it or will we deplete it?”
― Leon Wieseltier

“She wants to either bring back the Empire or take me to bed, Ransolm thought. Possibly both.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“If she's not driving me up a wall she's driving me insane. Sometimes all she does is look at me. I never know what to do when she does this, so I just sit there as she stares, her eyes raking over every inch of me, wondering what the hell she's thinking and knowing she'll never tell me. Sometimes she won't speak for so long the silence begins to make me sweat. I wake up thinking about her. I fall asleep thinking about her. I accidentally brushed against her going through a doorway and the way my body reacted you'd think she'd pinned me the wall and offered to unzip my pants. I had to leave the building just to get some air. I've started dreaming about her. I wake up in the middle of the night overheated and out of my mind. I've had trouble sleeping all my life-but this might be the worst sleep I've had in years.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Watch Me

“I'd finally crossed my arms and said, "Are you going to do this forever? Seriously?
You're just going to sit there and stare at me and give me nothing? What's your favorite color, Rosabelle? Can you tell me your favorite color? Or is that some kind of highly protected trade secret you can't speak into the world for fear of inciting a new world war?" and then she laughed at me, and then I had a stroke. I actually felt the blood drain from my face. My hands went hot, then clammy.
It was a soft, musical sound of delight I'd never heard from her. Hell, I'd never
even seen her smile before.
She was still smiling when she looked at me after that, the gentle expression lin-
gering on her face.
My fucking soul left my body.
I'd always thought she was gorgeous, but I had no idea what I was missing. The way her eyes lit up, the way her nose wrinkled. She's been eating more every day, looking healthier, growing only more radiant.
"Wow," I'd whispered, gaping at her like an idiot discovering his hands for the first time. And then, realizing I'd said the word out loud, I reached inside myself and put my fist through my brain.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Watch Me

“Isn’t this what I fought for—so they wouldn’t have to be afraid?”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“Working with people to get them to cooperate is what we call politics.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“We belong to another age, she thought with a sigh. But we have to make our way in this one.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“One should never use force when persuasion is adequate.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“Staying alive as long as you can to do some good in this world—that’s not playing it safe. That’s our job.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“Our job is to reveal little and promise nothing.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“For those of us who do not fear risk, opportunities await. Opportunities given to us by those more timid, who will happily accept less than they might have had, only to keep themselves safe.”
― Claudia Gray, Bloodline

“Be wary of the choices you make.”
― Alex Segura