Abdullahi Gelle

“For whatever reason, Tony Soprano was very available and recognizable to a great number of people who had never gone near a mobster, who'd never eaten a meatball sandwich. They related to that guy; they saw who he was.”
The Sopranos creator David Chase to Sam Kashner and Jim Kelly, “The Family Hour: An Oral History of [the HBO series] The Sopranos,” April 2012”
― Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age

“It was just what you did automatically, go to lunch with friends. And it was so different than now. People were at the top of their form. Those restaurants were so beautiful and people felt they had to live up to the elegance of the setting. You wore your latest Givenchy or Balenciaga. And you felt that there were delicious conversations taking place at every table. Now you go into a place and everything looks transactional.”
Socialite Deeda Blair to Bob Colacello, “Here's to the Ladies Who Lunched!,” February 2012”
― Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age

“The further we get from the 18 days it took to end Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak's 30-year rule in Egypt, the more remarkable and heroic they seem... Whatever happens, Egyptians now know that democracy and freedom are never given: they must be taken."
Henry Porter, "Waking of the Lion," May 2011”
― Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age

“The administration’s rationale for launching a pre-emptive war against another nation boiled down to three reasons, all of which are proving to be dubious:

• Iraq and terrorism. As it is turning out, Saddam Hussein was no real threat to America. And, according to two of the highest-ranking leaders of al-Qaeda currently in U.S. custody, he had no major links to the terrorist organization, or to the September 11 attacks.

• He had weapons of mass destruction. According to published reports, when the C.I.A. evaluations of the potential Iraqi nuclear threat weren’t, well, threatening enough, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had Pentagon intelligence units re-interpret the evidence to make it more frightening. (Where’s Jayson Blair when you need him?) And in The Sunday Times of London, Phillip Knightley reported that the pre-war findings of the British intelligence unit M.I.6 were rewritten by the Blair government to make them “more exciting” and, therefore, a more useful tool in the prime minister’s argument for war.

• Saddam be bad. Yes, of course he was bad. But if the presence of oppressive regimes is an adequate rationale for going to war, we’re going to be busy for a long time. When do we invade Liberia? Congo? Zimbabwe? Ivory Coast? New York City?”
—Graydon Carter, “The Phony War,” August 2003”
― Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age