Joe Kessler

“Like how money is just squiggles on paper or on a screen until it determines whether you can eat lunch, words are just meat twitches until they determine whether you can get a job”
― Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

“The study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“Why American history? Other nations have achieved greatness with less hubris and narcissism."

"Agreed. But America is a contradictory and precocious country, sir. We have, in a very short period of time, managed to commit venal sins against our own people and offer the world repeat examples of exceptionalism. Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper. I enjoyed the contrasts."

Wynn continued to watch her, with what Avery perceived as an ounce of amusement on his face. "A nation of favor and folly, one might say. Where justice is known but rarely seen.”
― Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps

“Rather than being uniformly antisemitic in outlook, the German population was very much divided over the Nazis' antisemitic policies. Some found them distasteful. Others plied them enthusiastically. Most were probably ambivalent or indifferent. Nevertheless, many had sympathy for their Jewish neighbors, classmates, and coworkers. More than a few were capable of expressing this sympathy to the Jews in private, but far too few took public steps that could have altered Nazi policy and significantly eased the Jews' plight.”
― Eric A. Johnson, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans