Tag Archives: Quotable

Three Days of the Condor – Final Scene

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I think the best answer can be found at the end of Sydney Pollack’s 1975 spy flick, Three Days of the Condor. Robert Redford’s character (Joe Turner) is talking to CIA agent Higgins (played by Cliff Robertson) about the no-longer-secret plan to invade the Middle East for oil.

Higgins: The fact is, it wasn’t a bad plan. It could’ve worked.

Turner: Jesus — What is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth.

Higgins: It’s simple economics, Turner… There’s no argument. Oil now, 10 or 15 years it’ll be food, or plutonium. Maybe sooner than that. What do you think the people will want us to do then?

Turner: Ask them!

Higgins: Now? (shakes head) Huh-uh. Ask them when they’re running out. When it’s cold at home and the engines stop and people who aren’t used to hunger… go hungry! They won’t want us to ask… (quiet savagery:) They’ll want us to GET it for them.

William Gibson quoting Martin Luther King

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“I call on every man and woman of good will all over America today …to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. Don’t let anyone make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force, to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America ‘You are too arrogant! If you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power! And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I am God.'”

— Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967 (one year before his assassination)

The franchise is the content

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“…the Internet has become our entire business environment, not just another medium for distribution … the franchise is not the newspaper, the broadcast station, or even the website. The franchise is the content itself. … Get ready for everything to be Googled, deep-linked, or Tivo-ized.”

— Tom Curley, President and CEO, The Associated Press, in keynote address (full text) to Online News Association Conference, Nov. 12, 2004

The wisdom of Hermann Goring

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Regular readers know I’m a big fan of George Carlin (and letting other people doing my thinking) so I would have bought his new book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, even if Wal-Mart hadn’t banned it. And I couldn’t get past the acknowledgments without finding something worth writing down:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” –Hermann Goring at the Nuremberg Trials

I think I’m gonna need a fresh highlighter.

Thomas Friedman on the 2004 election

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“…this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don’t just favor different policies than I do – they favor a whole different kind of America. We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on. This was not an election. This was station identification.”

The full article is worth a read. [Thanks to John for the link]

William Gibson on why OBL and W need each other

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“OBL today is probably a very satisfied, very optimistic man, and if he can skew the last-minute dynamic of the election in Bush’s favor, he’ll have cause to be all the more satisfied.

And that’s the danger, that some crucial percentage of our dimmer, more reactive voters will flash back to 9-11 and the Bush of the bullhorn, the Bush buffeted with the heartbroken grit of Ground Zero, and vote for that — childishly imagining that such a vote runs counter to the wishes and the needs of OBL, the bearded stickman, the cave-dwelling spider, our new Old Man of the Mountains. Player of the long game.”

Why John Perry Barlow supports John Kerry

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“Terrible things have happened during the last four years that should not be rewarded no matter how we feel about John Kerry. The war in Iraq alone is unforgivable. While it would be a wonderful thing to have a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, it is criminally misguided to think that we could bomb such a thing into existence. And while it has become a mandatory cliche to say that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq, I wouldn’t even say this appears true at present. ” — John Perry Barlow

The Rule of Four

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This novel by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason is not a gripping story but I like the characters and the way the speak.

  • A son is the promise that time makes to a man, the guarantee every father receives that whatever he holds dear will someday be considered foolish, and that the person he loves best in the world will misunderstand him. [Prologue]
  • To count a hundred million stars, at the rate of one per second, sounds like a job that no one could possisbly complete in a lifetime. In reality, it would take only three years. The key is focus, a willingness not to be distracted. [Pg 7]
  • We made a friendship out of nothing, because nothing was the the heart of what we shared. [Pg 48]
  • The generational clock ground out another revolution, and time turned friends to strangers. [Pg 71]
  • The only things people can ever know about you are the ones you let them see. [Pg 97]
  • My mind is a flock of pigeons, fluttering away. All my thoughts are shit and feathers. [Pg 130]