“I think I’ve wasted your time. I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time and I apologize for that.” — Glenn Beck apologizes for his interview with former Congressman Massa.
“Yes, it’s true that you may like strawberry ice cream more than chocolate, whereas I prefer chocolate. But that shouldn’t obscure the much bigger point: everybody likes ice cream more than they like gall-bladder surgery.” — Daniel Gilbert , a Harvard psychologist who is apparently unaware of the existence of lactose-intolerant gastrointestinal surgeons, on how we aren’t so different after all.
“I can tell that a novel is top-rate when I start praying for the characters.” — Peggy Rosenthal really liked Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel, The Lacuna .
“Our milk is safe to drink (and is not contaminated with bacteria or other pollutants) not primarily because some regulator is imposing penalties on milk producers who do it wrong, but because all those workers from the cow to the supermarket just know that somebody will drink this milk, and intrinsically want to do their job right.” — Yale economics professor Robert Shiller on business and social trust.
“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according [to] the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.” — Chief Justice John Roberts is still wondering why he has to sit through President Obama’s State of the Union insults.
“Because every day, this elected leader [Hugo Chavez] is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.” — Irony-immune actor Sean Penn on his favorite dictator leftist authoritarian leader.
“Greed does not cause rate hikes. I’m not sure why some [health insurance] premiums have shot up lately, but I’m quite sure that “greed” is not the answer. That’s because I’m quite sure that the insurance companies are no greedier today than they were a year ago. To explain a change in prices, you’ve got to point to something that’s changed. Greed is pretty much a constant.” — Economist Steve Landsburg schools the Obama administration on how prices work.
“Today’s journalists are much too well-bred and well-connected to stand there in the crowd shouting “The emperor has no clothes!” They’ve worked with the tailors, they have had long background interviews with the tailors, they’ve been present for some of the fittings. Of course the emperor’s new clothes are fantastic; only those rude and uncouth ‘clothing deniers’ still have any doubts.” — Walter Russell Mead explaining why journalists often get the story wrong.
(Some quotes via: The Browser )
