Coffee

But for me coffee was first and foremost a caffeine delivery system. It was medicine, just as food, stripped of its pretensions, is fuel.
--Frank Bruni

Things

Because things are the way they are, they will not stay the way they are.
--Berthold Brecht

Obvious

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
--George Orwell

Best Friend

When you go to war over religion, you're basically killing each other to see who has the best imaginary friend.
--Richard Jeni

Romance

God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New--the Jekyll and Hyde of sacred romance.

--Mark Twain

How Are You?

It's normally agreed that the question "How are you?" doesn't put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer.
--Christopher Hitchens

Did Not Create

And I remind you that those tax cuts have been in effect for a very long time--they did not create jobs.
--Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Always Wins

When one side breaks the social contract, and the other side makes a virtue of never calling them out on it, the liar always wins. When it becomes "uncivil" to call out liars, lying becomes free.
--Rick Perlstein

Stand for Something

Call it polarization, call it conviction, call it whatever you like: These are not wishy-washy times. If you don't stand for something, you get run over.
--Eugene Robinson

Every Door

Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.
--Emily Dickinson

Herds

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
--Charles Mackay

Secret Source

The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
--Mark Twain

Virtual

All relationships are virtual, even those that take place in person. Whether we use our bodies or a keyboard, it all comes down to two minds crying out from their solitude.
--Roger Ebert

Information

Information systems need to have information in order to run, but information underrepresents reality.
--Jaron Lanier

Software

Different software embeds different philosophies, and these philosophies, as they become ubiquitous, become invisible.
--Zadie Smith

Like Fear

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
--C. S. Lewis

Democratic Revolution

People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don't vote.... If the poor in the United States turned out and voted for people who represented their interests, it would be a democratic revolution. So they don't want it to happen. Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic are two ways in which people are controlled.
--Tony Benn (former British Labour MP)

No Conditions

Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.
--Hannah Arendt