Not There

We learned a painful lesson in the 1930s and today: The invisible hand often seems invisible because it's not there.

--Joseph Stiglitz (2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics)

Acknowledge Luck

I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck: the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others; made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.

--Paul Newman

Special Skills

Sarah knows how to field-dress a moose. I know how to castrate a calf. Neither of those things has anything at all to do with this election. But since we know so much about Sarah's special skills, I wanted to make sure you knew about mine too.

--Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge (D-Iowa)

If You Must

If you must break the law, do it to seize power. In all other cases observe it.

--Julius Caesar

Private Banks

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

--Thomas Jefferson

Progress

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

--C. S. Lewis

The Sequel

Beneath the sniping, so many real things lie in ruins: a corporate paradigm displaying no shred of responsibility, but eager for rescue by taxpayers; a military leadership's implicit promise to its recruits and their families; a public discourse commodified into channels that feed any given preacher's resentments to a self-selecting chorus. In these déjà vu battles, the combatants forever escape one another's final judgment, whirl off into the void, leaving us standing awed in the rubble, uncertain of what we've seen, only sure we're primed for the sequel.

--Jonathan Lethem

Fundamental

The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.

--President Herbert Hoover (October 24, 1929)

Socialism

The GOP does believe in socialism: Privatize the profits. Socialize the losses.

--Anonymous

Mediocre

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

--Jean Giraudoux

Oblivious

As we've been writing for several years, the greatest threat to economic growth has been reckless monetary policy. Yet both the Bush Treasury and John McCain's campaign seem oblivious to the monetary roots of our current economic troubles.

--The Wall Street Journal editoral page

Terms With Stupidity

It's not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity, and make it work for you.

--Frank Zappa

Knows More

She [Sarah Palin] knows more about energy that probably anyone else in the United States of America.

--John McCain

A Hard Job

If you see a whole thing--it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.

--Ursula K. LeGuin

Wreckage

What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.

--Margaret Mitchell

Not Seasons Enough

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

--Yehuda Amichai

Bicycle Prayers

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

--Emo Philips

A Blessing

As far as I'm concerned Barack Obama is a "Baruch," which means a blessing. He is a blessing to the United States Senate, to America, and to our shared hopes for better, safer tomorrows for all our families.

--Joe Lieberman (March 2006)

Blows My Mind

They've been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn't happen! We don't say, "He shares our values, so let's hire him." That's absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.

--Mark DeMoss (former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell)

Key Criteria

I think about whether that person who I select would be most prepared to take my place. And that would be the key criteria.

--John McCain (April 2008)

Reality TV

Politics as reality TV. Watch as we put this hockey mom and beauty contest runner-up into the second most powerful political position in civilization! Will she make it? Tune in and find out!

--Flown Muse (comment on Huffington Post, August 30, 2008)