Jonathan Quotes

In 1969 the Khmer Rouge numbered only about 4,000. By 1975 their numbers were enough to defeat the government forces. Their victory was greatly helped by the American attack on Cambodia, which was carried out as an extension of the Vietnam War. In 1970 a military coup led by Lon Nol, possibly with American support, overthrew the government of Prince Sihanouk, and American and South Vietnamese troops entered Cambodia.

One estimate is that 600,000 people, nearly 10 per cent of the Cambodian population, were killed in this extension of the war. Another estimate puts the deaths from the American bombing at 1000,000 peasants. From 1972 to 1973, the quantity of bombs dropped on Cambodia was well over three times that dropped on Japan in the Second World War.

The decision to bomb was taken by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and was originally justified on the grounds that North Vietnamese bases had been set up in Cambodia. The intention (according to a later defence by Kissinger's aide, Peter W. Rodman) was to target only places with few Cambodians: 'From the Joint Chiefs' memorandum of April 9, 1969, the White House selected as targets only six base areas minimally populated by civilians. The target areas were given the codenames BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER, SUPPER, SNACK, and DESSERT; the overall programme was given the name MENU.' Rodman makes the point that SUPPER, for instance, had troop concentrations, anti-aircraft, artillery, rocket and mortar positions, ~ Jonathan Glover

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, if cows were a country, they would rank third in greenhouse gas emissions, after China and the United States. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Just follow your joy. Always. I think that if you do that, life will take you on the course that it's meant to take you. ~ Jonathan Groff

I missed you even when I was with you. That's been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York was in heavy boots. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Somewhere along the line, I conditioned myself to be a quick thinker. I take a step back and try to assess the situation, then make the best decision possible at the moment. ~ Jonathan Sadowski

Eugenio Montale - born in Genoa in 1896, died in Milan, 1981 - is one of the twentieth-century Europeans who has spoken most meaningfully to American and British poets. ~ Jonathan Galassi

I think it's a terrible system, but money in politics is like water running downhill
it finds its way. ~ Jonathan Alter

The angel said, I like black-and-white films more than color because they're more artificial. You have to work harder to overcome your disbelief. It's sort of like prayer. ~ Jonathan Carroll

Musical auditions are always the worst because you have to sing and act, and that's so stressful. ~ Jonathan Groff

Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men. ~ Jonathan Edwards

You go through your 20s sort of like a chrysalis in many ways, stretching into your own skin and trying to bust out of a cocoon. ~ Jonathan Rhys Meyers

It seems that no one wants to be "ideological" anymore, and that includes being straight edge. On the one hand, you can see it as today's kids just being against "rules" of any kind, a sort of postmodernist end of ideology. On the other hand, you can see it as kids shying away from anything serious; from anything that demands deeper involvement. The result is that radical cultures are turned into commodities. ~ Jonathan Pollack

There is a paradox in fiction that was first noticed by Aristotle in the Poetics. We are drawn to fiction because fiction gives us pleasure. But most of what is actually in fiction is deeply unpleasant: threat, death, despair, anxiety, Sturm und Drang. ~ Jonathan Gottschall

When I began my career as a writer I thought it would be fun to put my imagination to the page. Now I am finding out that my imagination is able to fill in those pesky holes called details all on its own, and then neglecting to tell me how it did it. ~ Jonathan Bender

We're supposed to be doing the devil's work and you've gone and contaminated it all with the whiff of virtue. I really don't think you've quite got the hang of being an agent of evil. ~ Jonathan L. Howard

Evil exists," he says, not flinching at the word. "I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher would call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people-that is my idea of evil. ~ Jonathan Kozol

It was a rebus of heartbreak, misfortune a dog could parse. ~ Jonathan Lethem

In another place, their sons were killed between the barbs of their own guard wire, killed with misfired bombs while squirming in the mire like animals, killed with friendly fire, killed sometimes without knowing that they were about to die - a bullet through the head while joking with a comrade, laughing ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I like strong girls, as long as they don't get snappish. And furthermore I think it important that you are good buddies and she does not get angry when you don't have your day. ~ Jonathan Brandis

Regardless if a person likes my book I've earned the title: An American Writer. ~ Jonathan Heatt

Life hasn't signed a contract with you promising to give you everything you want. It just unfolds in its own mysterious and uncontrollable way. The more you stop resisting the way things are, the happier and more peaceful you'll be. ~ Jonathan Landaw

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Truth be known, President Obama has never been particularly driven by principle. Right after his election, I wrote a column in a few days warning people that even though I voted for Obama, he was not what people were describing him to be. I saw him in the Senate. I saw him in Chicago. ~ Jonathan Turley

Aedan nodded, trying not to stare, failing.
"Supper will level your opinion of me."
It was true. There was plenty of stew to be had and Aedan went to bed hungry. ~ Jonathan Renshaw

From where she is, the page- her paper-thin future-is infinitely heavy. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

When I used to watch vaudevillian impressionists, people like Rich Little or Frank Gorshin, I always felt like the voice was the only point. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be of the Robin Williams or Jonathan Winters model, where observation and storytelling was important. ~ Frank Caliendo

I hate lending, or borrowing - if you want me to read a book, tell me about it, or buy me a copy outright. Your loaned edition sits in my house like a real grievance. And in lieu of lending books, I buy extra copies of those I want to give away, which gives me the added pleasure of buying books I love again and again.
Jonathan Lethem ~ Leah Price

Do you have any coffee?' ... 'It stunts my growth, and I'm afraid of death. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Everyone thinks they have strict limits," she said, "until they cross them. ~ Jonathan Franzen

...an infinitely blank book and the rest of time. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

There are still many different ways to get stuck, existentially stuck. Feeling like, "This is worthless. I'm wasting my time, and I would be wasting the time of someone who tried to read this." It happens all the time. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

The cause of homelessness is lack of housing. ~ Jonathan Kozol

In a decadent society people can slowly drift or slowly be drawn by the culture of commerce into yearning for violence. Maybe people have a deep congenital awareness that no civilization lasts forever, that the most peaceful prosperity will someday have to end, or maybe it's just human nature ~ Jonathan Franzen

Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions. ~ Jonathan Swift

'Amazing Grace' is not a book of interviews or onetime snapshots. It's a memoir of a journey that took me into a place I had never been and took over two years of my life. I don't think the people in this book would have said the things to me that they did if they perceived me as a reporter. ~ Jonathan Kozol

People always ask what a book is about, as if it has to be about something. I don't want to write books that lend themselves to that sort of description. My books are more a kind of breaking-down. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

If you look at the practice of 'crisis management,' and maybe squint at it a little, you can make out in the corners of your vision the ghosts or the vestiges of a much older, but still thoroughly American, form of public life, one centered not on public opinion but on religion. ~ Jonathan Dee

You had a talk? You think talk got us out of Egypt or Entebbe? Uh-uh. Plague and Uzis. Talk gets you a good place in line for a shower that isn't a shower. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

But decades of research on public opinion have led to the conclusion that self-interest is a weak predictor of policy preferences. ~ Jonathan Haidt

Childhood feels so permanent, ~ Jonathan Tropper

We have so separated ourselves, person from person and group from group, in the city, that we have made hatred a dreadfully easy emotion. It comes to us as lightly and insidiously as the symptoms of an unconsciously harboured disease. ~ Jonathan Raban

Us and them" religion is poison to the soul, and it often takes a lifetime of humiliation to detoxify us from it. In the Christian tradition, those who are ~ Jonathan Martin

It was not until very much in the posterior that I understanded that each of us was laughing for a different reason, for our own reason, and that not on of those reasons had a thing to do with the potato. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. ~ Jonathan Edwards

I was thankful," said my father, "for the make-believe. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I hid my underwear beneath a parked Peugeot. ~ Jonathan Ames

Those who know New York City primarily through tourism or mass culture may think of us natives as possessing certain shared characteristics, not all of them flattering. But the true, volatile charisma of New York lies in how balkanised it is. ~ Jonathan Dee

Rebukes are easy from our betters,
From men of quality and letters;
But when low dunces will affront,
What man alive can stand the brunt? ~ Jonathan Swift

Patiently, hopefully, actively we are waiting for Jesus. And yet here is the astonishing twist: As we wait for our Lord and the bodily resurrection yet to come for the departed, the world waits for us. As we long for God, the world is longing for God in us. ~ Jonathan Martin

I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out; Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure. ~ Jonathan Swift

All the shall stand about the God of glory, the fountain of love, as it were opening their bosoms to be filled with those effusions of love which are poured forth from thence, as the flowers on the earth in a pleasant spring day open their bosoms to the sun to be filled with his warmth and light, and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy by his rays. Every saint is as a flower in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrancy and sweet odor which they all send forth, with which they fill that paradise. ~ Jonathan Edwards

I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat. ~ Jonathan Dimbleby

Shouldn't we at least be asking whether the transcending of venereal desire that marriage requires of a mostly or entirely 'heterosexual' man who marries for the sake of love, friendship, and raising a family isn't more or less the same as the transcendence required of a man whose venereal desire is 'oriented' mostly or entirely toward men but who restrains these drives, and who marries for the sake of love, friendship and raising a family? Of course, men with little venereal desire for women can't proceed towards marriage driven by such desire. For them, marriage must develop from friendship. But wouldn't it be better if all marriages developed from friendship? ~ Jonathan Mills

A year earlier my parents had moved us out of the city to a split-level on Long Island, their idea of the American dream, which meant it as now an hour-and-a-half commute via the 7:06 Hicksville to Penn Station every morning. (Dark City Lights) ~ Jonathan Santlofer

The first thing that reading teaches us is how to be alone. ~ Jonathan Franzen

I seem to have a talent for writing endings that seem just right to me but that frustrate other people. ~ Jonathan Dee

People may be due the benefits of a democratic electoral process. But in the United States, content curators appropriately have a First Amendment right to present their content as they see fit. ~ Jonathan Zittrain

False hope is worse than despair. ~ Jonathan Kozol

It stayed with him, like a part of him, like a birthmark, like a limb, it was on him, in him, him, his hymn: I had to do it for myself. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

It's sort of an organic process when you're adapting any book, not even just your own. You want to preserve the heart of the story and you want to preserve who the characters are, but film requires a lot of compression. ~ Jonathan Tropper

The inner lawyer, the rose-colored mirror, naive realism, and the myth of pure evil - these mechanisms all conspire to weave for us a web of significance upon which angels and demons fight it out. Our ever-judging minds then give us constant flashes of approval and disapproval, along with the certainty that we are on the side of the angels. From this vantage point it all seems so silly, all this moralism, righteousness, and hypocrisy. It's beyond silly; it is tragic, for it suggests that human beings will never achieve a state of lasting peace and harmony. ~ Jonathan Haidt

What would you like to do today?" he says. She gives him a funny look. "What are my options?" "Sky's the limit." She considers it for a moment. "Brunch?" "I say the sky's the limit and all you can come up with is brunch?" "I'm just not sure we live under the same sky. ~ Jonathan Tropper

On Mondays and Fridays in early May, nearly 18,000 children-the equivalent of all the elementary students in suburban Glencoe, Wilmette, Glenview, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Deerfield, Highland Park and Evanston-are assigned to classes with no teacher. ~ Jonathan Kozol

Certainly in cartooning I'm given huge free rein at the moment. ~ Jonathan Shapiro

Dogs are wonderful, and in many ways unique. But they are remarkably unremarkable in their intellectual and experiential capacities. Pigs are every bit as intelligent and feeling, by any sensible definition of the words. They can't hop into the back of a Volvo, but they can fetch, run and play, be mischievous, and reciprocate affection. So why don't they get to curl up by the fire? Why can't they at least be spared being tossed on the fire? ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

When you live on the road, going home is a place to escape and just be with your family to unwind. ~ Jonathan Davis

It is doubtful that anyone has contributed more in a lifetime to the overall coverage of cricket than Christopher Martin-Jenkins. ~ Jonathan Agnew

I flipped back through the pad of paper while I thought about what Stephen Hawking would do next. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

What's weird," I said, "is that I've never seen you cry." He said, "I cry all the time. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Childermass knew what games the children on street-corners are playing - games that all other grown-ups have long since forgotten. Childermass knew what old people by firesides are thinking of, though no one has asked them in years. Childermass knew what young men hear in the rattling of the drums and the tooting of the pipes that makes them leave their homes and go to be soldiers - and he knew the half-eggcupful of glory and the barrelful of misery that await them. And all that Childermass knew made him smile; and some of what he knew made him laugh out loud; and none of what he knew wrung from him so much as ha'pennyworth of pity. ~ Susanna Clarke

He Wrote, Are you OK?
I told him, My eyes are crummy.
He wrote, But are you OK?
I told him, That's a very complicated question.
He wrote, That's a very simple answer.
I asked, Are you OK?
He wrote, Some mornings I wake up feeling grateful. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I happen to agree with many of President Obama's policies, but in our system, it is often as important how you do something as what you do. ~ Jonathan Turley

But I am enjoying the feeling of inbetweenness - that not-yet-being-settled feeling - and I plan on dragging it out as long as I can, because its a state of grace where all things are permissible. ~ Jonathan Goldstein

When you write a book there are no more pretenses or facades to hide behind. It is very liberating to proclaim "this is who I am. ~ Jonathan Heatt

Free your mind, become who you are.. the mind is the biggest drug.. and everyone is addicted. ~ Jonathan Bailey

Suffice it to say, if one hopes to live in a world of wonders, he had better locate himself in a place where wondrous stories abound. ~ Jonathan Auxier

He was leaving me. I wondered if I should stop him. If I should wrestle him to the ground and force him to love me. I wanted to hold his shoulders down and shout into his face. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

In the old days, Christmas lights had come in short strings that were wired serially. If a single bulb burned out or even just loosened in its socket, the circuit was broken and the entire string went dark. One of the season's rituals for Gary and Chip had been to tighten each little brass-footed bulb in a darkened string and then, if this didn't work, to replace each bulb in turn until the dead culprit was found. (What joy the boys had taken in the resurrection of a string!) By the time Denise was old enough to help with the lights, the technology had advanced. The wiring was parallel, and the bulbs had snap-in plastic bases. A single faulty light didn't affect the rest of the community but identified itself instantly for instant replacement ... ~ Jonathan Franzen

Lions should be strong but sweet beasts in a Disney cartoon. But they aren't, so when they act like lions you're angry at them for not being the fantasy animals you imagined. Russian bears don't put on top hats and ride unicycles. Or sleep in bed next to Goldilocks. People force them to do those stupid things in circuses and films and children's books. Sure, some will be more docile or more ferocious than others, but in the end they will always, always be bears. And you should never turn your back on them. You should never even get near them; it's that simple. They're not being dishonest - you are in your perception of them. ~ Jonathan Carroll

He found Satan on his throne in the cavern of lava, reading a large-print edition of Wheatley's The Satanist. 'It's a rum way to warn people off from worshiping me,' Satan commented, indicating the book. 'It seems to be lots of fun, according to this. Still, I bet they all die horribly at the end. Oh well. Who wants to live forever? ~ Jonathan L. Howard

Look up, Granada. Look to your people. We as beautiful and as plentiful as them stars knitted together in heaven. We just forgot. Somebody's got to remember for us all. ~ Jonathan Odell

There was a profound silence, abruptly broken by an enormously loud rumble from George's stomach. Plaster didn't actually fall from the ceiling, but it was close. ~ Jonathan Stroud

What I tell these young people is, the world is not as dangerous as the older generation would like you to believe. Anyone I know who has ever taken a risk and lost a job has ended up getting a better one two years later. ~ Jonathan Kozol

It's a sign of this film's greatness that the enormous sadness that accompanies the final leave-taking of the circus interior is a good deal more than the conclusion of an unpretentious evening's entertainments; it's a sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists. ~ Jonathan Rosenbaum

The more careless, the more modish. ~ Jonathan Swift

There was another world below - this was the problem. Another world below that had volume but no form. By day the sea was blue surface and whitecaps, a realistic navigational challenge, and the problem could be overlooked. By night, though, the mind went forth and dove down through the yielding - the violently lonely - nothingness on which the heavy steel ship traveled, and in every moving swell you saw a travesty of grids, you saw how truly and forever lost a man would be six fathoms under. Dry land lacked this z-axis. Dry land was like being awake. Even in chartless desert you could drop to your knees and pound land with your fist and land didn't give. Of course the ocean, too, had a skin of wakefulness. But every point on this skin was a point where you could sink and by sinking disappear. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Putting this all together, it makes sense that WEIRD philosophers since Kant and Mill have mostly generated moral systems that are individualistic, rule-based, and universalist. That's the morality you need to govern a society of autonomous individuals. ~ Jonathan Haidt

God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. ~ Jonathan Edwards

I don't think anything in my game has regressed in the last couple years. I think I've only gotten better. I keep wanting to assume more responsibility in all parts of the rink. ~ Jonathan Toews

's one of the perversities of the age: I'm embarrassed by its success, but I'm happy it's selling. ~ Jonathan Franzen

There was such a relative paucity of smells in California that the interconnectedness of all possible smells was not apparent. She ~ Jonathan Franzen

Apple's Jony Ive describes his "fanatical" approach to design in new interview ~ Jonathan Ive

Well, she sure don't hold the deed on grief and loss, son. We all been mussed and mauled by bad times. But that girl's done gone and shut down. I met gray people with more personality." She tapped her temple with a finger. "I'm beginning to suspect there ain't nobody home. ~ Jonathan Maberry

By releasing these five top Taliban commanders, the U.S. is demonstrating that it is throwing in the towel in the long struggle against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan. ~ Jonathan S. Tobin

To live with all my might, while I do live ~ Jonathan Edwards

In the person of Christ do meet together infinite majesty and transcendent meekness. These ~ Jonathan Edwards

The heart may freeze, or it can burn. The pain will ease and I can learn. There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as, my last. ~ Jonathan Larson

Now, there is a wonderful thing in this world called "foresight". It is a gift treasured above all others because it allows one to know what the future holds. Most people with foresight end up wielding immense power in life, often becoming great rulers or librarians. ~ Jonathan Auxier

She was so beautiful, like someone who you will never meet, but always dream of meeting, like someone who is too good for you. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer