Kaplan Quotes

Like serious reading itself, travel has now become an act of resistance against the distractions of the electronic age, and against all the worries that weigh us down, thanks to that age. A good book deserves to be finished, just as a haunting landscape tempts further experience of it, and further research into it. Travel and serious reading, because they demand sustained focus, stand athwart the nonexistent attention spans that deface our current time on Earth. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

You can't explain what it is about the sound of Sinatra's voice," Feinstein says. "I mean, you can try, and you can get very poetic in describing it. But there is something there that is transcendent, that simply exists in his instrument. He developed it, he honed it, he understood it himself, he knew what he could do, and he used it to his best advantage. That was something that people responded to. ~ James Kaplan

When I was a kid, I would be watching TV shows like, you know, like 'Get Smart' and be like, 'That's what being an adult is.' ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Then Frank said, 'Have you ever heard that when five o'clock comes, it's martini time? We could be right in the middle of a scene, but it's over for me, because it's martini time. Did you ever hear that? ~ James Kaplan

What happened on September 11th is at least, theoretically, small stuff compared to what can happen. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Why don't you steal the pattern out of Kenton's '23 Degrees North, 82 Degrees West'?" the trombonist, an alumnus of Stan Kenton's big band, said. ~ James Kaplan

I read the 'New Yorker' when I was a kid. I used to love the cartoons and pick the cartoons out of the library, so I felt I knew the world of their cartoons. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Mr. Kaplan is the first traveler to take us on a journey to the jagged places where these tectonic plates meet, and his argument
that our future is being shaped far away 'at the ends of the earth'
makes his travelogue pertinent and compelling reading. ~ Michael Ignatieff

It is easy to be a moral perfectionist when one is politically unaccountable. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

As became a young sinner, Sam [Mark Twain] had a special interest in Satan. He asked his Sunday school teacher questions about Eve in the garden, wondering "if he had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpent, would not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber." Twain recalled, "He did not answer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my age and comprehension. ~ Fred Kaplan

It's one of the things that makes it enjoyable to keep playing; you have to approach each set differently and make some balance between what you want to do and what seems right. ~ Ira Kaplan

Fathers have a special excitement about them that babies find intriguing. At this time in his life an infant counts on his motherfor rootedness and anchoring. He can count on his father to be just different enough from a mother. Fathers embody a delicious mixture of familiarity and novelty. They are novel without being strange or frightening. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

This pretty much summed up how things worked in my family. I preferred talk to action. My sister preferred action to thinking. And my father preferred to admire some far-off spot on the horizon that no one else could see. ~ A.E. Kaplan

There's an actual physiological thing that happens to me on tour. There's that moment where I sit in my seat and click the seatbelt, and five seconds later I fall asleep. ~ Ira Kaplan

Take the most dangerous power in the South China Sea, China. While the century of humiliation at the hands of the Western powers "is a period etched in acid on the pages of Chinese student textbooks today, ~ Robert D. Kaplan

And believe me, there is nobody who hates Communism more than a former Communist. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Mothers tend to encourage their sons to run away and romp ... Mothers of little boys often complain that "There's no controlling him." "He's all over the place ... " The complaints are tinged with more than a little pride at the boy's marvelous independence and masculine bravado. It's almost as though the mother enjoyed being overwhelmed by her spectacular conquering hero. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

The Cold War went on for so long that it bred a kind of worldwide military establishment. Even when budgets went down in the early and mid-nineties, it didn't really affect it. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

When a child becomes an adult ... the elders are fearful. And for good reason ... not we but they are the germinators of future generations. Will they leave us behind as we did our parents? Consign us to neatly paved retirement villages? Trample us in the dust as they go flying out to their new galaxies? We had better tie them down, flagellate them, isolate them in the family cocoon, ... indoctrinate them into the tribal laws and make sure they kneel before the power of the elders. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

There ought to be something about computers and artificial intelligence [in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations]. Surely somebody somewhere said something memorable. ~ Justin Kaplan

Terrorism can go anywhere where there is not strong government, or government that cannot control its hinterlands. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Europe's era of internal cohesion may already be past. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Yes, the people I draw don't have a wide variety of looks. Every now and then I'll spruce it up, like a woman will be wearing a two-piece suit as opposed to a one-piece, or a man will not be wearing a tie; he'll just have a collar. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Discovering the inapplicability of Judeo-Christian morality in certain circumstances involving affairs of state can be searing. The rare individuals who have recognized the necessity of violating such morality, acted accordingly, and taken responsibility for their actions are among the most necessary leaders for their countries, even as they have caused great unease ..

- In Defense of Henry Kissinger, The Atlantic 2013 May

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/p... ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

Quotations have always been supremely effective rhetorical devices, instruments of one-upmanship, ways of supporting any position under the sun with borrowed or stolen authority. ~ Justin Kaplan

As recently as 1975, a basic American psychiatry textbook estimated that the frequency of all forms of incest as one case per million. [James Henderson, "Incest", in A. M. Freedman, H.I. Kaplan and B.J. Sadock, eds., Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 2nd ed. 1975 p. 1532.] ~ Judith Lewis Herman

Travel is like a good challenging book: It demands presentness-the ability to live completely in the moment. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Realists value order above freedom: for them the latter becomes important only after the former has been established. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Francis, I'd play the Godfather for you," he told the startled director. "I wouldn't do it for those guys at Paramount, but I'd do it for you. ~ James Kaplan

Managing risk is very different from managing strategy. Risk management focuses on the negative-threats and failures rather than opportunities and successes. ~ Robert S. Kaplan

I don't think simple is an insult. Something that's really simple and great is probably harder to do than something more complex. ~ Ira Kaplan

Children, even infants, are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

I've never written a song that's hopeless. I'm not a hopeless person. I'm crazily optimistic. I crazily see the good in people. - singer Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Focusing on the tiniest details, finding magic in even the smallest inspirations, embracing the briefest moments-that's where passion is. ~ Linda Kaplan Thaler

Shooting in Los Angeles is always pleasant and comfortable. Shooting in New York is like being on 'Survivor.' ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

It got so ridiculous that I was like, there's no way this is going to last. ~ Philip J. Kaplan

When I'm on the set, I'll come up with ideas if I'm sort of just between responsibilities, because there's a lot of sitting around on set. Invariably, though, the stuff I come up with on the set tends to be bad. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Just your friend?"
"There's no just about being friends. ~ Ariel Kaplan

Like many young women, I grew up believing that (1) physical ability wasn't very important, and (2) I didn't have any. ~ Janice Kaplan

That technology has canceled geography contains just enough merit to be called a plausible fallacy, ~ Robert D. Kaplan

James Thurber was an inspiration because his drawings were so primitive. I am self-taught - I didn't go to art school - so I thought when I started doing them, 'If James Thurber can be a cartoonist, I can,' because his stuff is very raw. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

My mother always bought our birthday gifts. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

The South China Sea functions as the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans - the mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce. Here is the heart of Eurasia's navigable rimland, punctuated by the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar straits. More than half of the world's annual merchant fleet tonnage passes through these choke points, and a third of all maritime traffic worldwide.2 ~ Robert D. Kaplan

We belong to that order of mammals, the primates, distinguished by its propensity for repeated single litters, intense parental care, long life-spans, late sexual maturity, and a complex and extensive social existence ... Our protracted biological and psychological helplessness, which extends well into the third year of life, intensifies the bond between infant and parents, making possible a sense of generational continuity. In contrast to other primates these bonds are not obliterated after sexual maturity. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

When Erdogan assumed control, he gave power to a wave of Islamism, strengthened by Ozal, that had been creeping back into Turkish life under the radar screen of official Kemalism. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

In New York, all the crews read 'The New Yorker.' In Los Angeles, they don't know from 'The New Yorker.' ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Hopefulness is the heartbeat of the relationship between a parent and child. Each time a child overcomes the next challenge of hislife, his triumph encourages new growth in his parents. In this sense a child is parent to his mother and father. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

For a woman ... to explore and express the fullness of her sexuality, her ambitions, her emotional and intellectual capacities, her social duties, her tender virtues, would entail who knows what risks and who knows what truly revolutionary alteration to the social conditions that demean and constrain her. Or she may go on trying to fit herself into the order of the world and thereby consign herself forever to the bondage of some stereotype of normal femininity - a perversion, if you will. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

I've had to whine for everything I've ever really wanted. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Julia supposed that there was also a difference in perspective: 'The practical level was another level down [in 1960s social movements] and not so interesting. I don't know much about organizing, but I feel as though, if the reality of the situation doesn't change people's heads, then nothing's going to change their heads. Marches and those things are not the work of it. The work of it is whatever the work is. ~ Laura Kaplan

Sometimes I'll be reading something online and just get so frustrated because of what people are saying. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Maybe I just wasn't a show-biz type. I didn't miss performing at all. ~ Gabe Kaplan

In the life cycle of a theory, it starts off simple and then gets fancier and fancier, as brainy thinkers mount objections and the theory's proponents develop more subtle, complex, and well-defended theory to stave them off. Then it dies. Actually, before it dies, it lives in a special preserve for theories too complicated to survive in the wild, called a university. ~ Eric Kaplan

One marker, which I would read a bit later on, tells the familiar story of Narcissa Whitman, "trail-blazer and martyred missionary," who followed the north side of the Platte in 1836 on horseback, "becoming the first white women to cross the American continent," and who, along with her husband, Marcus, was "massacred by Cayuse Indians" at their Protestant mission in 1847 in Walla Walla, Washington. (The Indians there were justifiably enraged at the whites for spreading measles to them.) ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Nabhan's forecasts nailed three of the largest seismic events on the West Coast in 1996. ~ Erin Aubry Kaplan

Here is America Now: smoke, greasy fumes, the friction of tire rubber, the memory of terrifying refineries with their rubbery rotten-egg smells. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Men sometimes seem more ready to accept women as brain surgeons than as athletes. ~ Janice Kaplan

Since then, as the Chinese navy becomes larger and more wide-ranging, the bent toward Mahan has only intensified in Beijing, especially with the rise of Indian sea power, which the Chinese fear; the Indians, for their part, view the Chinese in similar Mahanian terms. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

of ocean, around the North Pole there is an ocean surrounded by a near-unbroken ~ Robert D. Kaplan

And so this is where the post Cold War has brought us: to the recognition that the very totalitarism that we fought against in the decades following WWII might, in quite a few circumstances, be preferable to a situation where nobody is in charge. There are things worse than communism, it turned out, and in Iraq we brought them about ourselves. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Whereas devotees of globalization stress what unifies humankind, traditional realists stress what divides us. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

We only got clothing once a year, like, right before school began. It's like, that's when you got your clothing. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

The first thing to recognize not just about Afghanistan but about any poor undeveloped country is that as big as it looks on the map, it's much bigger when you're there. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

The fact is, and there's no denying it, realism... is supposed to make one uneasy. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

When you accept that you may fail, you can accomplish anything. Fear can be so debilitating. Every day I'm faced with difficult decisions, but losing the fear helps me make the right choices. ~ Linda Kaplan Thaler

In the car going home, I said, "We should have stayed." Bogie said, "No, we shouldn't. You must always remember we have a life of our own that has nothing to do with Frank. He chose to live the way he's living - alone. It's too bad if he's lonely, but that's his choice. We have our own road to travel, never forget that - we can't live his life. ~ James Kaplan

Americans are opting out of public venues like the playground and the sidewalk for private venues like the healthclub and the mall. We're living our lives inside one form of corporation or another. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

The price of training is always a certain trained incapacity: the more we know how to do something, the harder it is to learn to do it differently. ~ Abraham Kaplan

I don't think anyone thinks that the SAT score is a measure of your innate intelligence. It is not. That is a fallacious concept, and we at Kaplan, and others who are in a position, should be out there making sure people know this is nothing, this score does not have anything to do with your innate intelligence. ~ Jonathan Grayer

The United States is not overdeployed or overextended with deployments in 150 countries on any given year. On any given week we have about 65 deployments. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

He had entered another imaginative world, one connected to the beginning of his life as a writer, to the Napoleonic world that had been a lifelong metaphor for the power of art, for the empire of his own creation He began to dictate notes for a new novel, "fragments of the book he imagines himself to be writing." As if he were now writing a novel of which his own altered consciousness was the dramatic center, he dictated a vision of himself as Napoleon and his own family as the Imperial Bonapartes....William and Alice he grasped with his regent hand, addressing his 'dear and most esteemed brother and sister.' To them, to whom he had granted countries, he now gave the responsibility of supervising the detailed plans he had created for 'the decoration of certain apartments, here of the Louvre and Tuileries, which you will find addressed in detail to artists and workment who take them in hand.' He was himself the 'imperial eagle.'

Taking down the dictation, Theodora [his secretary] felt it to be almost more than she could bear. 'It is a heart-breaking thing to do, though, there is the extraordinary fact that his mind does retain the power to frame perfectly characteristic sentences. ~ Fred Kaplan

Statesmen can strive for the universal values of justice, fairness, and tolerance, but only so far as they do not interfere with the quest for power, which to him is synonymous with survival. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

When people ask you to do stuff, it's not your idea anymore, so it's tough to get behind it. ~ Ira Kaplan

The search for power is not made for the achievement of moral values; moral values are used to facilitate the attainment of power. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

In foreign policy, a modest acceptance of fate will often lead to discipline rather than indifference. The realization that we cannot always have our way is the basis of a mature outlook that rests on an ancient sensibility, for tragedy is not the triumph of evil over good so much as triumph of one good over another that causes suffering. Awareness of that fact leads to a sturdy morality grounded in fear as well as in hope. The moral benefits of fear bring us to two English philosophers who, like Machiavelli, have for centuries disturbed people of goodwill: Hobbes and Malthus. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

Notice that your judgments of what exists are the same kind of judgments you make about how to live your life. There aren't two kinds of things we do: judge what exists and decide what we want to do about it. Fundamentally, there is one kind of thing we do: live our lives. And we can reflect on this activity more or less abstractly. ~ Eric Kaplan

People mature with age and experience. I hope I more resemble a fine wine than bad vinegar. ~ Rick Kaplan

During adolescence imagination is boundless. The urge toward self-perfection is at its peak. And with all their self- absorption and personalized dreams of glory, youth are in pursuit of something larger than personal passions, some values or ideals to which they might attach their imaginations. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

All cultures are capable of democracy and liberalism. Everybody wants to be free. ~ Lawrence Kaplan

I loved Charles Addams more than anything. Still love him. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Reaching your potential is not simply about dreaming or being idealistic, It is a process that involve specific actions, exercises, discipline and hard work. It is challenging, rewarding and unending. ~ Robert S. Kaplan

In 1945, there were 20,000 mosques in Turkey; in 1985, 72,000, and that number has since risen steadily, out of proportion to the population. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

I never really got into 'The Munsters' that much, but there was one aspect that was compelling. That was Marilyn. She was the only normal one among this group of creatures. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

It's - it's a variable." Kaplan was shaking, white-lipped and pale. "Something from which no inference can be made. The man from the past. The machines can't deal with him. The variable man! ~ Philip K. Dick

It is development, not poverty, that causes upheaval and terrorism. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

With that solitude came the greatest luxuries: the time to read, the opportunity to wander, and the chance to think new thoughts. ~ Alice Kaplan

Let the pleasure of doodling led us to writing as decoration rather than to the peculiarly abstract sort of representation it inclines towards: the making of signs to look through rather than at. ~ Robert M. Kaplan

My cartoon life is in my office, and it's very separate and getting very in my own head. My television life is I'm begging one of the actors to say the line in the way I'd like them to. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

All I can really tell you about my father is that he did odd things like put tin foil on a bottle of beer after having a few sips, then put it in the refrigerator to perhaps have on another night. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Romania was an original mix: a population that looked Italian but wore the expressions of Russian peasants; an architectural backdrop that often evoked France and Central Europe; and service and physical conditions that resembled those in Africa. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

For anything with a name(and zero had so many) surely existed......Yet how could what doesn't exist, exist? ~ Robert D. Kaplan

The adolescent frequently supposes that she is breaking out of the confines of her mundane, schoolgirl existence simply in order to break rules and defy authority ... She rids herself of the "oughts" and "musts" that convert every minor infraction into a sin of omission or commission. It certainly does not occur to her or to her family that by questioning the moral standards she erected as a child she is taking the first steps in her journey toward a firmer, more reasonable, less harsh, more ethical form of conscience. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

Adolescence is the time to enlarge the natural sentiments of pity, friendship, and generosity, the time to develop an understanding of human nature and the varieties of human character, the time to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of all men and to study the history of mankind. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

Actually, I think that 'Seinfeld' tackles the same kinds of issues as 'Six Feet Under,' just in a different way. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

Gratitude isn't just a feeling, it's an action. Expressing gratitude by writing in a journal, taking a photo, or shooting a video creates a lasting impression that can bring more gratitude into the world-for children and adults. ~ Janice Kaplan

Instead of trying to tailor the disease to fit his medicine, Kaplan learned to tailor his medicine to fit the right disease. This simple principle--the meticulous matching of a particular therapy to a particular form and stage of cancer--would eventually be given its due merit in cancer therapy. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

Hungary shares more than it may like to admit with its former Warsaw Pact allies Romania and Bulgaria. Fischer explained that despite its economic progress, Hungary still cannot easily escape its past: ~ Robert D. Kaplan

My mother couldn't take having three boys. She was extremely jumpy, to say the least. Any noise startled her. The sound of a pot dropping on the ground could make her hit the ceiling. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

His own deism allowed for a God who, having made the world, having made the world, did not participate in the working out of its ends, whose management of human destiny only inherited in his allowing the patterns and values established by His will to work themselves out in human affairs. Lincoln's response to his own question is to change his tone and focus. ~ Fred Kaplan

He thought she might understand that you couldn't cure the throbbing of loss with reunion--you might only make it beat harder and hotter. ~ Hester Kaplan