Hersh Quotes & Sayings

Grab whom you must. Do what you want. — Seymour Hersh

MP3's are perfect. — Kristin Hersh

Before you can make good music, you just have to shut up. Then the music can say what it has to say. — Kristin Hersh

We're going to be really ashamed of ourselves when this whole story about Guantanamo comes out. Guantanamo is a really depraved place ... — Seymour Hersh

The National Security Adviser is supposed to be an arbiter of policy and open minded in internal debates. But the playing field was never balanced. It was always tilted toward Rumsfeld's position, which is obviously the same as Bush's. — Seymour Hersh

I would go to radio stations and they were supposed to be interviewing me and playing my record and they would say, We're playing too many women right now, we can't play your record. — Kristin Hersh

I felt like it was a great secret when I found out that I could be in my 30s. — Kristin Hersh

I don't like what the radio plays for the most part. — Kristin Hersh

If you're the band leader you ask more of yourself than anyone else, so they tend to raise the bar for me. — Kristin Hersh

And then, of course, Bush won reelection, with everything out there, all of our complaints, all of the issues, all of the troubles with Iraq. So where are we? Bush certainly sees himself as having been given an endorsement. He was asked about accountability in an interview, about why Rumsfeld, Rice, and Wolfowitz have been promoted, these people who led us into the debacle in Iraq. Bush said there was accountability - it was the election. So there we are. — Seymour Hersh

The neoconservatives are a small circle, and they're all sort of holding hands as they develop their policy, and outsiders aren't allowed. If you agree with the guys on the inside, you're a genius. If you disagree, you're a traitor, a pariah, you're an apostate, and you're not allowed in. — Seymour Hersh

They are people who, by and large, think the Administration's policy - and the Iranian case is a classic one - is very stupid. They can't get that view in, and so by talking to me, they accomplish something. It's a way of saying, this ought to be discussed, we got to get this out. That's a form of patriotism, in a funny way. — Seymour Hersh

Nixon clearly broke the law in the cover up of Watergate and hush money payments. That was all criminal activity. With these guys, we're not talking about the kind of common crimes that Nixon committed. I can't tell you whether they are technically breaking the law, but basically, the American government has been hijacked by neoconservatives. They are taking an awful lot of national security operations into the White House. — Seymour Hersh

Popular music sucks so bad right now. — Kristin Hersh

Imagine 100 book bags, each of which contains 1,000 poker chips. Forty-five bags contain 700 black chips and 300 red chips. The other 55 bags contain 300 black chips and 700 red chips. You cannot see inside any of the bags. One of the bags is selected at random by means of a coin toss. Consider the following two questions about the selected book bag. 1. What probability would you assign to the event that the selected bag contains predominantly black chips? 2. Now imagine that 12 chips are drawn, with replacement, from the selected bag. These twelve draws produce 8 blacks and 4 reds. Would you use the new information about the drawing of chips to revise your probability that the selected bag contains predominantly black chips? If so, what new probability would you assign? — Hersh Shefrin

you, but how do you feel about me?" he wondered. — Joseph Hersh

In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation. It isn't happening now, but I will tell you, there has never been an American army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq. — Seymour Hersh

We didn't really swallow much of the Jesus thing, but we got the vocab. — Kristin Hersh

I have to play as much of the game as I allow myself to get the music heard. But it's not unlike the rest of the world, so I'm not as up in arms about it as I could be. — Kristin Hersh

I say openly that I am an anti-war person, with the point being, show me some reason not to be against this war. You have to be sort of asleep at the switch not to be critical of it. And the parallel between one quagmire we went through in Vietnam and the one we're in now is clear for everybody to see. — Seymour Hersh

No drug is a cure, though. Drugs are just big pieces of tape they stick over warning lights. — Kristin Hersh

The idea of photographing an Arab man naked and having him simulate homosexual activity, and having an American GI woman in the photographs, is the end of society in their eyes. — Seymour Hersh

free." On the edge of town, Fitzgerald saw a sight "that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] in its fist.II The other distorted forms lay where they had fallen, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two. He had fought alone and, like many others that night, he had died alone. "I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did."34 — Stephen E. Ambrose

I don't know whether God talks to him or whether he's trying to undo what his father did. But he believes in the mission. The body bags aren't going to deter him. Public dissent isn't going to deter him. He's going to go ahead. And that's more frightening. — Seymour Hersh

You have to follow every melodic line, every emotional idea, or you don't get your money's worth. — Kristin Hersh

If Americans thought music and art belonged together, they wouldn't have the Grammys. — Kristin Hersh

To do it nationally or internationally, you have to follow a few more rules. — Kristin Hersh

Journalism is a great profession. It's complicated now. People talk about the demise of investigative reporting. I was a judge in some award contest recently, and the stuff that is being done by major newspapers, and local, regional papers around the country, is great. Newspapers play an amazing role in our society, and I still think they are important. I'm sorry newspaper circulation is down. Ultimately, the importance of newspapers can't be replaced. — Seymour Hersh

Nirvana was pop. You can have distorted guitars and people say it's alternative, but you can't break out of pop music's constructs and still get extensive radio play and media coverage. — Kristin Hersh

Good taste - that's all you really need when you're playing an instrument. — Kristin Hersh

Seeing with your heart, speaking from your heart, wearing your heart on your sleeve, and sacrificing for your heart will transform you into an extravagant lover. Hard work? Absolutely. But when you're an old woman at the end of your life and you evaluate your time on earth, I believe that there is only one question- beyond that of your salvation- that will really matter: Did I love well? — Sharon A. Hersh

Men are allowed to write songs about people and women are allowed to write songs about women. — Kristin Hersh

I grew up in a commune where no one considered me female, particularly. — Kristin Hersh

We need a day of the dead. That's a perfect celebration. — Kristin Hersh

I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. — Seymour Hersh

I can tell you one thing: It doesn't matter what the American people think. There's going to be an awful lot more body bags. — Seymour Hersh

Having a financial adviser enables the investor to carry a psychological call option. If the investment decision turns out well, the investor takes the credit, and if it turns out badly, the regret can be lowered by blaming the adviser. — Hersh Shefrin

I guess I'll just slip into the studio after the next time with the Muses, and then just keel over and die. — Kristin Hersh

I have a theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves. — Seymour Hersh

It's shades of Vietnam again, folks: body counts. — Seymour Hersh

Where would we in Washington and we in America be without the Center? We would know much less about the workings of our Congress, and our tax dollars. We would know much less about the powers of the Executive, and its ability to hide wrong doing behind secrecy and classification. The Center takes the notion of integrity very seriously, and its investigations are a model for today's good journalism and, we all hope, an inspiration for the mainstream press to do more. — Seymour Hersh

You started with a broken heart and blamed everyone you met after that for breaking it. — Kristin Hersh

Most of the younger people I knew didn't seem to have a handle on things; they hadn't found their place, they didn't understand how the world works, they didn't understand how to treat other people, and they didn't know how to stop thinking about themselves. — Kristin Hersh

The funny thing is, this is what everyone assumes, that anybody who talks has an axe to grind. I've been around a long time, and yes, there obviously are people who disagree with policy who talk to me, but it's less axes to grind than people who are really motivated. One of the terrible things about this Administration is that nobody wants to hear bad news. — Seymour Hersh

When we fail, we cut the string. Then God ties it up again, making a knot and thereby bringing us a little closer to Him. Again and again our failures cut the string, and with each additional knot God keeps drawing us closer and closer. — Sharon A. Hersh

The songs keep on writing themselves, and I really love them. It's as close as I get to a religion. — Kristin Hersh

With a metal heart
I came to this life,
My head was a crucible, full of elixir.
Pearl by pearl
My heart was poured,
Drop by drop
My head was splashed.
The world was entirely a magnet. — Hersh Saeed

The reality is that Qaddafi has been trying to talk to us about his weapons system for years, and we ignored him. The Libyans even came to me about two years ago and offered me a chance to go through their facilities because they couldn't get anybody's attention here. — Seymour Hersh

We'd be better off if the whole purpose of the adventure in Iraq was, say, to protect Israel or to protect the flow of oil to America and keep it at a reasonable price and try to get some more control. If it was about oil, going into Iraq, I guess, could have made sense. But at a certain point, when the insurgency began and we were in real trouble, there would have been some awareness that we were going to jeopardize the oil. — Seymour Hersh

I don't mind what the market is, but why is it vapid? If they're such a bunch of idiots, why don't you show them good music instead? They're not going to know the difference. — Kristin Hersh

The general assumption, which I think is a valid one, is that a lot of the major media were on their heels a little bit and prone to share the grief of the nation and to give Bush all the support it could. — Seymour Hersh

The government of Brazil had publicly proposed brokering a settlement between the United States and Cuba; Raskin, never afraid to speak his mind, suggested that the White House consider the offer. "Oh, no," Bundy said. "It'll take just one detachment and he'll be out of there. — Seymour M. Hersh

My brother and I were meditating before we were 6 years old, having to stare at the wall and chant. — Kristin Hersh

I've always chosen my band members based on their sense of humor. It might sound stupid, but it means not only are they fun to live with on a tour bus for years, but humor implies intelligence. — Kristin Hersh

My parents didn't treat me as if there was anything in the world I couldn't do, except be unkind. — Kristin Hersh

That's my dream job, to be able to mail songs out to people who want to hear them. Paste my face on them and not travel all over the world trying to sell them. — Kristin Hersh

It doesn't matter that Bush scares the hell out of me. What matters is that he scares the hell out of a lot of very important people in Washington who can't speak out, in the military, in the intelligence community. — Seymour Hersh

Similarly, the press never tested many of the assumptions about WMDs. One of the great myths about the WMD issue is that everybody believed Iraq had them. Well, that's not true. There were a number of people in the intelligence community and the State Department who were skeptical, and many analysts in the Department of Energy were dubious about Iraq's nuclear capability. There were also people like Scott Ritter who were saying quite accurately what was going on. — Seymour Hersh

The songs become the show, which is how it should be. — Kristin Hersh

I don't have the inclinations that other people seem to have as far as the business is concerned. — Kristin Hersh

Reality looks much more obvious in hindsight than in foresight. People who experience hindsight bias misapply current hindsight to past foresight. They perceive events that occurred to have been more predictable before the fact than was actually the case. — Hersh Shefrin

I'm beginning to think I have two years encountering sexism without really realising it. — Kristin Hersh

I'm a better American than 99% of the guys in the White House. — Seymour Hersh

Essentially Rumsfeld wins, Cheney wins, and the CIA and State Department lose. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have more centralized control over intelligence, analysis, and operations than ever before. And the way they interpret the law, if the President authorizes an intelligence mission to be run covertly by the Pentagon, they don't have to tell anybody, including Congress, about it because the President is the commander in chief. — Seymour Hersh

And Kristin Hersh made total sense on 4AD. There was something wide-eyed and extraordinary about her, something emotional and visceral, something basic and yet complex. — Martin Aston

The issue, then, is not, What is the best way to teach? but, What is mathematics really all about? ... Controversies about ... teaching cannot be resolved without confronting problems about the nature of mathematics. — Reuben Hersh

If Bush had gone into Iraq for cynical reasons, we could cut our losses now. What's frightening is that he did it for ideological reasons, and therefore he's not going to get out. So it isn't ultimately about oil or about Israel, it's about a belief. — Seymour Hersh

Few knew in 2000 that Bush was going to end up with neoconservatives all over the place. And once 9/11 happened, I think it's fair to say that eight or nine neocons have had an enormous influence. The whole solution to every problem was to go after Iraq. This had been a neoconservative mantra for ten years. There was no secret about it. — Seymour Hersh

We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. — Seymour Hersh

Now I know I'll never be numb again. A mother is condemned to feel everything forever. And I'm finally afraid, condemned to fear everything forever. But that makes sense: feel someone else's pain, feel someone else's everything.
And he's my baby, so everything's okay. — Kristin Hersh

I'm worried about people who say Bush is lying. It's much more frightening that he's not lying, that he believes what he believes: that it's his mission to change the Middle East into a democracy. That's more unnerving. — Seymour Hersh

I don't like the idea of famous people. — Kristin Hersh

Bush can talk about 100,000 people wanting to go work in the police or in the army. It's because there's nothing else for them to do. They're willing to stand in line to get bombed because they want to take care of their family. — Seymour Hersh