Kristof Quotes & Sayings

At some point, extra incomes don't go to sate desires but to attempt to buy status through 'positional goods' - like the hottest car on the block. The problem is that there can only be one hottest car on the block. — Nicholas Kristof

More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides in six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. — Nicholas D. Kristof

The ice bucket challenge went viral in 2014, partly because it was so much fun to watch videos of celebrities or friends dumping ice water on their heads. Videos of people in the challenge have been watched more than 10 billion times on Facebook - more than once per person on the planet. — Nicholas Kristof

I know this might be breaking news to Nicholas Kristof, but guns being 'more lethal than anything else you have around' is sort of the whole point. The issue should not really be the lethality of the gun, but the but the psychology of the person holding it. — Glenn Beck

In effect, Saudi Arabia legitimizes fundamentalism, religious discrimination, intolerance and the oppression of women. Saudi women not only can't drive, but are also told by some clerics that they mustn't wear seatbelts for fear of showing the outlines of their bodies. — Nicholas Kristof

Conservatives highlight the primacy of family and argue that family breakdown exacerbates poverty, and they're right. Children raised by single parents are three times as likely to live in poverty as kids in two-parent homes. — Nicholas Kristof

The conflict in Darfur could escalate to where we're seeing 100,000 victims per month. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Zimbabwe has far fewer tourists than South Africa or Kenya, and there's less crime as well. — Nicholas Kristof

We tie ourselves in knots when we act as if democracy is good for the United States and Israel but not for the Arab world. For far too long, we've treated the Arab world as just an oil field. — Nicholas D. Kristof

A politically incorrect point must be noted here. Of the countries where women are held back and subjected to systematic abuses such as honor killings and genital cutting, a very large proportion are predominately Muslim. Most Muslims worldwide don't believe in such practices ... but the fact remains that the countries where girls are cut, killer for honor, or kept out of school or the workplace typically have large Muslim populations. — Nicholas D. Kristof

I think humanitarian organizations should acknowledge the progress more than they do. I think that one reason people are reluctant to provide more help to Africa, for example, is this sense that it's just hopeless, in a way that I think is untrue. — Nicholas Kristof

Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax. — Nicholas Kristof

Moral voices can also become sanctimonious bullies. — Nicholas Kristof

The great divide is not between faiths, but one between intolerant zealots of any tradition and the large numbers of decent, peaceful believers likewise found in each tradition. — Nicholas Kristof

It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase "the American dream."
The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn't fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Sandy was particularly destructive because it was prevented from moving back out to sea by a "blocking pattern" associated with the jet stream. There's debate about this, but one recent study suggested that melting sea ice in the Arctic may lead to such blocking. — Nicholas D. Kristof

In 2013, 71 percent of black children in America were born to an unwed mother, as were 53 percent of Hispanic children and 36 percent of white children. Indeed, a single parent is the new norm. — Nicholas Kristof

Death will obliterate everything soon — Agota Kristof

The world spends $40 billion a year on pet food. — Nicholas D. Kristof

I think humanitarians really feel very awkward and embarrassed about marketing, but it really doesn't matter whether a shampoo gets better marketing. It does matter when a famine or a huge crisis is - oh - well, I hate to use the word 'marketed' better but, you know, is publicized in a way that will be more effective. — Nicholas Kristof

Since the end of the 1970s, something has gone profoundly wrong in America. Inequality has soared. Educational progress slowed. Incarceration rates quintupled. Family breakdown accelerated. Median household income stagnated. — Nicholas Kristof

Maternal health generally gets minimal attention because those who die or suffer injuries overwhelmingly start with three strikes against them: They are female, they are poor, and they are rural. Women are marginalized in the developing world, They are an expendable commodity. — Nicholas D. Kristof

If only meat weren't so delicious! Sure, meat may pave the way to a heart attack. Yes, factory farms torture animals. Indeed, producing a single hamburger patty requires more water than two weeks of showers. But for those of us who are weak-willed, there's nothing like a juicy burger. — Nicholas Kristof

I think we need to rethink a lot of business skills. In finance, for example, social impact bonds are potentially a way of providing capital for investments that save the public money in a context in which government often doesn't invest in things that would save it money. — Nicholas Kristof

Remember that disadvantage is less about income than environment. The best metrics of child poverty aren't monetary, but rather how often a child is read to or hugged. — Nicholas Kristof

There are 2-3 millions prostitutes in India, and although many of them now sell sex to some degree willingly, and are paid, a significant share of them entered the sex industry unwillingly. — Nicholas D. Kristof

I suspect unconscious bias has been far more of a factor for President Obama than overt racism and will also be a challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president again. — Nicholas Kristof

Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake. — Nicholas D. Kristof

In talking about misogyny and gender-based violence, it would be easy to slip into the conceit that men are the villains. But it's not true. Granted, men are often brutal to women. Yet it is women who routinely manage brothels in poor countries, who ensure that their daughter's genitals are cut, who feed sons before daughters, who take their sons but not their daughters to clinics for vaccination. — Nicholas D. Kristof

In general, talking about human rights tends to be very persuasive for people who care about human rights. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Half a million women die each year around the world in pregnancy. It's not biology that kills them so much as neglect. — Nicholas D. Kristof

One of the aims of higher education is to broaden perspectives, and what better way than by a home stay in a really different country, like Bangladesh or Senegal? Time abroad also leaves one more aware of the complex prism of suspicion through which the United States is often viewed. — Nicholas Kristof

Most studies find that each murder in America leads to costs of between $10 million and $12 million, including police and prison bills and social services for families of victims and perpetrators. The University of Chicago Crime Lab calculates that gun violence costs every Chicago household about $2,500 a year. Crime — Nicholas D. Kristof

I went back to the women and said, 'Tell me exactly what you want us to do.' And they said, 'Don't do anything for us, do something
for our children'. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Just a little help, a small security force, a bit of food, can save lives. — Nicholas D. Kristof

America's education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next. — Nicholas Kristof

Don't be sentimental. Everything dies — Agota Kristof

In the wealthy countries of the West, discrimination is usually a matter of unequal pay or underfunded sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss. In contrast, in much of the world discrimination is lethal. — Nicholas D. Kristof

If the U.S. wants to help people in tsunami-hit countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia - not to mention other poor countries in Africa - there's one step that would cost us nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives. It would be to allow DDT in malaria-ravaged countries. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Our eyes met and his grin stretched another quarter-inch. Another schoolgirl flip
followed by a very un-schoolgirl wave of heat. He leaned even farther over the boards, lips parting to say something.
"Hey, Kris!" someone yelled behind him. "If you want to flirt with Eve, tell her to meet you in the penalty box. You'll be back there soon enough. — Kelley Armstrong

My take is that the optimal approach to food, for health and ethical reasons, may be vegetarianism. — Nicholas Kristof

Ben Affleck exec-produced a documentary for HBO called 'Reporter' about my 2007 win-a-trip journey. I take the trip each year partly to encourage young people to think about global humanitarian issues: I think blogs by a student may be more compelling for that audience than my own work. — Nicholas Kristof

She may hide it, but Clinton is a policy nerd. Ask about microfinance, and she'll talk your ear off. Mention early childhood interventions, and she will gush about obscure details of a home visitation experiment in Elmira, N.Y., that dramatically improved child outcomes. — Nicholas Kristof

When a prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were routinely kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn't even consider it news. Partly that is because we journalists tend to be good at covering events that happen on a particular day, but we slip at covering events that happen every day - such as the quotidian cruelties inflicted on women and girls. We journalists weren't the only ones who dropped the ball on this subject: Less than 1 percent of U.S. foreign aid is specifically targeted to women and girls. — Nicholas D. Kristof

The thing that I hate is that Nicholas Kristof style of writing where it's like, "I saw the poor, they made me so sad. What can I do about sadness? I am so brave." It's just like, shut up, man, shut up. — Molly Crabapple

Utah may well be the most cosmopolitan state in America. Vast numbers of young Mormons - increasingly women as well as men - spend a couple of years abroad as missionaries and return jabbering in Thai or Portuguese and bearing a wealth of international experience. — Nicholas Kristof

Most of the villagers were hiding in the bush, where they were dying from bad water, malaria and malnutrition. — Nicholas D. Kristof

We believe an international women's movement needs to focus less on holding conventions or lobbying for new laws, and more time in places like rural Zimbabwe, listening to communities and helping them get their girls into school. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Some degree of prostitution will probably always be with us, but we need not acquiesce to widespread sexual slavery. — Nicholas D. Kristof

When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention. — Nicholas D. Kristof

The north of the Central African Republic is now a war zone, with rival armed bands burning villages, kidnapping children, robbing travelers and killing people with impunity. — Nicholas D. Kristof

I try to be careful about wording. One of the things I've tried to combat in my blog is the notion that journalists are arrogant and unconcerned with the readership. — Nicholas D. Kristof

My father, a refugee from Eastern Europe, was preparing a fraudulent marriage to an American citizen as a route to this country when he was sponsored, making fraud unnecessary. My wife's grandfather bought papers from another Chinese villager to be able to come to the United States. — Nicholas Kristof

It is better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none. — Nicholas D. Kristof

There's something to be said for CEOs' entering politics: In theory, they have management expertise and financial savvy. Then again, it didn't work so well with Dick Cheney. — Nicholas Kristof

For all Trump's criticisms of government, his family wealth came from feeding at the government trough. His father, Fred Trump, leveraged government housing programs into a construction business; the empire was founded on public money. — Nicholas Kristof

There could be a powerful international women's rights movement if only philanthropists would donate as much to real women as to paintings and sculptures of women. — Nicholas D. Kristof

On our way home we throw the apples, the biscuits, the chocolate and the coins in the tall grass by the roadside. It is impossible to throw away the stroking on our hair — Agota Kristof

Saudi Arabia isn't the enemy, but it is a problem. It could make so much positive difference in the Islamic world if it used its status to soothe Sunni-Shiite tensions and encourage tolerance. For a time, under King Abdullah, it seemed that the country was trying to reform, but now under King Salman, it has stalled. — Nicholas Kristof

Imagine the outcry if the Pakistani or Indian governments were burning women alive at those rates. Yet when the government is not directly involved people shrug. — Nicholas D. Kristof

I took a gap year myself after high school and worked on a farm near Lyon, France. I stayed with the Vallet family, picked and packed fruit, and discovered that red wine can be a breakfast drink. That led to further travel as a university student. — Nicholas Kristof

In Angola, I visited 'HeroRats' that have been trained to sniff out land mines (and, in some countries, diagnose tuberculosis). In a day, they can clear 20 times as much of a minefield as a human, and they work for bananas! — Nicholas Kristof

Too often, I believe, liberals deny that poverty is linked to bad choices. — Nicholas Kristof

Environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. — Nicholas D. Kristof

In the long struggle against sex trafficking, we finally have a breakthrough! — Nicholas D. Kristof

Neither Western donor countries like the U.S. nor poor recipients like Cameroon care much about Africans who are poor, rural and female. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Purely altruistic behavior is pretty much impossible because of the selfish pleasures we derive from it. — Nicholas Kristof

20. The day she graduated from college, Keegan told her mother that she was especially proud of her Yale Daily News article "Even Artichokes Have Doubts," which went on to be adapted for the New York Times and discussed on NPR. When The Opposite of Loneliness was first published in April 2014, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, "Keegan was right to prod us all to reflect on what we seek from life, to ask these questions, to recognize the importance of passions as well as paychecks - even if there are no easy answers." As Keegan reminds other young people that "we can do something really cool to this world" (p. 200), what points does she emphasize? What counterarguments might she have considered more specifically? Do you share her concern about where so many top young graduates take their first jobs? Do you worry that you need to compromise your own dreams for practical concerns? Why or why not? — Marina Keegan

In India, a "bride burning"-- to punish a woman for inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry-- takes place approximately once every two hours, but rarely constitute news. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Beware of generalizations about any faith because they sometimes amount to the religious equivalent of racial profiling. Hinduism contained both Gandhi and the fanatic who assassinated him. — Nicholas Kristof

One of the things that really got to me was talking to parents who had been burned out of their villages, had family members killed, and then when men showed up at the wells to get water, they were shot. — Nicholas D. Kristof

My walls no longer protect me. They never protected me. Their solidity is mere illusion, their whiteness is stained — Agota Kristof

The bulk of the emails tend to come after a column. I can get about 2,000 after a column. — Nicholas D. Kristof

You no more have the right to risk others by failing to vaccinate than you do by sending your child to school with a hunting knife. Vaccination isn't a private choice but a civic obligation. — Nicholas Kristof

Every year 3.1 million Indian children die before the age of 5, mostly from diseases of poverty like diarrhea. — Nicholas D. Kristof

It is so much easier to try to help a six-month-old child or a six-year-old child than it is a 16-year-old troubled kid. — Nicholas Kristof

In America, we have subsidized private jets, big banks and hedge fund managers. Wouldn't it make more sense to subsidize kids? — Nicholas Kristof

The Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine, is in northwestern India near the Pakistani border, and it is a delightful place to contemplate the draw of faith. — Nicholas Kristof

There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Gays and lesbians began to gain civil rights when Americans realized that their brothers, cousins, daughters were gay. — Nicholas Kristof

Most of the time in America, we're surrounded by oppressive inequality such that the wealthiest 1 percent collectively own substantially more than the bottom 90 percent. One escape from that is America's wild places. — Nicholas Kristof

You don't want to fight the enemy anymore?"
"I don't want to fight anyone. I have no enemies. I want to go home. — Agota Kristof

It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century. More girls are killed in this routine "gendercide" in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth century. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Of all the things that people do in the name of God, killing a girl because she doesn't bleed on her wedding night is among the most cruel. Yet the hymen
fragile, rarely seen, and pretty pointless
remains an object of worship among many religions and societies around the world ... it is frequently worth more than a human life. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Doesn't it seem odd that your cellphone can be set up to require a PIN or a fingerprint, but there's no such option for a gun? — Nicholas Kristof

2If you love kids; if you love kids with grit; and above all, if you want to make a difference, back programs that inspire children to realize that they can grow up to be more than pawns. — Nicholas D. Kristof And Sheryl WuDunn

As soon as I was old enough to drive, I got a job at a local newspaper. There was someone who influenced me. He wrote a column for The Guardian from this tiny village in India. — Nicholas D. Kristof

The intelligence community is so vast that more people have top secret clearance than live in Washington. The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Every high school and college graduate in America should, I think, have some familiarity with statistics, economics and a foreign language such as Spanish. Religion may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context. — Nicholas Kristof

In Australia, they had never seen a single case of fistula; in Ethiopia, they encountered fistulas constantly. These are the women most to be pitied in the world. They're alone in the world, ashamed of their injuries. For lepers or AIDS victims, there are organizations that help. But nobody knows about these women or helps them. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Let me be clear: I'm a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service - and that's preposterous. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Photographs are still being taken but aren't being shown. There's one of a skeleton bound at the wrists with pants still around its ankles; if it was a woman, she was likely raped; if it was a man, he was possibly castrated. — Nicholas D. Kristof

One death is a tragedy, and a million deaths are a statistic. — Nicholas Kristof

Humans pull together in an odd way when they're in the wilderness. It's astonishing how few people litter and how much they help one another. Indeed, the smartphone app to navigate the Pacific Crest Trail, Halfmile, is a labor of love by hikers who make it available as a free download. — Nicholas Kristof

More girls were killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men killed in all the wars in the 20th century. More girls are killed in this routine gendercide in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.
The equivalent of 5 jumbo jets worth of women die in labor each day ... life time risk of maternal death is 1,000x higher in a poor country than in the west. That should be an international scandal. — Nicholas D. Kristof

In many poor countries, the problem is not so much individual thugs and rapists but an entire culture of sexual predation. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Rescuing girls from brothels is the easy part, however. The challenge is keeping them from returning. The stigma that girls feel in their communities after being freed, coupled with drug dependencies or threats from pimps, often lead to return to the re-light district. — Nicholas D. Kristof

And death hasn't come. It never does come when you call it. It enjoys torturing us. I've been calling for it for years and it pays me no attention — Agota Kristof

It is easier to give than to receive, is that it? Pride is a sin, Father — Agota Kristof

So was it cultural imperialism for Westerners to criticize foot-binding and female infanticide? Perhaps. But it was also the right thing to do. If we believe firmly in certain values, such as the equality of all human beings regardless of color or gender, then we should not be afraid to stand up for them; it would be feckless to defer slavery, torture, foot-binding, honor killings, or genital cutting just because we believe in respecting other faiths or cultures. — Nicholas D. Kristof And Sheryl WuDunn