Nordlinger Quotes & Sayings

But the real reasons why scientists promote accommodationism are more self-serving. To a large extent, American scientists depend for their support on the American public, which is largely religious, and on the U.S. Congress, which is equally religious. (It's a given that it's nearly impossible for an open atheist to be elected to Congress, and at election time candidates vie with one another to parade their religious belief.) Most researchers are supported by federal grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, whose budgets are set annually by Congress. To a working scientist, such grants are a lifeline, for research is expensive, and if you don't do it you could lose tenure, promotions, or raises. Any claim that science is somehow in conflict with religion might lead to cuts in the science budget, or so scientists believe, thus endangering their professional welfare. — Jerry A. Coyne

So much of contemporary liberalism seems to be never having grown up. — Jay Nordlinger

National Review once opined, many years ago, that, every year, the Nobel peace prize should go to the U.S. secretary of defense: The American military is the number-one guarantor of peace in the world. But maybe something like a Nobel freedom prize would be a more appropriate award for Reagan than a peace prize. — Jay Nordlinger

I've been fortunate in that I've been forced to move from zone to zone. — Joseph Jarman

Regarding The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: The Music Man (for which Willson also wrote the lyrics) is an astonishing creation. It came in a spurt of brilliance. It is shot through with originality, verve, and-why not go all the way?-genius. People love it, can't get enough of it, can't stop performing it-and they are not wrong. For closing in on a half- century now, The Music Man has been performed continually, in every American city, town, and village, and in other parts of the world as well, not excluding Peking. — Meredith Willson

Nuclear weapons are to be worried about only when they're in the hands of Ronald Reagan - not so much when they're in the hands of a Third World anti-imperialist like Saddam Hussein. Can't you see? — Jay Nordlinger

Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, 'I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again? — Margaret Maron

Regarding the current Broadway revival of The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: There will always be those who sniff that the show is "feel good"-but, oh, it feels good to feel good. And the main reason The Music Man feels so good is that it is good-a great American musical. — Meredith Willson

It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The Thoroughly Disgraceful Life & Times of Willie Donaldson. — Jay Nordlinger

With varying vanities, from ev'ry part, They shift the moving Toyshop of their heart; 100 Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive. — Alexander Pope

Let movement go on, and the condition of rest will gradually arise. — Lao-Tzu

Yesterday, I tried to call Northwest Airlines' customer-service line over a couple of hours. I couldn't get through. The recording said, "Due to a high volume of calls" Well, you could put it that way - "Due to a high volume of calls". Or you could say, "Due to an insufficient number of employees ... " — Jay Nordlinger

I wanted to create my own world, a world full of color, where everyone could play. One big party that never ends. — Michael Alig

History does not have sides, although historians do. — Jay Nordlinger