Shapiro Quotes & Sayings

Bad presidents don't deserve holidays. They deserve scorn. — Ben Shapiro

I was doing a lot of yoga and learning to meditate, and I found that extremely helpful, and still do and hopefully always will. — Dani Shapiro

I believe that sitting naked across from your adversary in a steam room makes negotiations more productive. — David Shapiro

The vast majority of murdered whites are murdered by other whites. That's why there's no national outrage when a white person is killed by a black person: it's not evidence of some underlying black violence problem directed against white people. — Ben Shapiro

Selective Biblical quotation is a favorite of leftists who interpret the Bible the same way they do the Constitution: as a Chinese menu designed to allow picking and choosing. That's because when many Democrats take the Bible as a whole, they realize how much they despise it. — Ben Shapiro

The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine the quality of the selves we imagine we are. The stories we tell about others determine the quality of our relationships with them. — Rami M. Shapiro

When I lived in the city, I had learned to close my door against a lot of the noise, but when I open my door here, I'm not opening into the possibility that I'm going to run into somebody or be faced with a hundred choices about what I'm going to do, or which cafe I'm going to go to, or which way to distract myself. — Dani Shapiro

The European style of living is seductive: fewer hours worked, more hours at the cafe, less concern over self-betterment. But that style of living does not produce a purposeful life. — Ben Shapiro

In short, I don't root against President Obama because I hate America. I root against President Obama because I hate his vision for America. — Ben Shapiro

I had spent my childhood and the better part of my early adulthood trying to understand my mother. She had been an extraordinarily difficult person, spiteful and full of rage, with a temper that could flare, seemingly out of nowhere, scorching everything and everyone who got in its way. [pp. 40-41] — Dani Shapiro

That's your job. To make something out of nothing. To pull together all the disparate threads: recruiting (with no money), fundraising (with no reputation), and delivering joy (with no product). You must fabricate the chicken and the egg. Simultaneously. — Dan Shapiro

Plays are about understanding what happens, what it means. If we just leaned into the story, for lack of a better word, it would still be a powerful story but, like delight, it might disappear an hour after you saw it. — Anna D. Shapiro

Despite the fact that he has run the most incompetent administration in history, President Obama remains a solid bet for re-election in 2012. Obama's frontrunner status springs from two crucial facts: first, by overexposing himself in the public eye, he has made himself larger than life; second, the Republican field is pathetically weak. — Ben Shapiro

First, my fear; then, my curtsy; last my speech. My fear is your displeasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. — James Shapiro

I cannot tell whether diamonds appeared in his eyes or mine as the shine of adoration became the icon one sees in history, a Byzantine sparkle, Medieval armor against all odds. — Alice Shapiro

Reading all my old love letters was disorienting. You remember thinking the thoughts and writing the words but, man, you can't TOUCH those feelings. Its like they belonged to someone else. Someone you don't even know. I'm aware, in an intellectual way. That I felt all those things about him, but this emotions are far away now.
What's so strange to me is that I can't even force my heart back to that place where I felt that all consuming passion. That makes me feel distant from myself. Who WAS I then? Will I ever be able to get back to that place? Reading the letters again made me wonder: Which is the real me? The one who saw the world in that emotionally saturated way, or the me who sees it the way I do now? — Bill Shapiro

Overt bigotry, Jim Crow laws and policies, government-mandated discrimination, and the belief in black inferiority have virtually disappeared. Laissez-faire racism, instead, involves persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans, a tendency to blame blacks for their own conditions, appeals to meritocracy, and resistance to meaningful policy efforts to ameliorate America's racist social conditions and institutions. Government is formally race neutral and committed to antidiscrimination, and most white Americans prefer a more volitional and cultural, as opposed to inherent and biological, interpretation of blacks' disadvantage status. — Thomas M. Shapiro

You must understand that if you indulge in revenge exclusively, it will come back to you, because those who are revenged upon - even if the whole world believes they deserve it - will in some way express exactly what was expressed towards them. Why perpetuate suffering, no matter how justified it may seem to be, if it only perpetuates suffering in the future for future generations? — Robert Shapiro

If you think there is anything in theater that objectively exists without your point of view attached, you are wrong. — Anna D. Shapiro

Write the words "The FIve Senses" on an index card and tack it to a bulletin board above your desk. You should have a bulletin board above your desk, if at all possible. Some place where you can tack images, quotes, postcards, scraps of thoughts and ideas that will help remind you of you you are and what you're doing. — Dani Shapiro

Optimal functioning of the immune system, it turns out, is dependent upon feeling good. — Marcey Shapiro

I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are the lot of every writer, no matter where we are in our careers. — Dani Shapiro

Too many Americans now believe that the checks they receive every month from the unemployment office - like the checks they get from the welfare office, from Medicare, from Social Security - are inalienable rights. They are not. — Ben Shapiro

I've always kept my word, and my clients have always kept their word. — Robert Shapiro

Al Gore had no problem taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the government of Qatar to sell his Current TV to Al Jazeera America. — Ben Shapiro

A Book of Glass
On the table, a book of glass. In the book only a few pages with no words But scratched in a diamond-point pencil to pieces in diagonal Spirals, light triangles; and a French curve fractures lines to
elisions.

The last pages are simplest. They can be read backwards and
thoroughly. Each page bends a bit like ludicrous plastic. He who wrote it was very ambitious, fed up, and finished. He had been teaching the insides and outsides of things

To children, teaching the art of Rembrandt to them. His two wives were beautiful and Death begins As a beggar beside them. What is an abstract persona? A painter visits but he prefers to look at perfume in vials.

And I see a book in glass - the words go off In wild loops without words. I should Wake and render them! In bed, Mother says each child Will receive the book of etchings, but the book will be
incomplete, after all.
But I will make the book of glass. — David Shapiro

Theater, for me, is no longer a conversation about how we destroy each other; it's much more about how we may be destroying everyone else. — Anna D. Shapiro

Our pain hides beneath these fluttering, random thoughts that run through our heads in an endless loop. But there's so much freedom in getting to know what's under there, the bedrock. — Dani Shapiro

...it feels as if mountain pose is the most challenging of all yoga poses. To be still. To be grounded. To claim one's place in the world. — Dani Shapiro

Race is not, and will not be an issue in this case. — Robert Shapiro

Can you tell me what the nature of this call is?" Angie again asks after giving the caller Andy's number. — R.N. Shapiro

I think there's something about a writer's disposition, that is, even if unaware, always slightly in a witness state. — Dani Shapiro

In my life as a wife and mother, I'm always conscious of my desire to be present. — Dani Shapiro

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.' — Dani Shapiro

I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away. The truth is in the present moment. The great paradox is that when I'm really able to do that, time slows down and opens up. Time feels suddenly and inexplicably without end. — Dani Shapiro

If we are artists- hell, whether or not we're artists- it is our job, our responsibility, perhaps even our sacred calling, to take whatever life has handed us and make something new, something that wouldn't have existed if not for the fire, the genetic mutation, the sick baby, the accident. — Dani Shapiro

I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider. — Dani Shapiro

Let's just say it and be done with it. Racing hurts. But here's another truth: having put in the effort to prepare for a race and then not giving it your all hurts even more. The first kind of hurt goes away in hours or a day. The second kind of hurt can last a lifetime. — Lawrence Shapiro

As a fiction writer, that's been a preoccupation of mine: Can you really just close the door and leave the past back there behind you, or is the door going to blow open at some point? — Dani Shapiro

The past affects the present even without our being aware of it. — Francine Shapiro

We all have a family and I think we all have a perception of our family that we like to keep and we all have our positive memories in a certain way. Then when life catches up to them, when you see a different perspective of them, or when you are a couple degrees over, you can see things differently and it shakes you to the foundation. — David Shapiro

The violation of press freedoms has been egregious under this administration, even as the press fetes President Obama as an honest and effective commander-in-chief. — Ben Shapiro

All the men in the photograph wear puttees. All the men in the picture are bound, trying to keep themselves together. That is how considerate they are, for the love of God and country and women and the other men
for the love of all that is good and true
they keep themselves together because they have to. They are afraid but they are not cowards. — Elena Mauli Shapiro

Having children truly ends adolescence. We are all either parents or children: responsibility-takers or those who demand from others. — Ben Shapiro

Our constitutionally-based criminal justice system places a high value on protecting the innocent. Among its central tenets is the idea that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to convict someone without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. — Robert Shapiro

No number of repairs will be able to fix Obamacare. The website is the least of Americans' worries. — Ben Shapiro

Our true spirit can never become diseased or distressed. — Marcey Shapiro

There is a central difference between the old and new economies: the old industrial economy was driven by economies of scale; the new information economy is driven by the economics of networks ... — Carl Shapiro

We secretly believe that if only we achieve some elusive goal - fitting into a pair of skinny jeans, or redoing our kitchen or getting that promotion - that it will make us happy. But the pain of our insecurity is hidden in all that racing around. — Dani Shapiro

I consider myself a pretty good extemporaneous speaker. Even though I don't like speaking in front of people, I don't think I'm bad at it. — Anna D. Shapiro

Here's what presidential candidate Mitt Romney said about Barack Obama: Barack Obama is not a very good President. He said Barack Obama doesn't do a very good job on the economy; he said that Obama's foreign policy has a lot of holes in it; he said Obama has done a pretty poor job across the board of working in bipartisan fashion. But, Romney added, Obama's a good guy. He's a good family man, a good husband, a man who believes in the basic principles espoused by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He is not someone you should be afraid of in any way. Essentially, Romney's campaign slogan was this: "Obama: Good Guy, Bad President. — Ben Shapiro

Our minds have a tendency to wander. To duck and feint and keep us at a slight remove from the moment at hand. — Dani Shapiro

I normally keep a series of draft in a catalogue type of book in which I scribble, sketch and draw ideas. — Jonathan Shapiro

I often envy my friends who are visual artists. Visual artists have other things to work with. Other media. I envy my sculptor friends: they have hunks of matter. Marble. Wood. It's physical, which I find very appealing. What we have is nothing, is just glaringly blank. — Dani Shapiro

The ouster of Jill Abramson as executive editor of 'The New York Times' sent shock waves through the media landscape. Reports that she was fired thanks in part to a soured relationship based on the 'Times' alleged sexist pay discrepancy only made those shock waves stronger. — Ben Shapiro

With the dramatic increase in ease of transportation and the incredible decrease in the amount of time required to travel between far-flung areas of the United States, representatives began spending more and more time in Washington and less and less time in their home districts. — Ben Shapiro

There was a teacher who recognized that I was interested in cartooning and he was great. — Jonathan Shapiro

The Obama administration has consistently refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli territory, let alone as the capital of Israel. — Ben Shapiro

President Obama has regularly granted special access to reporters who give him preferential coverage. — Ben Shapiro

Leisure time is only leisure time when it is earned; otherwise, leisure time devolves into soul-killing lassitude. There's a reason so many new retirees, freed from the treadmill of work, promptly keel over on the golf course: Work fulfills us. It keeps us going. — Ben Shapiro

People from the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles are starting to return home today. A natural gas well leak in the neighborhood has been permanently sealed. It had been releasing methane and other pollutants into the air for four months. Thousands of people have complained of respiratory illnesses and other problems. — Ari Shapiro

Gee, I am a complete Luddite when it comes to computers, I can barely log on! — Jonathan Shapiro

greatest films ever made originate largely in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s - a period when Hollywood worked — Ben Shapiro

The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the very instrument you're writing on is already tainted by the world out there in all its permutations. — Dani Shapiro

All works of nonfiction, or memoir, have to first and foremost be art before they can be true. They have to be artful first before they can be truthful... If you emphasize the truth-telling at the expense of art, nobody is going to be interested in it. And if you sacrifice truth in the name of art, you risk triviality. There's a constant balance between those two. — Alan Shapiro

Like every great writer before or since, Jonson understood that the best poets 'are both made and born'. That all great writing has to be hammered out and all great poets stand or fall by that 'second heat', their laboured revision. — James Shapiro

Moving to the country has been incredibly good for my work, for my sense of perspective. — Dani Shapiro

Organized religion is sane and not silly when read as myth and poetry rather than science and law. Religion speaks nonsense when taken literally, but reveals some of the deepest truths of humankind when understood mythically, poetically, and even allegorically-that is when it is read with an active and creative imagination. — Rami M. Shapiro

I'm getting less and less interested in the problems of youth. I'm much more interested in the idea of emotional paralysis, and I find myself less interested in work that doesn't have anything to do with a conversation about the world. — Anna D. Shapiro

We don't choose what's going to wake us up. — Dani Shapiro

The Left despises Texas, with its stellar record of job growth; Texas, with its strong support for traditional marriage and the sanctity of life; Texas, the root of the conservative tree. Should the Left succeed in its attempt to turn Texas purple, America could turn permanently blue. — Ben Shapiro

I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that being a writer was possible. — Dani Shapiro

In court, jurors are admonished by the judge at every recess not to discuss the case or form any opinions until the case is given to them for deliberations. Of course, there is no such limitation on the public. — Robert Shapiro

I'm not sure I have a role model per se, but I do deeply admire every woman who raises children and has to walk for water. — Anna D. Shapiro

Engaging each moment without reservation cuts through the illusion that things could be other than they are. — Rami M. Shapiro

The left knows this is war. And — Ben Shapiro

I'm a lawyer who, on occasion, represents celebrities. — Robert Shapiro

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. 'Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem.' This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: 'Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant.' — Ari Shapiro

In each of us there is internal knowledge, a gentle voice, beckoning us
toward well-being. It tells us to let go, to stay in the river of present experience, not to dam up our lives by worrying about potential futures or bemoaning past mistakes. — Marcey Shapiro

Technically, web browsers can control what users see, and sites using Javascript can overwrite anything coming from the original authors. Browsers heavily utilize Javascript to create an interactive Internet; sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail could be crippled without it. — Ben Shapiro

All this was lies. It was nasty, baseless, and ridiculous - there was far more evidence of anti-Semitism in the Occupy movement than there was evidence of racism within the Tea Party. But that didn't stop the media from trying. In fact, they and their friends tried so hard to label the Tea Party racist that they stooped to planting faux racists, including faux Nazis, at Tea Parties, just to gin up racial controversy. The Tea Parties threw the infiltrators out. — Ben Shapiro

Kids are fat because of lack of parenting. — Ben Shapiro

The story of Detroit's bankruptcy was simple enough: Allow capitalism to grow the city, campaign against income inequality, tax the job creators until they flee, increase government spending in order to boost employment, promise generous pension plans to keep people voting for failure. Rinse, wash and repeat. — Ben Shapiro

And the leftist bullies use that nonconstitutional phrase as a baton with which to club their opponents into submission. Jefferson's "wall of separation between Church & State," a phrase from his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, was meant not to prevent people from expressing religion in the public square but to prevent government from infringing on religious freedom. — Ben Shapiro

She cries in my arms and I try not to cry. We have never said "I love you" to each other, but it doesn't matter, I don't think. — David Shapiro

The fact is that most husbands, regardless of religion - it's an old-fashioned gender divide where the husband wants to stay home and the wife is the one who drags herself and her children to whatever spiritual center they're going to. — Dani Shapiro

There are truly only three situations in which debating someone on the left is worthwhile. First, you must: your grade depends on it, or your waiter threatens to spit in your food unless you tell him why same-sex marriage is a detriment to Western civilization. Second, you found an honest leftist actually willing to be convinced by solid argumentation. Congratulations! — Ben Shapiro

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor. — Dani Shapiro

When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel. — Dani Shapiro

The Obama administration has been curtailing press freedom - but that hasn't ended the press' drool-cup worship for their beloved president. — Ben Shapiro

Real-life teens wish they could live like the teens Hollywood promotes. Everyone has sex, and relationships are deep and meaningful, even if they only last a couple episodes. There are never any consequences to any action, except for experiencing the angst of teenage life alongside the characters. When a generation becomes desensitized to the ramifications of the culture around them, it's natural to seek out any sort of feeling, even angst. — Ben Shapiro

Capitalism requires individual responsibility and accountability. People are seen as atomized units in a capitalist system - they are either useful, or they are not. They are not seen racially or ethnically or religiously. They consume and they produce, and those are their only relevant characteristics. — Ben Shapiro

For those scientists who take it seriously, Darwinian evolution has functioned more as a philosophical belief system than as a testable scientific hypothesis. This quasi-religious function of the theory is, I think, what lies behind many of the extreme statements that you have doubtless encountered from some scientists opposing any critical analysis of neo-Darwinism in the classroom. It is also why many scientists make public statements about the theory that they would not defend privately to other scientists like me. — James A. Shapiro

The message we give our bodies - one of irritation or acceptance - is the message to which our bodies will answer. — Debbie Shapiro

A West Virginia 10 is a California 4. Or at least that's what legend tells us: The Legend of Dr. Feelgood. Plastic surgery has a permanent home here, which is why Nancy Pelosi loves our Botoxed beaches. Beverly Hills looks like a moving Madame Tussauds. — Ben Shapiro

Part of my spiritual work is learning to live with the knowledge that we can't protect our loved ones from pain and heartache. — Dani Shapiro

Calling is connection: Uncovering our calling is a deliberate choice to serve others and to make a difference in the world. Our calling is made manifest in service to others...it is paradoxical but true; we are more likely to receive the meaning and fulfillment we seek when we enable others to achieve the meaning and fulfillment they seek, as well. — David Shapiro

But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep. — Karl Shapiro

Once you shift your thoughts for the better, your world begins to shift with them. — Marcey Shapiro

The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty. — Dani Shapiro