John McWhorter Quotes

As a linguist, I see the arbitrariness of strictures editors force on me as a writer.

John McWhorter

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Quotes to Explore

• Elvis was a big influence to my music, but Loretta Lynn was, as well.

  

  Tanya Tucker
  • Music
  • Influence
  • Big

• We know the threats - from global terrorist networks to the spread of deadly weapons. Yet we also know that embedded in this time of danger is the promise of a new day, if we have the courage and commitment to work together.

  

  Valerie Jarrett
  • Time
  • Work
  • Together

• Snowden grants that NSA employees by and large believe in their mission and trust the agency to handle the secrets it takes from ordinary people - deliberately, in the case of bulk records collection, and 'incidentally,' when the content of American phone calls and e-mails are swept into NSA systems along with foreign targets.

  

  Barton Gellman
  • People
  • Believe
  • American

• My grandma would say if someone else calls you a hillbilly, you might need to punch them in the nose. But if we call ourselves hillbillies, it's a sort of a term of endearment, something that we have co-opted.

  

  J. D. Vance
  • You
  • Someone
  • Grandma

• The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.

  

  Natan Sharansky
  • Money
  • Power
  • Peace

• Growing up, I thought I was going to be Madonna. I wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to dance and sing.

  

  Natalie Maines
  • Up
  • Growing
  • Star

• There can be a lot of mind games going on between the players. When you're about to serve, people will try to throw you off your rhythm by taking a walk. If you're tired, you can't show that at all to an opponent.

  

  Rajiv Ouseph
  • People
  • Mind
  • Tired

• So an autobiography about death should include, in my case, an account of European Jewry and of Russian and Jewish events - pogroms and flights and murders and the revolution that drove my mother to come here.

  

  Harold Brodkey
  • Mother
  • Death
  • Revolution

• Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Time
  • Wrong
  • Even

• The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.

  

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
  • Words
  • Sense
  • Misunderstood

• Anything I wanted to do and achieve has not been influential in my life, but my failures have.

  

  Imtiaz Ali
  • Life
  • My Life
  • Achieve

• Weapons of mass destruction violate more than individual lives - they cross international borders and jeopardize all people. They also drain resources that could be used instead for medicines, schools and other life-saving supplies. We must come together with even greater determination to prevent a WMD nightmare.

  

  Ban Ki-moon
  • People
  • Life
  • Together

• Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.

  

  Walter Savage Landor
  • Men
  • Lose
  • Direction

• The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.

  

  Pankaj Mishra
  • People
  • Good
  • American

• I'm a big fan of David Attenborough, who I think is the most adventurous of the nature program presenters.

  

  Oona Chaplin
  • Nature
  • Think
  • Big

• My mouth ain't no prayer book.

  

  Zell Miller
  • Book
  • Prayer

• What rights are those that dare not resist for them?

  

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

• I opened Union Square Cafe when I was just 27 years old, and my first hope was simply that it would stay in business. My higher hope was that in its lifetime, it might grow to play an essential role in the lives of its stakeholders.

  

  Danny Meyer
  • Business
  • Hope

• So many shows out there dumb-down the country. It's so admirable to be part of a show that wants people to think.

  

  David Krumholtz
  • People
  • Country
  • Dumb

• Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard.

  

  Pope John Paul II
  • Time
  • World
  • History

• A lot of times, when you have a story of minorities in America, it's always this super, oppositional thing. It's segregation, it's the racism, and those are the hard facts of the story.

  

  Margot Lee Shetterly
  • America
  • Racism

• All of the points that Professor Lepore raised were not just wrong, but they were lies. Ours is the only theory in business that actually has been tested in the marketplace over and over again. ... And for her to take that on, to take me on and the theory on – I don't know where the meanness came from.

  

  Clayton M. Christensen
  • Business
  • Lies

• As a linguist, I see the arbitrariness of strictures editors force on me as a writer.

  

  John McWhorter