George Packer Quotes
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I worked as a carpenter for a few years. I began writing. I wrote a book about my time in Africa - that came out in 1988 - called 'The Village of Waiting.'
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That's why I'm not on Twitter and don't have an iPhone. It's not because I'm superior to it: it's because I would be a slave to it, and I don't want that to happen.
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Putin stands for the opposite of a universal ideology; he has become an arch-nationalist of a pre-Cold War type, making mystic appeals to motherland and religion.
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The Olympics are never just about sports.
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The war in Afghanistan is not of a peace with the rest of Obama's worldview. It's a holdover from the era that his election was supposed to bring to a close.
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The next great technology revolution might be around the corner, but it won't automatically improve most people's lives. That will depend on politics, which is indeed ugly but also inescapable.
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The difference between a reporter, a newspaper columnist, a paid speaker, a television personality, a radio talk show host, a blogger, a movie producer, a publicist, and a political strategist, is growing less - and not more - distinct.
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In its lowest, most common form, inspiration is simple charisma that becomes magnified by the media, as with Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton.
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Al Qaeda asks its recruits to establish their bona fides as a condition of membership, even requiring answers to a long questionnaire. But ISIS has democratized and globalized jihad by lowering the entry bar to an eve-of-destruction YouTube pledge of allegiance to the caliphate - and even that could probably be waived.
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Surrendering to jargon is a sign of journalism's dismal lack of self-confidence in the optimized age of content-management systems.
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I am never going to be able to rest easy in having established a posthumous connection to my father. I'll always be groping for what I can't have.
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A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents.
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America's vast population of working poor can only get so poor before even Walmart is out of reach.
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With work increasingly invisible, it's much harder to grasp the human effects, the social contours, of the Internet economy.
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If you've ever left a bag of clothes outside the Salvation Army or given to a local church drive, chances are that you've dressed an African.
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Character is destiny, and politicians usually get the scandals they deserve, with a sense of inevitability about them.
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Millions don't rally to the banner of Uncertainty.
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Together, Apple and Walmart represent the intense separation of American life into blue and red, rich and poor, overpriced and undersold, hyperconnected and left behind.
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Inequality saps the economy by draining the buying power of Americans whose incomes have stagnated, forcing them to rely on debt to fund education, housing, and health care.
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No one pretends anymore that the Olympics are just about sports. It's routine to talk about what effect holding the Games in this or that capital will have on the host country's international reputation, how a nation's prestige can be raised by its medal count.
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It seems in America you are stuck with the position you adopted, even when events change, in order to claim absolute consistency. That can't be good.
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Obama is the splendid fruit of a meritocracy.
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Jay-Z has kind of shown that you can get to the very top without waiting, without following rules. In fact, it's better if you don't. People will admire you more if you break the rules.
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I am not a pure fiction writer, nor am I an academic writer. Somehow I ended up in this blended area of literary journalism.