Quotes by Andrew Sullivan

“The dirty little secret of journalism is that it really isnt a profession, its a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience and youre all set.”

“[That, plus such scandals as the abuses in U.S. military prisons in Iraq, damages the] core ... It will take time to restore that kind of reputation and, yes, honor.”

“I was very concerned I would kill this lady,”

“I prayed. I prayed she wouldnt die as a result of my treatment. And that if I died, my family would remember me.”

“How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?”

“Im glad Im not the only gay guy here--thanks Grover (or as I like to call him, Mama Bear.”

“I wont be running my posts past any editor before they appear. I will continue to write simply what I believe or think, however misguided I may be. I will continue to correct any errors in the full light of day and change my mind if new events demand it or new facts compel it. I think were going to see a pronounced shift towards the brand of the writer. Media outlets may find themselves in the position of football clubs, forced to pay higher and higher premiums if they want to keep their stars.”

“Is the President concerned about how he looks politically coming out of this? Heck yes! ... The president has some serious exposure here. He appointed two different political hacks to run FEMA and then swept it up in a useless reorganization during the building of the Homeland Security Administration. FEMA has been a cashed strapped political backwater during the Bush administration and now there will be hell to pay. If I were Michael D. Brown, director of FEMA I would be brushing up my resume. ”

“I must say that the Katrina response does help me better understand the situation in Iraq, ... The best bet is that the president doesnt actually know whats happening there, is cocooned from reality, has no one in his high-level staff able to tell him whats actually happening, and has created a culture of denial and loyalty that makes fixing mistakes or holding people accountable all but impossible.”

In this nonfundamentalist understanding of faith, practice is more important than theory, love more important than law, and mystery is seen as an insight into truth rather than an obstacle. It is the great lie of our time that all religious faith has to be fundamentalist to be valid.

Im a writer by profession and its totally clear to me that since I started blogging, the amount I write has increased exponentially, my daily interactions with the views of others have never been so frequent, the diversity of voices I engage with is far higher than in the pre-Internet age—and all this has helped me become more modest as a thinker, more open to error, less fixated on what I do know, and more respectful of what I dont. If this is a deterioration in my brain, then more, please.The problem is finding the space and time when this engagement stops, and calm, quiet, thinking and reading of longer-form arguments, novels, essays can begin. Worse, this also needs time for the mind to transition out of an instant gratification mode to me a more long-term, thoughtful calm. I find this takes at least a day of detox. Getting weekends back has helped. But if there were a way to channel the amazing insights of blogging into the longer, calmer modes of thinking ... wed be getting somewhere.Im working on it.

Unlike a variety of other relationships,friendship requires an acknowledgement by both parties that they are involved or it fails to exist.

Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder — just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit.And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value.

Most hate is more common and more complicated, with as many varieties as there are varieties of love. Just as there is possessive love and needy love; family love and friendship; romantic love and unrequited love; passion and respect, affection and obsession, so hatred has its shadings. There is hate that fears, and hate that merely feels contempt; there is hate that expresses power, and hate that comes from powerlessness; there is revenge, and there is hate that comes from envy. There is hate that was love, and hate that is a curious expression of love. There is hate of the other, and hate of something that reminds us too much of ourselves. There is the oppressors hate, and the victims hate. There is hate that burns slowly, and hate that fades. And there is hate that explodes, and hate that never catches fire.

If you think you’ll find intellectual stimulation, you’re thinking of another era. The conversations are invariably about money or property or schools. I’ve never been more bored by casual chat.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

Ive always been a pretty candid person. Im not a very secretive person Im not a very discreet person. One of my best friends once described me as pathologically indiscreet.

The good news about me is that my friends and social network is entirely independent of politics.

What gay culture is before it is anything else, before it is a culture of desire or a culture of subversion or a culture of pain, is a culture of friendship.

The most successful marriages, gay or straight, even if they begin in romantic love, often become friendships. Its the ones that become the friendships that last.