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"That first week, I also went to Washington. That was really tough. I sympathize with those Washington figures who have to face 40 Times Washington bureau reporters. They ask hard questions and they're relentless. And they were quite suspicious and quite dubious about me."
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Exlpore more Skepticism quotes
"The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
"People need to stop accepting the evidence of reality, and start questioning it."
"Blind faith is not real religion my friend."
"The wrong approaches to faith and to skepticism are equally detrimental to the path. For the former declares its answers too soon and is later found false, the latter rejects sound answers altogether and hashes itself useless."
"For the modern world will accept no dogmas upon any authority; but it will accept any dogmas on no authority. Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark merely with "they say" or "don't you know that?" or try (and fail) to rememver the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say."
"Irishmen are not reserved, and the company appeared dying to be intimately acquainted."
"Doubter wants proof which contributes nothing to her faith."
"One shouldn't be labelled a cynic just because one refuses to believe in fairy tales."
"I wonder how they convince their conscience believing in myths and fallacious stories."
"I don't do metaphysics. Neither do I have the luxury to talk about my beliefs."
Explore more quotes by Daniel Okrent
"Gail didn't want me commenting on the opinion pages. I was hired by the news department and, despite the rabid assertions of the Times' enemies and detractors, the two really have nothing to do with each other."
"Now I worry. If people ended up liking me, did I do the job wrong? So I decided they didn't end up liking me - they ended up being able to deal with me."
"I think it's one of the Times' problems that they haven't made it clear to readers what various formats mean."
"I'm afraid we'll see reporters stop chasing quotes around the same time dogs stop chasing cars."
"If you really hate George Bush, you don't want to read about his hobbies or that he's nice to his friends or that he's good company at dinner."
"The Times' new credibility committee report that was issued on Monday very specifically said they will be putting in a policy that reporters must get permission from their department heads to appear on television, which I think is a really good thing."
"That the Op-Ed page is very important in readers' and the nation's perception of the Times, the perception of its editorial positions, and of its implicit editorial positions as expressed by the publisher's choice of people who are given the freedom to write opinion columns."
"If there had been three public editors before me, the body might have absorbed it a little bit better."
"I was probably being a little cocky, which I do when I feel that I don't know what I'm talking about."
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