Quotes of the Week
Plus links to some of the best articles and essays.
Note for new subscribers: On Fridays I send out a post with a list of notable quotes from the past week, along with links to some of the best longform essays and articles that I’ve come across. You can opt out of these posts by clicking “manage subscription” on the top right.
“Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 11.4 percent of American children had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D., a record high. That figure includes 15.5 percent of American adolescents, 21 percent of 14-year-old boys and 23 percent of 17-year-old boys.” — NYT’s Paul Tough
“Bad News for Man’s Best Friend: Dogs Are Environmental Villains” — Mother Jones headline
“In a way, Trump is practicing his very own form of Maoism, a cultural revolution against the intelligentsia.” — The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer
“Republicans are not going to let up on this, they’re not going to leave it alone, they’re not going to stop this. And we’re going to suffer. It’s very easy to fight back on trans issues. The science is on our side. Every credible medical organization has come out and endorsed gender-affirming care and said that the trans military ban is ridiculous and unnecessary. They’ve said that trans women should be housed in women’s prisons.” — Trans activist Charlotte Clymer, speaking on MSNBC
“It was a practice; it’s not that they were violent, it was their way of connecting with the celestial bodies.” — María Belén Méndez, an archaeologist quoted in a CBS News story about an ancient altar discovered in Guatemala that was used for child sacrifices
“You know it’s very white, this movie. You don’t see a lot of different ethnicities; we don’t talk about gender, none of that, and I feel like that really doesn’t represent our world today. So I would like to see movies that are inspired by ‘The Breakfast Club’ but take it in a different direction.” — Molly Ringwald
“Mr. Biden allowed many migrants to enter the country temporarily as a way to incentivize them to avoid crossing the border illegally. Those people became eligible to work in the United States, receive Social Security numbers and in some cases receive federal benefits.” — From a NYT article written by Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard (yes, five writers)
“I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him, and honestly? I voted for Clinton and Obama but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me? I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.” — Bill Maher, on meeting with Donald Trump at the White House
“While America’s roots are soaked in bloodshed, violence in the country today is mostly from right-wing extremism. From Oklahoma City to Charlottesville to Jan. 6th, there is simply no equivalent on the left.” — CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan
“Here’s this man who, who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart. He’s a person that seems like a morally good man, which is hard to find.” — Taylor Lorenz, in an interview with CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan
“There is truly no reason to entertain natalism on the left. If we run out of people in the US, we can simply allow more immigration. Natalism is a Tech Right obsession, like ‘race science’ and eugenics.” — Comedian Kate Willett
“Such an alpha-but maybe he has just never been that close to a trophy before.” — Alex Soros, son of George Soros, regarding JD Vance accidentally dropping the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy
“A term of high praise on the dissident right is ‘based,’ short for ‘based in reality.’ But never has an administration been more divorced from reality, and more determined to shove insulting ideological fictions down our throats, than Trump’s.” — NYT’s Michelle Goldberg
“Regretful Trump voters? More of a media creation than anything else. Just 2% of 2024 Trump voters say they’d vote for a different candidate now. (Numbers for Harris are similar). Appears to be fewer Trump regretters than in 2017 or 2021. GOP continues to lead Dems on party ID.” — CNN data analyst Harry Enten
“I was in the fetal position. I just wanted to put on sweat pants, eat ice cream and watch hockey.” — Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, describing how he felt in the days after Donald Trump’s reelection as president
“The Trump administration’s worldview in a nutshell: If you’re white, you’re all right. If you’re brown, get out of town.” — Stephen King
“Supporters of FWS [For Women Scotland] — including notorious transphobe ‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling — hailed the ruling as a victory.” — MSNBC’s Clarissa-Jan Lim, regarding the UK Supreme Court ruling that transgender women are not legally defined as “women” under equality law
“I hope they can see the unity that we modeled and replicate that and understand that we weren’t just taking up space, we were making space for the future. And for me, like Gayle [King] said, this wasn’t a ride, it wasn’t a destination, it was a journey, and it was a supernatural one, and my journey has always been about love and belonging. I think that we have all felt that sometimes we weren’t worthy or we didn’t belong in certain ways, no matter all the accolades, no matter all the studying, no matter anything, and I think today we all said it, like, we belong here. This is where we belong, and we feel very sure of that.” — Katy Perry, when asked on Good Morning America how the all-female crew that Jeff Bezos sent up to space for 11 minutes on a remotely piloted vessel can “affect change”
If you need to get past a paywall, try Archive Today or 12ft.io.
The Cut: “Addicted to OnlyFans”
Toronto Life: “We Bought a Crack House”
Vanity Fair: “The Riddle of Everest”
The Washington Post: “The nurse in the NYC subway”
The Washington Post: “Guns. Knives. Bats. Hammers. Hatchets. Spears.”
Esquire: “The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word”
GQ: “The Truck Stop Killer”
The Wall Street Journal: “How a Secretive Gambler Called ‘The Joker’ Took Down the Texas Lottery”
The New York Times: “In a Snow Paradise, They Live in This Parking Lot”
"neurotic AWFL lawn flamingo Taylor Lorenz"
Poetry!
MSNBC is useless as a news org, but really good at identifying Bad People, like J.K. Rowling. Look, there's that transphobe J.K. Rowling doing transphobe-y things like asserting women are women and not-women are not women.