American - Novelist | August 13, 1960 -
No-one can say when the unwinding began, when the coil that held America together in its secure and sometime shifting grip first gave way.
George Packer
TogetherAmericaSayWayFirstGrip
Lawyers, judges, doctors, shrinks, accountants, investigators and, not least, journalists could not do the most basic tasks without a veil of secrecy. Why shouldn't the same be true of those professionals who happen to be government officials?
GovernmentLawyersBe TrueTrueWhy
It suddenly occurred to me that the hottest tech startups are solving all the problems of being 20 years old, with cash on hand, because that's who thinks them up.
MeProblemsHandOldYearsUp
A great writer requires a great biography, and a great biography must tell the truth.
TruthGreatTellBiographyMust
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.
LongYouTubeAnswersBarMembership
Certain murderous ideas are in the air worldwide, and they are finding individuals in scattered places in different ways, and every attack spreads them further, plants an idea in a new head.
IdeasPlantsFindingNewPlacesAir
Liberal democracies like ours seem, for the most part, to have learned how to avoid meticulously planned mass-casualty plots with the complexity and scale of 9/11. But they don't know how to keep their citizens safe at night clubs and concerts, in supermarkets, on beachfront promenades, from truck drivers.
TruckNightKnowSafePlannedSeem
Afghanistan can't police its borders, and its neighbors give sanctuary and assistance to insurgents.
PoliceNeighborsBordersAfghanistan
If the presidential nominating process were an international sports competition, one would assume that top officials of both parties were taking envelopes of cash from town chairs in Durham and precinct captains in Waterloo.
SportsCompetitionProcessTopCash
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict George Packer quotes