George Packer Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Much of the international unease with the Sochi Games has focused on the threat of terrorism, Putin's domestic repressiveness, and the Russian campaign of anti-gay propaganda.

  George Packer

  Gay, Games, Campaigns

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• It's a cliche that the Senate is broken, and like most cliches, it's true.

  George Packer

  Broken, Cliche, Senate

  "Transcript: George Packer on ‘The Empty Chamber’". Interview with Tom Casciato, www.pbs.org. October 29, 2010.

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• I would caution anyone who thinks the solution is to get out to realize that Iraq will be our problem, whether we're there or not, for years to come. It will not be Vietnam; it will not let us go home and lick our wounds.

  George Packer

  Home, Thinking, Years

  "An author's confession -- he got the war wrong / George Packer supported Iraq invasion, but now fears spiraling civil conflict". Interview with Steven Winn, www.sfgate.com. December 4, 2005.

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• The way Donald Trump talks about the problems of black Americans as a kind of separate group who are not part of his audience but he's kind of reaching over his audience or behind his audience to black Americans, saying what have you got to lose? As in you might as well join me because the Democrats haven't done anything for you. But joining me means joining this group that already supports me.

  George Packer

  Mean, Support, Black

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Since I was a kid. I had this series by Ballantine Books about the history of World Wars I and II. In my 20s, it was the Vietnam War literature of novelists like Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, and Tobias Wolff, and then nonfiction such as "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan and "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam . Those are the two best histories of Vietnam.

  George Packer

  Lying, War, Book

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• One book that I heard was circulating the Green Zone was "Bureaucracy Does Its Thing" by Robert Komer , who worked for President [Lindon] Johnson in Saigon. This book is about the inevitably of screwing up when a country takes on a war with so little understanding of the country they are fighting.

  George Packer

  Country, War, Book

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• A genuine approach to budget cutting - knowing exactly what you're cutting and why, and with what real-life consequences - is beyond my competence, and probably beyond the competence of any politician in America.

  George Packer

  Real, Cutting, Knowing

  "Ask the Author Live: George Packer on Obama and the Budget". The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. April 15, 2011.

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• When I interviewed Paul Bremer in his office he had almost no books on his shelves. He had a couple of management books, like "Leadership" by Rudolph Giuliani . I didn't take it as an encouraging sign.

  George Packer

  Couple, Book, Office

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I think it's important for Americans to try to understand each other a little better.

  George Packer

  Thinking, Important, Trying

  "The 'Dangerous, Volatile Game' Trump Plays With The White Working Class". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. November 3, 2016.

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• People in Congress are willing to shut down the entire government or to make it impossible for a Supreme Court nominee to get a hearing or for routine appointments in the executive branch to go unfilled for years because of a hold placed by a senator.

  George Packer

  Government, Years, People

  Source: www.npr.org

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• This is what Newt Gingrich has wrought - is a politics in which it's very easy to destroy and very hard to build.

  George Packer

  Easy, Newts, Hard

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Politics should seize the imagination.

  George Packer

  Imagination, Should

  Source: www.npr.org

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• When you go to Washington and get off at Union Station, as I sometimes do, and see the Capitol building, I get this hopeless feeling that comes over me.

  George Packer

  Feelings, Unions, Hopeless

  "The 'Dangerous, Volatile Game' Trump Plays With The White Working Class". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, listen.sdpb.org. November 3, 2016.

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• American politics can produce great men and women, but it is profoundly insular.

  George Packer

  Men, Produce, American Politics

  "Ask the Author Live: George Packer". The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. June 18, 2010.

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• You don`t have to be foreign policy expert to succeed as president, but you have to have ice water for blood.

  George Packer

  Ice Water, Blood, President

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• I'm reading a bunch of fiction by Afghan and Iraq War veterans for a New Yorker piece. There hasn't been that much, but it's starting to come out, and some of the fiction is really good.

  George Packer

  War, Reading, Iraq

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I am reading "The Yellow Birds" by Kevin Powers and "Redeployment" by Phil Klay . Both Powers and Klay are Iraq War vets. Klay's stories are remarkable.

  George Packer

  War, Reading, Iraq

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• The literature of the Spanish Civil War is also important to me. Above all George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" as well as the writing of John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway. They worked on a film together in Spain during that war, which ended their friendship.

  George Packer

  War, Writing, Together

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• There's a great book about that, "The Breaking Point" by Stephen Koch . It won't improve your opinion of [Ernest] Hemingway.

  George Packer

  Book, Point Break, Opinion

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I don't know if it's a male thing, but I've always been interested in how people respond to the stresses and dangers of war, how they react under fire. In the extremity of war, character is revealed.

  George Packer

  Stress, War, Character

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir "Goodbye to All That," and a civilian memoir "Testament of Youth" by Vera Brittain .

  George Packer

  Goodbye, War, Writing

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• There's the basket of deplorables, who are bigots of various stripes, misogynists, anti-Muslim, racists, homophobes.

  George Packer

  Stripes, Racist, Baskets

  Source: www.npr.org

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• What goes on in a person's head, what impels them to a political choice, it's a pretty complicated question.

  George Packer

  Choices, Political, Goes On

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Politics should be, you know, as exciting as literature, as exciting film.

  George Packer

  Literature, Film, Should

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I don't think of Hillary Clinton as a bad choice. She's an uninspiring choice. She is a deeply imperfect choice, largely for reasons of her own tendency to get into a defensive crouch and create greater problems for herself and the rest of us by refusing to have a transparent reckoning.

  George Packer

  Thinking, Choices, Imperfect

  "The 'Dangerous, Volatile Game' Trump Plays With The White Working Class". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, wmra.org. November 3, 2016.

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