Jacob M. Appel Quotes

• Catholic extremism should be resisted as fiercely at home as we oppose the Taliban abroad.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Home, Catholic, Should

  "After St. Joseph’s: Are Women Still Safe in Catholic Hospitals?" by Jacob M. Appel, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 16, 2010.

  46 Copy quote

• The most dangerous ideas are not those that challenge the status quo. The most dangerous ideas are those so embedded in the status quo, so wrapped in a cloud of inevitability, that we forget they are ideas at all.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Clouds, Dangerous Ideas, Challenges

  Jacob M. Appel (2014). “Phoning Home: Essays”, p.76, Univ of South Carolina Press

  10 Copy quote

• Always warm up the audience with a joke....If you are not a particularly funny person, make sure that you inform them that it's a joke.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Audience, Persons, Jokes

  Sphinx Society lecture, Brown University (Brown Daily Herald), April 3, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

• If you give a man a hammer, he thinks he can solve all problems by pounding. Well, God gave men penises.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Men, Thinking, Giving

  "Arborophilia". Play by Jacob M. Appel, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

• Never make enemies of anyone younger or healthier than you are. They write your history.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Writing, Enemy

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• Nothing sells tombstones like a Girl Scout in uniform.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Girl, Tombstone, Uniforms

  "Scouting for the Reaper". Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 2009.

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• Life is nasty, brutish, and short. Death is easy.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Nasty, Life Is, Easy

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• I would prefer to believe that a market in fetal organs would empower women to use their reproductive capabilities to their own economic advantage.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Believe, Empowering, Use

  "Are We Ready for a Market in Fetal Organs?". www.huffingtonpost.com. April 17, 2009.

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• Choose old people for enemies. They die. You win.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Revenge, Winning, People

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• Victory [over homophobia] may require five or maybe 20 years. Yet I have no doubt that "don't ask, don't tell" and same-sex adoption bans will be as unspeakable and inexplicable to my grandchildren as counting a slave as three-fifths of a human being.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Sex, Grandchildren, Years

  "Reparations for Gay Americans". The Detroit Free Press, April 07, 2009.

  6 Copy quote

• The boss is never your friend, even if you're sleeping with him.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Sleep, Boss, Ifs

  "Arborophilia". Play by Jacob M. Appel, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

• If God wanted teenagers to be abstinent, puberty would begin at twenty.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Teenager, Twenties, Wanted

  "The Replacement". Play by Jacob M. Appel, 2008.

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• Be optimistic. Always put on clean underwear if you're going on a date.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Optimistic, Clean Underwear, Ifs

  "Arborophilia". Play by Jacob M. Appel, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

• Nothing spices up one's sex life like having a partner.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Sex, Spices, Partners

  4 Copy quote

• Depression and hopelessness are not the only reasons terminally ill patients wish to end their lives. Many individuals see nothing undignified about choosing to end their lives at the time and manner of their choosing - and many view such a choice as the meaningful culmination of a good life.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Meaningful, Good Life, Views

  "Is it compassionate to prohibit suicide?". The Baltimore Sun, March 17, 2009.

  8 Copy quote

• Maybe life involves the pairing of unsuitable people, those who wait and those who keep others waiting, and the key to happiness is finding the one person with whom you share the same internal chronometer.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Keys, Finding The One, People

  "The Biology of Luck". Book by Jacob Appel, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Know your load. That's rule numero uno in this business, which is why I make them count the penguins out in front of me one at a time. I'm not going to be the schmuck who shows up in Orlando twobirds short of a dinner party....I know I'm pulling out of Houston with exactly forty-two Gentoo penguins, seventeen Jamaican land iguanas, four tuataras from New Zealand, and a pair of rare, civet-like mammals called linsangs. No more, no less.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Party, Land, Two

  4 Copy quote

• Even a poor tour guide is entitled to some happiness.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Poor, Guides, Tour Guides

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• Much as we do not permit convicted pedophiles to teach kindergarten or convicted hijackers to board airplanes, common sense dictates that individuals who have been imprisoned for plotting violence against abortion clinics should never again be permitted anywhere near such facilities.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Airplane, Common Sense, Abortion

  "The Case for an Anti-Abortion Violence Registry". www.huffingtonpost.com. July 30, 2009.

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• I suspect that the vast majority of people, not knowing in advance whether they will either end up in a permanently vegetative state or be diagnosed with cancer, would prefer that any resources that would be spent on PVS care be reallocated to cancer research - or some similar enterprise that has the potential to help human beings who might actually recover.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Cancer, Knowing, People

  "Rational Rationing vs. Irrational Rationing: The Struggle for the Legacy of Ruben Betancourt". www.huffingtonpost.com. June 23, 2010.

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• Most people are far more concerned that they can control their own bodies than they are about petitioning Congress.

  Jacob M. Appel

  People, Body, Congress

  "A Culture of Liberty". www.huffingtonpost.com. July 21, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• Marriage is like a series of opposing reflections, inverse images getting ever smaller like nesting dolls, each one of your trying to squeeze yourself smaller to fit inside the hopes of the other, until one of you cracks or stops existing.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Reflection, Trying, Dolls

  4 Copy quote

• Maybe that is the greatest of wonders: that we can be shaped so much by those we've known closely, and equally by those we've never known at all - and that we too can change the world long after we've left it.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Long, World, Wonder

  Jacob M. Appel (2014). “Phoning Home: Essays”, p.23, Univ of South Carolina Press

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• Patriotism is being convinced your country is better because you were born in it.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Country, Born, Convinced

  "The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up". Book by Jacob M. Appel, 2012.

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• A free society, to be truly worthy of that name, owes healthy, competent individuals the right to end their lives on their own terms.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Names, Healthy, Individual

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