Quotes by David K. Shipler

About David K. Shipler:

David K. Shipler is an American author who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1987 for Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. He also wrote the book The Working Poor: Invisible in America. He is a former foreign correspondent of The New York Times.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

There are many ways to honor America. This book is mine. I have completed this journey of self-education in the belief that the most terrifying possibility since 9/11 has not been terrorism--as frightening as that is--but the prospect that Americans ...

David K. Shipler

The law is too important to be left to the lawyers, to paraphrase Georges Clemenceau about war and generals. We laymen know too little about our Constitution and think too superficially about its influence on the qualities of American life. Civic dut...

David K. Shipler

The day I arrived in Yakutsk with my colleague Peter Osnos of The Washington Post, it was 46 below. When our plane landed, the door was frozen solidly shut, and it took about half an hour for a powerful hot-air blower- standard equipment at Siberian ...

David K. Shipler

Jerusalem is a festival and a lamentation. Its song is a sigh across the ages, a delicate, robust, mournful psalm at the great junction of spiritual cultures.

David K. Shipler

Obama has already rejected the bright sunlight of public knowledge, which is democracy's great disinfectant and cure.

David K. Shipler

Obama prefers to look forward, not back, as he has stated. So at least during his tenure, there will be no reliable record compiled as a cautionary tale for lawmakers and presidents in future times of crisis. This is the historical Obama.

David K. Shipler

Affairs of state tend to drive most presidents toward the center on both foreign and domestic policy, no matter where on the political spectrum they begin, and especially so in the areas of intelligence and law enforcement.

David K. Shipler

Watching foreign affairs is sometimes like watching a magician; the eye is drawn to the hand performing the dramatic flourishes, leaving the other hand - the one doing the important job - unnoticed.

David K. Shipler

Eisenhower was less deferential to the military than he seemed likely to be, Kennedy was not at all beholden to the pope, George W. Bush was smarter than portrayed and Barack Obama has not led a charge from the left - least of all on behalf of the ci...

David K. Shipler

There's something about Barack Obama that induces Americans to imagine what they cannot see. The Right envisions a vile socialist, while many on the Left picture an inspired liberal, politically restrained in his first term but now free to pursue his...

David K. Shipler

Obama behaves like a centrist who leans tentatively left on certain social programs but boldly right on military force and civil liberties.

David K. Shipler

If you have never been tortured, or locked up and verbally threatened, you may find it hard to believe that anyone would confess to something he had not done. Intuition holds that the innocent do not make false confessions.

David K. Shipler

Officers are taught to use all the tricks and lies that courts permit within the scope of the Fifth Amendment's shield against self-incrimination.

David K. Shipler

If you stand with the Customs and Border Protection officers who staff the passport booths at Dulles airport near the nation's capital, their task seems daunting.

David K. Shipler

Caricatures created by politics never fit comfortably into the Oval Office.

David K. Shipler

Author Bio

  • NameDavid K. Shipler
  • DescriptionAmerican author who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1987
  • BornDecember 3, 1942
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionSinger; Journalist
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For General Non-Fiction; George Polk Award