Alexander Cockburn Quotes

Be careful about Burma. Most people cannot remember whether it was Siam and has become Thailand, or whether it is now part of Malaysia and should be called Sri Lanka.

There is never finality in the display terminal's screen, but an irresponsible whimsicality, as words, sentences, and paragraphs are negated at the touch of a key. The significance of the past, as expressed in the manuscript by a deleted word or an inserted correction, is annulled in idle gusts of electronic massacre.

They keep telling us that in war truth is the first casualty, which is nonsense since it implies that in times of peace truth stays out of the sick bay or the graveyard.

The travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination.

The weapon of the advocate is the sword of the soldier, not the dagger of the assassin.

The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.

A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.

Regulation of sexual behavior is the preferred route to wider social control.

Despair is the central part of the psychopathology. For the handmaiden of gossip is treachery:

A childish soul not inoculated with compulsory prayer is a soul open to any religious infection.