Heard at the Forum
Notable Quotables

THROUGH THE YEARS, the Forum has seen numerous pubic figures at the podium, from international statesmen to Hollywood stars, from labor leader César Chávez to the Dalai Lama. A variety of points of view have been aired. They’ve rarely been dull.

Following is a sampling of some of the remarks heard over the years.

1 l “One of these days, somebody in power will get the idea about what kind of impact sports has. It’s an inexpensive situation. For $50,000, we could send over some sneakers, and some American balls, the good ones with the seams, and put such a dent in Soviet impact. But the people in the top State Department jobs don’t see it that way.” — Red Auerbauch, president and general manager of the Boston Celtics, in December 1979.

2 l “What we’re talking about tonight simply didn’t exist in the 1950s. It’s the result of the outrage people and a whole generation of cartoonists felt after Vietnam. Now, just when the work is getting good again, there’s an attempt to make it responsible. I think responsibility is a plague, particularly for cartoonists.” — Cartoonist Jules Feiffer with four other cartoonists in October 1980.

3 l “The Equal Rights Amendment would take away a woman’s legal right to be a homemaker because it would prohibit laws requiring a husband to support his wife.
Its essential defect is that it would require every law to be internally balanced without making
any reasonable distinction between men and women.”
— Phyllis Schlafly in April 1981.

4 l “Primaries are now designed by technicians, by campaign managers…. The primaries are a panorama done by demographic slices all designed for television…. What began as a good idea in the 1900s has become a monster.” — Author and historian Theodore H. White in March 1985.

5 l “And so I would leave you where I started out 20 years ago. I do not know more than I knew then. It is simply that I feel more strongly about it.” — Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivering the annual Godkin Lectures where he stressed the importance of a national family policy promoting the stability and the well-being of the American family in April 1985.

6 l “The Cambodians certainly knew they were being bombed. If the Cambodians knew, the Vietcong knew. And their Soviet allies knew. Well, the American people didn’t know and, in fact, they had been told we would not bomb Cambodia. Here national security was used to cover up a national embarrassment.” — Benjamin Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post, speaking about national security and the press at the opening of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy in September 1986.

7 l “Ven dose tapes come out, John, vee are going to zound very stupid.” — John D. Ehrlichman imitating Henry Kissinger at a panel discussion on “Managing the White House” in March 1987.

8 l “Great leaders don’t follow opinion polls. They put their body and soul into the proposition. No present-day manager would have advised [John F.] Kennedy to reach out to Dr. King while he was being called Communist.” — Jesse Jackson talking about a “Progressive Vision for America” in April 1989.

9 l “For long ages, few people were called upon to think for themselves…. Democracy has opened thinking to everyone or perhaps imposed it upon everyone.” — Saul Bellow, in remarks from “A Writer Looks at 20th Century History” in November 1989.

10 l “We’d get together in those days, about 20 of us — usually 19 liberals and we’d pound the hell out of one conservative.” — Former House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, remembering the beginnings of the Institute of Politics when it was housed in a little yellow house on Mt. Auburn Street in April 1990.

11 l “Do you fix government in a careful, deliberate way and over time, or do you drop a bomb in the statehouse on November 6 and pick up the pieces on November 7?” — James Braude, director of the Campaigns for Massachusetts’s Future and executive director of the Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts, to Barbara Anderson, director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, debating tax reform in October 1990.

12 l “Now, not by force, but by moral authority, America can find new goals and ways of meeting with other countries to confront the challenges of our time.” — Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in May 1992.

13 l “This is supposed to be the ‘Year of the Woman.’ As far as I am concerned, every year is the year of the woman. It’s all in what you make.” — Texas Governor Ann Richards in October 1992.

14 l “When parents tell me that their kids are talking like Bart Simpson, I say ‘stop acting like Homer Simpson.’ Is The Simpsons bad for kids? No. It rewards you for paying attention. It’s clever.” — Creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, at a discussion on “Television and American Culture” in January 1993.

15 l “In terms of multiculturalism, I think the debate has been shot through with trendiness and fraud. I feel that the number one priority of any university is to uphold the principle of learning. I’m, like, old-fashioned enough in that respect.” — Camille Paglia on “The Future of the American University” in February 1994.

16 l “What offends me most…is the argument…that intelligence is a thing….There is a very strong argument that you simply can’t construe something as complex as intelligence…as a single number, genetically based or not, in the head. That’s such an old fallacy of human reasoning, that old-style reductionism.” — Harvard Professor Stephen J. Gould in response to Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, in February 1995.

17 l “…Americans spent $340 billion on entertainment in 1993. Maybe policymakers could learn something from an industry that makes billions while the government owes trillions.” — Actress and singer Barbra Streisand in February 1995.

18 l “The Jews are our cousins. We are all from Abraham, but they are not only our cousins, they are our neighbors and partners. All of us, all of us are in need of your help.” — Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Leadership Organization, in October 1995, on his first visit to an American university.

19 l “I spoke just over a decade ago in this same hall on the same subject: the vital need for peace in the Middle East. It is striking to think of how much has changed and how much has not.” — Queen Noor of Jordan in October 1996, on the challenge of peace from a Jordanian perspective.

20 l “The people believe the system is so thoroughly riddled with financial temptation that it corrupts us all. It is imperative that we address the causes of the people’s contempt.” — Arizona Senator John McCain speaking about campaign finance reform in October 1997.

21 l “Their reaction [feminist leaders], or, more accurately, lack of reaction, to the President’s behavior has left many wondering just whose side these women are on.” — New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman in October 1998.

22 l “We had missed opportunities all along the way. Each side now believes each of us could have avoided the war.” — Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara speaking in April 1999, of government action in Vietnam.

23 l “I don’t want the job.” — Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura in response to a question about whether he would run for president, in October 1999.

24 l “Public service…politics is the most noble thing you can do in a democracy. Don’t take it for granted. You are not obligated to participate, but it is your responsibility to have a guilty conscience if you don’t.” — White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card KSGP 1980 speaking to Kennedy School graduates and their parents at Class Day in June 2001.

25 l “I expect to see her, and I’m 77 years old.” — Former First Lady Barbara Bush in September 2002, about the possibility of a woman in the White House.