Quotes from Charles J. Sykes

Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.

Life is not fair; get used to it.

If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

We simply should not care about politics as much as we do, because it should not be as important as it has become. The question of who serves in political office should not be as consuming as it has become, but is a consequence of the concentration of power and expectations. There is a lesson here for both sides of the political spectrum. Our politics have become too toxic and scary, in large part because our government is too large and consequential.

After Trump's defeat of Hillary Clinton, the Democrats need to perform an autopsy; Republicans need an exorcism.

Although victimism can trace its lineage to liberalism, it is not itself liberalism. Nor is it updated Christianity. It militates against ideas of equity, fairness, and process; its natural tone is one of assertion of prerogatives, a demand for reparations.

How did a movement that was defined by its belief in individual liberty and respect for the Constitution, free markets, personal responsibility, traditional values, and civility find itself embracing a stew of nativism, populism, and nationalism?