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No one ever really 'learns' from history, because choices never present themselves in exactly the same way, and because you can always choose similarities and differences to fit current needs.

James Fallows

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James Fallows
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: August 2
Aircraft Pilot
Journalist
Speechwriter
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
James Mackenzie Fallows
Never
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Choices
Learns
History
Current
Ever
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Always
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More quotes by James Fallows

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The demise of Google Reader, if logical, is a reminder of how far we've come from the cuddly old 'I'm Feeling Lucky' Google days, in which there was a foreseeably-astonishing delight in the way Google's evolving design tricks anticipated what users would like.
James Fallows
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For the record, I am sticking with my claim that the simultaneous degradation of air quality, water quality, water supply, food safety, soil quality, and other environment-related variables is the main challenge to China's continued development.
James Fallows
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We're now in one of those periods when the reality of intense pressure on the middle class diverges from long-held assumptions of how the American bargain should work
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I don't think anybody who is already with Donald Trump is going to be peeled off by his not knowing about NATO or why Japan does not have nuclear weapons, or things of that sort.
James Fallows
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A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are.
James Fallows
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Every previous era looks innocent.
James Fallows
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Societies are healthiest when their radius of trust is broad and when people feel they can influence their own fate.
James Fallows
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Everyone moans about the collapsing U.S. infrastructure.
James Fallows
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Racial prejudice boils down to the deeply anti-American message that some people are born to fail.
James Fallows
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Make the important interesting.
James Fallows
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Up or out greatly magnified the careerist emphasis on holding a position rather than doing a job.
James Fallows
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The amazing thing about Trump is that he is so completely predictable. Hillary Clinton knows that if she teases him about either his wealth, his taxes, the women who are coming after him or his preposterous claims of being against the Iraq war, he cannot resist.
James Fallows
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Environmental disaster is the gravest threat to China's continued development. That's according to me, but it is not some wacko view.
James Fallows
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The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [...] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.
James Fallows
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The hoary joke in the literary world, based on 'Dreams From My Father,' was that if things had worked out differently for Barack Obama, he could have made it as a writer.
James Fallows
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Over the eons I've been a fan of, and sucker for, each latest automated system to 'simplify' and 'bring order to' my life. Very early on this led me to the beautiful-and-doomed Lotus Agenda for my DOS computers, and Actioneer for the early Palm.
James Fallows
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Everyone in the Chinese economic world knows that the country is not going to move out of cheap-workhouse status, toward the realm of 'real' rich-country corporate power and prosperity, unless (among other changes) it begins removing these price distortions.
James Fallows
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Chinese emissions are a problem not just for its own people but also for the world. It has now overtaken the U.S. as the biggest carbon emitter most of the coal that is burned anywhere on Earth is burned in China.
James Fallows
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The whole point of constitutional democracy is the peaceful transfer of power of Al Gore passing the baton to George W. Bush, even though that election was very suspiciously called.
James Fallows
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I am about as pro-Google a person as you're going to find in the media. I've had friends at all levels of the company since its founding, and still do now.
James Fallows