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Nat Hentoff

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Famous Nat Hentoff Quotes

“I was lecturing at the Columbia Journalism School of Education. I asked them about what was happening to the Fourth Amendment. I said, "By the way, do you know what is in the Fourth Amendment?" One student responded, "Is that the right to bear arms?" It's hard to believe these are bright students.”

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“I had written a book called "Boston Boy" some years ago, and that took me from the time I could speak, I guess, in Boston through the time when I finally left to come to New York. One was understanding and coping with anti-Semitism. Boston, at the time, was the most anti-Semitic city in the country. And I found out when I was an adolescent that you have to be crazy to go out after dark all by yourself; you'd get your head bashed in.”

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“Congressman [Richard ] Icord headed a House on American activities committee. It was called the House Internal Security Committee. And he put out a report, and he named a number of very destructive people who lectured at colleges and left arson in their wake and did other terrible things. And he mentioned me and he ascribed to me three organizations to which I'd never belonged, and I decided I would do something about this.”

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“When the ACLU took my case and we got a ruling I think, for the first time, they could - the Congress could put out the report internally but they couldn't put it out at taxpayers' expense around the country. And I felt odd about that because I, in a way, I was interfering with free speech, but then, you can't always win.”

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“When I first knew Bob Dylan, he lived in the Village. And for a man who, years after, would disdain publicity or any attempts at interviews, whenever I'd write something about him, he'd be on the street corner saying, `When's it going to run? When's it going to run?' But I must say that album that was - it was the second album he did, and though I've never been a fan of his guitar-playing, he did - I have to admit, he did catch the Zeitgeist of the time.”

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“Bob Dylan was really mad with my wife. I had asked by Rolling Stone - the only assignment I ever had for them - to do a story on the Rolling Thunder Review, which was Bob Dylan, Alan Ginsberg, Joan Baez and a host of stars. My wife, some weeks before, had written in The New York Times that The Kid wasn't The Kid anymore and he wasn't all that winning anymore.”

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“When John Adams - when - James Madison was writing - pretty much writing the Constitution, he got a letter from Thomas Jefferson, who was then-ambassador to France. And Jefferson said - I am paraphrasing - `Do not forget to keep habeas corpus and strengthen it.' That - in - that's the oldest English-speaking right. It goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215.”

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“In our country, [habeas corpus ] means that if you've been sentenced and convicted in a state court, either to death or to some other kind of sentence, you have the right to petition a federal court to review what happened to you. And until [Bill] Clinton, you had three, four, five, even more years I collect records of people who have been on death row for eight, 10, 12, 14 years - this is before Clinton - who finally got a decent lawyer, usually a pro bono lawyer, and an investigator, and were able to find out - they - they're but approved that they're - that they were innocent.”

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“[Madness] happened so frequently. I think what I was most maddest about - and it's in the book [Speaking Freely: A Memoir] - when the House and the Senate, back in 1984, were debating a bill that would - at least delay and maybe stop some of the ex - summary execution of disabled children - infants. And the Down syndrome kids and other kids had been, in some cases, routinely let die, to use the euphemism.”

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