Nat Hentoff

Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff (June 10, 1925 –January 7, 2017) was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media.

Quotes

• Slight, wiry, his blond, curly hair worn long, Bob Dylan never wears a tie and never lets anyone else make decisions for him. His unshakable independence courses through his songs—some of them wryly irreverent, others harshly critical of what he regards as hypocrisy and cruelty. His voice is acrid but curiously compelling, and he has become the most influential folksinger among today's teenagers—as well as among older dissenters. [...] Now 24, he is less the angry preacher of causes than he was two years ago. His songs have become more warmly personal and more deftly witty. He is cactus on the outside and romantic revolutionary within. He has no ideology except that of inner freedom. He is his own man.
  • "Cosmo Listens to Records", Cosmopolitan (November 1965)

• I'm always intrigued at how few people understand that free speech encompasses a little more than the speech you like.
  • The Indivisible Fight for Life. Presented at AUL Forum, 19 October 1986, Chicago. Accessed 16 April 2019.

• There is something quite startling in the law that will gladden the hearts of eugenicists, who are considerable in number -- though many are still in the closet. The section on Abortion Procedures declares that the state is not permitted to interfere -- at any stage -- in a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy if "the fetus is affected by genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality."
  • The Specter Of Pro-Choice Eugenics (May 25, 1991)