Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The media is in the business of finding exceptions to everyday life. Bad things are still the exception. That's good, because once bad things stop being news, we really are in trouble. If people forget that bad is the exception, they think they live in a horrible world. There is so much that works and is right and friendly and warm. But we take that for granted.
When you think that you are beautiful, you are liable to think that you are more beautiful than others, and such a thought is not a beautiful thought. To recognize or criticize ugliness and inferiority in others is to create the inferior and the ugly in yourself, and what you create in yourself will sooner or later be expressed through your mind and personality.
I think Black Nativity movie has a very clear message. It's about a family in crisis facing some of the very familiar struggles we face in our communities. It's really about love, redemption, forgiveness, faith and family, the things that have gotten us through so many hard times, and that continue to get us through them. When times are hard, we need each other.
I am not a trained actor and am not near the top of anyone's want list. I go after what I am offered, if I am so inclined. Now and then, I get offers for things that are not to my liking, in that I just don't care about the story. All this super tough guy stuff isn't anything that interests me all that much. I can't think of anything I turned down that I regret.
We are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and an example of modern credulity is the widespread belief that the Earth is round. The average man can advance not a single reason for thinking that the Earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth century mentality.
I think it’s time to open the books on questions that have remained in the dark on the question of government investigations of UFOs. It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. We ought to do it because it’s right. We ought to do it because the American people, quite frankly, can handle the truth. And we ought to do it because it’s the law.
I do think this is where television is going, and I think that it's awesome to be a part of a show like this because we are these pioneers into this new medium. And it's working. When you look at the success of House of Cards and Arrested Development, which I love, this is how people are watching television now. It's pretty cool to be a part of this whole thing.
That's what they want: two women. Fellas, I think that's a bit lofty. Because, come on, think about it - if you can't satisfy that one woman, why do you want to piss off another one? Why have two angry women in the bed with you at the same time? And think about it - you know how much you hate to talk after sex, imagine having two women just nagging you to death.
I think it's a real danger, as an actor, when you try to make some statement through your career about what the business should be doing or ultimately what your image should be or how you want to be perceived. I look at every project that comes along and say, "Is this something I can sink my teeth into and can do a good job on?" That's really how I choose roles.
Most people just aren't clear-eyed about the rural South. We think that the urban centers are the problem, and the rural areas across the country are idyllic, suffused with good old American values, social values, religious values, moral values. It's what we tell ourselves to keep this political power structure in place, and it's what we see in pop culture, too.
You have to understand your own psychology. You have to understand that human beings weren't really designed to invest. We have all these emotions that are appropriate responses if you're being chased by a tiger, but they're terrible responses if you've got a 30-year time horizon to think about investment or when you're trying to manage investment over 30 years.
I was brought up to believe in free will. Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day.
Not only are we not using any programmed loops or computers onstage, we're also improvising with our instruments. We're playing our instruments probably more so than most people that I see play their instruments. I think we all sort of strive for that - we all want magical things to happen onstage. We don't say "mistakes" in this band, we call them "highlights."
Music has always been a part of my life and because it always seemed so natural to me, it took someone else saying, "I think you should consider doing this for a job," for me to actually look at it that way. To me, it wasn't super goal-oriented in that way. It was like, "Oh, I like to play shows and I like to record," but I didn't think of it any more than that.
I'm just glad to get any role... the fact that they're all 90 is neither here nor there! Actually, it was Hook that started it. I think it was Peggy Ashcroft who couldn't do the part and somebody was asked how old was I and would I be able to do the part, and the person replied "92" very quickly. And so I've been stuck ever since! But I'm actually very grateful.
The beauty in the story is at one with suffering. That is also part of our upbringing - we don't think there could be beauty otherwise. Beauty is the result of having been through an experience all the way through to the end - therefore it has a poignancy. Beauty that is singular always comes from following an experience to the point where you can go no further.
I think that one of the challenges for a parent and myself as a parent is that we live in a very electronic media age. That's obvious to everyone. And I'm not opposed to time on computers or time with television or time with any other electronic media but I think that quiet, thoughtful interaction between one's self, your mind and words is an irreplacable thing.
"If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a Crucifix, and think that Christ shed all His Blood for him, and not only forgave His enemies, but even prayed His Heavenly Father to forgive them also. Let him remember that when he says the Pater Noster, every day, instead of asking pardon for his sins, he is calling down vengeance on himself."
Have you told Eric and the rest of them that—” “That I’m a vampire? No. It isn’t the sort of thing you just drop into casual conversation.” “Maybe not, but they’re your friends. They should know. And besides, they’ll just think it makes you more of a rock god, like that vampire Lester.” “Lestat,” Simon said. “That would be the vampire Lestat. And he’s fictional.
I love my career, but I feel like you've got to babysit a lot of aspects of things. Assuming that things will be handled properly is just naive. But I think that's anyone's life, right? Even if you're running a construction site, it doesn't matter if you've been doing it for 20 years, you're still going to be blindsided by someone's incompetence or indifference.
Earlier in my career I just thought "I'm not very confident, I don't like singing to people." But people had some faith in me, and here we are. Sometimes I think "Oh maybe I should just be a backing singer." But I've got an amazing team of people who tell me to shut up when I'm like "Oh god, I can't do it." But now, I can't really imagine it being the other way.
It was an accident, although I've been involved in some kind of theatrical function or other since I was a child - in school, music, athletics. To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves. To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle.
The past doesn't change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad all add up to the whole. Take away one piece, no matter how small, and the whole changes. Whether it's optimism, pessimism or fatalism, I don't spend my time wishing for the past to be different so present would be different, too. I control my future with what I choose now.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
The thing that hasn't changed, and I don't think will ever change, is that the operative word in music is "play." You have to have a playfulness about it. As the world shifts, it's starting to understand more and more that to have a playfulness about any and everything is actually the way of having a better life, or being more creative, or being more productive.
I want to create objects that will stimulate the viewer in ways that I am stimulated by these objects. Now that's an ideal situation and the artist has no control over what his audience is going to think, but they can try to communicate some quality, some poetry through the work and just hope that the viewer has something in the vicinity of a similar experience.
said Jack matter-of-factly. "I'm a man. We're made to think more quickly." ...Aven swung her fist and clocked Jack square on the chin, knocking him backward into the balloon, which was still under repair. ...Aven rubbed her knuckles and looked at the others. "Sorry about that. I might have stopped myself from hitting him, but I didn't think of it quickly enough.
There have been people.. ever since I've had any kind of position in the world.. who have accused me of being ruler of the world. I have to say that I think for the large part, I would have to decide to describe them as crack pots. It makes no sense whatsoever, and isn't true, and won't be true, and to raise it as a serious issue seems to me to be irresponsible.
It's never really quiet in the Wu-Tang tour bus unless it's a certain time of day. Sometimes it's quiet, but you're not going to have eight, nine members on a bus in total silence and everyone is up, unless there are some issues going on, unless there's a death or something really serious that just has us all thinking. Other than that, we're gonna be kicking it.
I think what people love about the Steve Jobs story is not just the track record at Apple, but that comeback story, that he was thrown out of Apple, came back and built the company even greater. And that perseverance is so important in terms of entrepreneurship. And nobody is a better role model for that, for all entrepreneurs all over the world than Steve Jobs.
The problem is, you can't tell people these things. They'll think you're crazy. And I say to myself: What can I do with this life inside me? I'd like to give it ... to make a present of it ... to go up to people and tell them: You need to be joyful! You know? You have to play at being pirates ... to build cities of marble ... to laugh ... to set off firecrackers
Opposition work is not without its dangers. But if you've chosen a job like that for yourself, you then subsequently shouldn't spend your time every second thinking, oh my God, what might happen to me? Oh my God, what might happen to me? Your colleagues include quite a large number of war correspondents. Their job is not the least dangerous in the world, either.
Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life. Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.
I could go on for days about why I love yoga. One of my favorite parts is I can't think about anything else other than doing what the teacher tells me to do. For me, someone who has a million things going on at any given moment, that kind of surrender is liberating. I also learn so much about myself - my limitations, my potential, how to be mindful of an injury.
Slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.
I think it’s important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I’ve never had any fear in my whole life when we’ve been near collapse and all of that. I’ve never been afraid. I’ve never had the feeling I couldn’t walk out and get a job doing something.
That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart.
The bottom line for most people who are normal is their need for other people. Even the greedy ones have this need - as long as they're not sociopathic. They may be very misguided and unhappy and do bad things and so forth, but in general if you look down deep, you find that these people are mainly concerned with other people and what other people think of them.
If I took perfect pictures all the time, the people standing in the room with me, or on the carpet, would think, 'What an actress! What a faker!' That thought embarrasses me so much that I look like s**t in half my photos, and I don't give a f***. What matters to me is that the people in the room leave and say, 'She was cool. She had a good time. She was honest.'
I think it's a shame when pop culture forgets that theatricality is a big part of it. When Neil Young is fumbling around in his pocket looking for the right harmonica, it doesn't matter that he's a dude in the hat who is a man of the people - there's a theatricality there. You don't have to be David Bowie or the Kabuki theater to have that theatricality going on.
There are bits at the table read that destroy, so much so that we can't wait to do it in taping. And then, no reaction. And then there are times when I can't get the right read on a line in rehearsal, and then the audience howls at it. The strange thing is I still don't know why it happens like that. It's not like afterwards I think, 'Now I know why that worked!'
People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.
Man, Wren. I’m impressed. No woman ever sent flowers to thank me. (Serre) Don’t be that impressed. I’m thinking she didn’t send flowers to thank him. One flower says thank you. This many says she thought he was dead. Or that she killed him. Hmm...I’m thinking, put a tiger in her tank and that didn’t quit rev her up. What she needs is to go hunting for bear. (Dev)
I very easily decide in certain situations that I'm an outsider. That's just my own craziness. I think that I have sympathy for those characters who are like that, but I love it when the humor comes from a character who is serious about his situation - only the way he's thinking about it is all wrong, or the ways he's solving his problems are never going to work.
No man should think that peace comes easily. Peace does not come by merely wanting it, or shouting for it, or marching down Main Street for it. Peace is built brick by brick, mortared by the stubborn effort and the total energy and imagination of able and dedicated men. And it is built in the living faith that, in the end, man can and will master his own destiny.
Biography is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of the world. The biographer at work, indeed, is like the professional burglar, breaking into a house, rifling through certain drawers that he has good reason to think contain the jewelry and money, and triumphantly bearing his loot away.
Sometimes I go for days without speaking to a soul. I think, “I should make that call", but I put it off. Because there’s something pleasurable about not talking. But then I love talking, so it’s not that. But sometimes it can be nice. It’s not like I sit here philosophizing, because I’ve no talent for that. It’s just this thing about silence that’s so wonderful.
There's such an aggressively apolitical movement in the US that anything that smells of being political - even the term "political" is so ridiculous, when you think about it. The worst part of governing, the political side, is the grossest part, so that's what they call it. So anything that reeks of that immediately gets tuned out by 70 percent of the population.
I think that there is a purity aesthetic, like "I just make art because I'm an artist and I can't help it. I don't care what the critics say." But different mediums have a different relationship with the public. If you're in a performing medium it's hard not to place some weight on whether or not people come to your shows, or whether or not they're enjoying them.
I don't think people were put here to be happy. I think if you decide to be an artist or a writer, you automatically accept the responsibility of being alone. However, after your 50 or 60 years are up you'll be able to look back and see this output that you've done that will endure long after you're gone, and will continue to fill the minds of millions of people.