Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't think I would have been a good architect. Really, I have thought about this from time to time, and I might have wound up like my father, who never did find that which he could devote his life to. He sort of drifted from job to job. He was a traveling salesman, he was a bookkeeper, he was an office manager, he was here, there, there. And however enthusiastic he was at the beginning, his job would bore him. If I hadn't had the writing, I think I might have replicated what he was doing, which would not have been good.
The ideals and the values of the United States inspired the entire world. I don't think any of us can say that our standing in the world now, the way children around the world look at the United States, is the same. And part of what we need to do is to send a message to the world that we are going to invest in issues like education, we are going to invest in issues that relate to how ordinary people are able to live out their dreams. And that is something that I'm going to be committed to as president of the United States.
Social media has had a huge impact on the industry. Models now have voices. We are connected directly to millions of people, and we are no longer just pretty faces modeling clothes. This has allowed us to reach a broad audience. This platform for models to connect directly with their fans has started to shift the power dynamic in the industry, but there's still a long way to go. I think we are heading in the right direction, as more people start to see the value in inviting models in the creative and collaborative process.
The growing inequality of wealth and income distribution is both a moral and economic problem. If the wealthy are unwilling to pay more taxes, then this is going to lead to spending cuts. And if you put off the table things like national defense, then you're going to end up cutting more and more out of programs that aid the poor. So, I think there are consequences to this idea that tolerance for inequality requires us to - to just do nothing to make the wealthy contribute a higher share of resources to fund the government.
It can sometimes be a hearbreaking struggle for us to arrive at a place where we are no longer afraid of the child inside us. We often fear that people won't take us seriously, or that they won't think us qualified enough. For the sake of being accepted, we can forget our source and put on one of the rigid masks of professionalism or conformity that society is continually offering us. The childlike part of us is the part that, like the Fool, simply does and says, without needing to qualify himself or strut his credentials.
There's no doubt that the Donald Trump administration, part of the red meat that he ran on from the first day when he announced his candidacy was a very extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric that he kept up through the whole campaign - the wall, deportation, more detention. And I think that that particular piece of red meat, he's going to throw out every once in a while and try to - of all the commitments that he's made, this is the one that is most disturbing, because it's one that he will try to fulfill through his presidency.
Modern presidential debating only started with Richard Nixon and John F.Kennedy in 1960, although the proximity of that to the Lincoln-Douglas centennial is more than accidental. The reason is, I think, the medium. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were talking, but the talking was in terms of logic, development, and reasoning. Television, as a medium, resists those qualities in speaking - it favors quick cuts, one-liners, and talking points. I think the modern debates are largely the prisoners of the televised medium
I have a serious question." "I will give a serious answer." "Can a god be killed?" The humor drained from Roman's face. "Well, that depends on if you're a pantheist or a Marxist." "What's the difference?" "The first believes that divinity is the universe. The two are synonymous and nonexistent without each other. The second believes in anthropocentrism, seeing man in the center of the universe, and god as just an invention of human conscience. Of course, if you follow Nietzsche, you can kill God just by thinking about him.
World War II vets in general didn't talk about their experiences. They believed there was something better and that they were going to prove to America what they could be and show America what it could be by being the change that they wanted. Like that Ghandi phrase "be the change that you want to see" but I think that it was also just a different culture. People didn't want to complain, whereas today if you go to the Starbucks and they mess up your order you might tweet about it. You know it's a different kind of culture.
In the end, I feel that one has to have a bit of neurosis to go on being an artist. A balanced human seldom produces art. It's that imbalance which impels us. I often think that all I want to do now is to avoid suicide, accidental or otherwise. Other than that, I think living on the edge is what drives my work and me beyond a certain point. The artist lives with anxiety. When you finally reach a plateau of achievement, there comes a new anxiety - the hunger to push on still further. That angst is what makes you go forward.
Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.
One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.
New York is where it is going to begin, I think. You can see it coming. The insect experts have learned how it works with locusts. Until locust population reaches a certain density, they all act like any grasshoppers. When the critical point is reached, they turn savage and swarm, and try to eat the world. We're nearing a critical point. One day soon two strangers will bump into each other at high noon in the middle of New York. But this time they won't snarl and go on. They will stop and stare and then leap at each others
Sex is more openly spoken about than 40, 50 years ago, and I think probably in comparison to a lot of bands - certainly other contemporary pop girl bands - we're certainly not as suggestive. We talk about sex in the way that we would to our friends. As a girl group, I think it was important not to avoid those sort of things either, because it's about confronting people's idea of what women should be talking about and how they should talk about it. There's no point in shying away from subjects like that, because they exist.
I think a lot of these terms, nationalistic things, somebody is an American, or somebody is a Frenchman, or somebody is a Jew, I don't know, it doesn't mean anything to me. You really should start augmenting these words, saying what kind. If you want to say somebody is a Jew, what do you mean by that? Does he have blonde hair? I think a lot of these ancient nationalistic and ethnic terms have kind of lost their meaning, or their meaning is so broad, it's nothing. It's like he's connected to the ancient world. Everybody is.
Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night.
Very often the people who are shooting your film do not look like you if your film is brown-centric in some way. What is very interesting is to be going through these scenarios and turning around and looking at so many faces that are not yours. Even though those faces are looking at you in love, it puts you in a space when you are on a plantation in that condition. I think that it allows you to see further into possibly what that place really was for someone else, except thank God we're with people who love and respect us.
It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we'd like to be. That's not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But you need to honor what you've accomplished, rather than thinking of what's left to be done (p. 159).
I think, when all bands start, when you're on your first album you have the benefit of hoovering up people who genuinely come across the music and really like it, but also those sort of 'floating voters' who just like pop music when they're young. And I think that when you get to your fourth album, those floating voters have dissipated and you're left with a core audience, and at that point you've really got to get your act together and move on to something else to keep afloat, or you'll just shrink with your core audience.
Like propaganda generally, advertising must thus pervade the atmosphere; for it wants, paradoxically, to startle its beholders without really being noticed by them. Its aim is to jolt us, not "into thinking," as in a Brechtian formulation, but specifically away from thought, into quasiautomatic action: "To us," as an executive at Coca-Cola puts it, "communication is message assimilation--the respondent must be shown to behave in some way that proves they [sic] have come to accept the message, not merely to have received it.
For those that have said I seemed dickish to some of the nuttier guests on Joe Rogan Questions Everything - guilty as charged. As the season wore on I lost my patience with some of those folks unfortunately. I think I overdosed on ridiculous/likely fake stories. I certainly learned a lot about the kind of people that invest a large portion of their life on fringe subjects - they're all white. I think there's something interesting about the subjects, (UFOS, etc) but the study of them has often been overrun by silly thinking.
I was born in the United States, I'm proud to be an American, I'm an American first. But obviously, I'm a Chinese-American. And growing up, my family, my parents, and I think rightly so didn't put us in Chinatown, didn't put us with our other ethnic group, but put us in mainstream America. They're thinking was that will help us assimilate into the mainstream and be a part of it. And it did. It certainly gave me tolerance of other people, of other races, of other ethnicities and I think that's helped make me a better person.
You have a certain objectivity, as a member of the audience, and you can come away maybe being provoked into a certain discourse or a certain arena of questioning, regarding how you would deal with things that your character has to deal with. Whereas when you're doing a film, once you start asking, "What would I do?," you're getting the distance greater between yourself and the character, or you're bringing the character to you, which I think is self-serving, in the wrong way. The idea is to bring yourself to the character.
To be a musician is a great privilege but it is also a very great responsibility. One must think that to be a musician is a gift - a gift from Nature. There is no great merit in us except in loving this gift with respect and devotion and doing everything possible to honor that gift by work and more work. We must work with conviction and humility, searching for beauty, simplicity, and the Truth. And it is for us musicians to do all in our power for a better world. Music must carry the message of beauty, of love and of peace.
if I could tell my very-younger self something, I would tell him to let loose more often. I think it all roots in sexuality, but because of that, I became so worried about everything — worried about what people thought. I was afraid to be creative and charismatic and eccentric. Just to do things to do things, like dancing. I was afraid of looking too flamboyant or something. I would tell myself to stop being so stressed about what other people are thinking. Stop being so afraid that something may not come off the right way.
I think Carl Jung said, you know, I'm gonna paraphrase it badly, but, so much of what we fall in love with in other people is a potential in us that's ready to be realized. We're projecting onto them this amazing thing, but really it's us, and we're very close to integrating it and claiming it. If we do claim it, then we can just love somebody for who they are with all their flaws, but if we don't take that projection back, then we keep wanting them to have that. Then you just realize we're all screwed, that's how it works.
Finally, Peeta turns to Pollux. "Well, then you just became our most valuable asset." Castor laughs and Pollux manages a smile. We're halfway down the first tunnel when I realize what was so remarkable about that exchange. Peeta sounded like his old self, the one who could always think of the right thing to say when nobody else could... I glance back at him as he trudges along under his guards, Gale and Jackson, his eyes fixed on the ground, his shoulders hunched forward. So dispirited. But for a moment, he was really here.
Rose: My mum's here. The Doctor: Oh, that's just what I need! Don't you dare make this place domestic! Mickey Smith: You ruined my life, Doctor. [the Doctor turns and looks at him, irritated] They thought she was dead, I was a murder suspect because of you! The Doctor: [looks at Rose] See what I mean? Domestic! Mickey: I bet you don't even remember my name! The Doctor: Ricky. Mickey: It's Mickey! The Doctor: No, it's Ricky. Mickey: I think I know my own name! The Doctor: You think you know your own name? How stupid are you?
We often sometimes forget that- prior to the invention of removable pipe- there really were no English Bibles. We have treasures, we have Bibles in every size and shape and color. But there's a failure to recognize what's contained inside the cover of the Bible. We grow apathetic, and I think that the issue is reacting to the Word of God. Not just carrying, but get back into the Word of God and then get the Word of God into us. It's all about mining the scripture, memorizing the scripture, and meditating with our scripture.
The power of reading a great book is that you start thinking like the author. For those magical moments while you are immersed in the forests of Arden, you are William Shakespeare; while you are shipwrecked on Treasure Island, you are Robert Louis Stevenson; while you are communing with nature at Walden, you are Henry David Thoreau. You start to think like they think, feel like they feel, and use imagination as they would. Their references become your own, and you carry these with you long after you've turned the last page.
Whether or not belive in Fate comes down to one thing: who you blame when something goes wrong. Do you think it's your fault - that if you'd tried better, worked harder, it wouldn't have happened? Or do you just chalk it up to circumstance? I know poeple who'll hear about the people who died, and will say that it was God's will. I know people who'll say it was bad luck. And then there's my personal favorite: They were just in the wrong place at hte wrong time. Then again, you could say the same thing about me, couldn't you?
be glαd of life, becαuse it gives you the chαnce to love αnd to work αnd to plαy αnd to look up αt the stαrs; to be sαtisfied with your posessions, to despise nothing in the world except fαlsehood αnd meαnness αnd to feαr nothing except cowαrdice; to be governed by your αdmirαtions rαther thαn by your disgusts, to covet nothing thαt is your neighbour's except his kindness of heαrt αnd gentleness of mαnners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and to spend αs much time αs you cαn with body αnd with spirit.
All that is good in our history is gathered in libraries. At this moment, Plato is down there at the library waiting for us. So is Aristotle. Spinoza is there and so is Kats. Shelly and Byron adn Sam Johnson are there waiting to tell us their magnificent stories. All you have to do is walk in the library door and the great company open their arms to you. They are so happy to see you that they come out with you into the street and to your home. And they do what hardly any friend will-- they are silent when you wish to think.
In the world outside this glass room, songbirds are feeding and resting in the trees. Some will take off tonight and not land until they reach Venezuela. Sandpipers, plovers, and broad-winged hawks have already left for Patagonia and Panama. Bats are headed for caves in Kentucky and Tennessee. Out in the Atlantic, humpback whales pass by on their way to the Caribbean. Even now, Canada geese are honking toward us from Quebec. It is a good day for the beginnings of journeys.Every time I look at you, I think, Now I cannot die.
Without the church it's like having a boat without the rudder. You think you can do it on your own and this may sound pedestrian or trite but I'll equate it to this: all my life I've been involved with exercise but no matter how much - and I know a great deal about the body - you need help. You need a trainer. You need to go to a gym and you need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and what the church is. The church is the gym of the soul.
Sometimes I am still surprised that I'm a model and that people think I'm good-looking. I've gone through a lot of different phases on what I do and why I do it - morally and ethically. I've tortured myself about it, especially in dealing with success and money. I just had to learn to look at it as a job, as opposed to identifying myself as a model and thinking of myself as a part of this industry. I just thought, Okay, this is an opportunity to learn and see and meet people. Still, I am a Scorpio and I'm quite competitive.
When you have to cast movies from a producer's standpoint - when you've been on the other side of casting sessions - you just get a completely different perspective on what that process is of getting a job for an actor. You realize how completely impersonal it is. If anything, I think it's made me a lot less sensitive. So much of this is logic and business, and it's got nothing to do with whether people are good or not. Unfortunately, I think that's one of the last things that gets factored in when you're assembling a cast.
I think that Russia is very aware that they are on notice when it comes to certain issues. They are very aware that we do want to try and defeat ISIS together, if that's at all possible, along with our allies. But there's no love or anything going on with Russia right now. They get that we're getting our strength back, that we're getting our voice back, and that we're starting to lead again. And honestly, at the United Nations, that's the number one comment I get is they're just so happy to see the United States lead again.
I am also going to go with somebody who is the opposite of Donald Trump and her name is Johari Osayi Idusuyi. I think she represented millions and millions of Americans who look at the message that Donald Trump is using his fame and the power he has accumulated to,you know, to send out into the world and it`s horrified. And I think her quiet resistance represented so many people because I`ll tell you, people of color have been trying to warn this country about Donald Trump for a really long time and I think she reminded us.
Comedy is actually very hard. It's hard to choose those moments and know when you can really push it, and know when you should be bringing it back and making it more subtle, and knowing as time goes on, as you do take after take and the crowd around you stops laughing. Whenever you do comedy, you realize you're up against - you're performing next to people who you would think are so unbelievably good at it, that that's a bit of a pressure. But at the same time, it's just fun. It's fun to be able to let out that side of you.
Think of it: the lowest common denominator in being digital is not your operating system, modem, or model of computer. It's a tiny piece of plastic, designed decades ago by Bell Labs' Charles Krumreich, Edwin Hardesty, and company, who thought they were making an inconspicuous plug for a few telephone handsets. Not in their wildest dreams was Registered Jack 11 - a modular connector more commonly known as the RJ-11 - meant to be plugged and unplugged so many times, by so many people, for so many reasons, all over the world.
I stopped wanting to float away from my life, because in the end my life was all I had. I'd walk the Fairmont campus and look up to the sky and I wouldn't see myself drifting off like some lost balloon. Instead I saw the size of the world and found comfort in its hugeness. I'd think back to those times when I felt like everything was closing in on me, those times when I thought I was stuck, and I realized that I was wrong. There is always hope. The world is vast and meant for wandering. There is always somewhere else to go.
I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.
Architects are today routinely indoctrinated against the dumb box. Even advertising urges us to "think outside the box." Why? Because it is thought we all hate the box for being too dumb, too boring, and we want to escape it. If we do escape, by buying the advertised product, we usually find ourselves inside another dumb box populated by boring people just like us. It is clearly possible to live an extraordinary life inside a dumb box. Question: is it possible to lead an extraordinary life in anything other than a dumb box?
The people who've done well within the [Hollywood] system are the people whose instincts, whose desires [are in natural alignement with those of the producers] - who want to make the kind of movies that producers want to produce. People who don't succeed - people who've had long, bad times; like [Jean] Renoir, for example, who I think was the best director, ever - are the people who didn't want to make the kind of pictures that producers want to make. Producers didn't want to make a Renoir picture, even if it was a success.
Global warming is already acting upon us with an accelerated feedback and compounded effect that may be irreversible! We do not have eons or centuries or many decades. Most of us alive today may not even have the luxury of saying 'Après moi, le déluge' because we will be around to experience it ourselves. And if you think it will be 'interesting' or 'exciting,' ask the tsunami survivors if that's how they felt. This time the plutocratic drive to 'accumulate, accumulate, accumulate' may take all of us down, once and forever.
When I first started performing, some people were there just out of curiosity. I think that happens less often then you'd think, but when it is happening it's very obvious and I can tell what's going on. I had some of that in the beginning, but I think that ultimately I got a pretty strong fan base based on just my personality alone, and my honesty, my music. So it wasn't based on anything else, and I did notice if someone else came looking for something else, they'd probably leave, or complain it was too loud or something.
I think that has to do with my awareness that in a sense we all have a certain measure of responsibility to those who have made it possible for us to take advantage of the opportunities. The door is opened only so far. If some of us can squeeze through the crack of that door, then we owe it to those who have made those demands that the door be opened to use the knowledge or the skills that we acquire not only for ourselves but in the service of the community as well. This is something that I guess I decided a long time ago.
I think, because of my background, which is slightly more exotic than the average British actor, I think, I sort of occupied this little niche quite early on of playing the foreign guy. It started way back at drama school, I played an Eastern European heavy, I played the Russian mobster. And I have done all those different ethnic roles, and I think it's partly because of my look, I think I've got an adaptable sort of nondescript ethnicity, which you can't quite pin down, but it's enough to kind of get a flavor of something.
To look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about. One who talked incessantly, without stopping to look and listen, would repeat himself ad nauseam. It is the same with thinking, which is really silent talking. It is not, by itself, open to the discovery of anything new, for its only novelties are simply arrangements of old words and ideas.