Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My interest in Princess Margaret comes through Vanessa Kirby's brilliant portrayal of her in 'The Crown.' Rather than do the classic story from beginning to end, this book gives you many different glimpses. You get a much more intimate sense of the person through little incidents, stories, and gossip.
Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere - the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue.
I've always listened to music while I write, but none of my work has been so directly impacted by a song as my new novel, 'So Cold the River,' for which the brilliant strings piece 'Short Trip Home,' composed by Edgar Meyer and featuring the incredible Joshua Bell on violin, inspired much of the story.
Take Tom Sachs as an artist. His brain is more brilliant than anything, so of course, anything he puts out over a ten-year period is going to continue to be super relevant. But if you look at some artists, they have one good idea, but unless you know where it's coming from, it's not going to be lasting.
Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat, speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women, narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.
Comparing 'Christmas Vacation' to 'It's A Wonderful Life' is the silliest thing. That film starred the greatest movie actor of all time, and the idea that our movie could ever be connected in some fashion to something so brilliant and beautiful always made feel like, 'That's all they had to write about?'
I'm always disappointed when I see the word 'Puritan' tossed around as shorthand for a bunch of generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys. Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that Catholics are going to Hell.
Putting aside the growing threat from Islamic jihadist terrorism, most of America's problems are home grown. So when I say overthrow the establishment to fix the economy, and the brilliant businessman Wilbur Ross says we need radical new approaches to government, we're talking two sides of the same coin.
I think Don Henley is a brilliant contemporary rock writer. He would have been a fabulous poet if he weren't a musician. He was a literary major, and not only that - he's gifted with a brilliant voice. To me, Don could sing the New York City Yellow Pages and I'd buy it. I just love the sound of his voice.
When you're still, and some actors are really brilliant at that, you bring a kind of energy to you as opposed to sending the energy out. There are some actors, like Gary Cooper or Kevin Spacey, that are absolutely brilliant - Gene Hackman is another - at being and allowing the audience to just do the work.
I love working in television, and I've been thrilled to be a part of so many wonderful shows. I worked with Lady Gaga on 'Gossip Girl,' and the brilliant Felicity Huffman on 'Desperate Housewives,' but I think my favorite TV job so far was the pilot I shot for the CW Network this year called 'Joey Dakota.'
I think so much of young adult literature sort of gets ghettoized - the title 'young adult' makes people immediately discount it. And just like with books that get written for adults, there is plenty of young adult literature that is bad. But there is also plenty of young adult literature that is brilliant.
I can't pick a favorite animal; I love so many! But I guess if I have to choose, I pick bees! There's this brilliant documentary called 'Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?' I think it's important for people to be educated about bees - they pollinate almost all the food we eat. They are amazing!
The house was big enough for my brother and me to have firecracker wars at one end and leave Mom and Dad undisturbed at the other. When firecrackers weren't available, we attacked each other with pennies and marbles and clumps of Crisco, which made brilliant greasy asterisks when you missed and hit the wall.
It strikes me every time I do an interview that I don't really sit around thinking about my goals and my life and my career. I do what I love doing and I get a lot of feedback. I'm free as a bird, you know? If I do something good, it's, 'Wow, that was brilliant,' and if I do something bad, it just goes away.
I feel like there's a voice in my head, always, telling me every idea is brilliant, and another telling me every idea is the worst. And they argue in my head until somebody wins, until I solicit an audience to be, like, 'Will you help me figure this out? Is this the best or the worst idea?' And they tell me!
I've done some luxury flying, which is brilliant. It has only happened once or twice, but it was nice because flying is the worst part of the holiday. But then again, if the plane crashes, you're still dead. For that much money I'd want a little capsule that whizzed me off to safety if it was going to crash.
I exercise about 40 minutes a day, and I'll run one day and do circuit training the next day. I live in an area where there are brilliant hills and mountains, so I get a good hill run with my dog. At home, I'll do the circuit training with old weights, along with pull-ups in the trees and that sort of stuff.
June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
People ask me about 'The Hurt Locker' a lot, and it's an incredible piece of filmmaking - as are 'Band of Brothers' and 'Platoon' and 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Apocalypse Now.' But they're not necessarily true to war in a literal sense. What they are, really, are brilliant movies about Hollywood's idea of war.
I think if people want to have surgery then fine, if it makes you feel better, brilliant. But it does annoy me when you're being accused of it, and it's not nice when people are commenting being like 'Eughh, what has she done to her face?' And I'm like 'Oh my god, I've done nothing, this is actually my face.'
I lack confidence, but I've been so lucky the way jobs have come to me, and I'm so grateful for them. I know how many brilliant actors there are out there who aren't getting the chances. While the work is there, I will grab it with both hands. It could all end tomorrow. You never know what's around the corner.
The Constitution remains brilliant in its overall design and sound with respect to the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers. But there are numerous archaic provisions that inhibit constructive change and adaptation. These constitutional bits affect the daily life of the republic and every citizen in it.
Having children is the greatest thing that can happen to you as a husband and wife. They are infuriating at times when they're little, but on the whole, they're such a joy. I don't think I was the most brilliant mother when they were young. I had quite a bit of help because I was working and I enjoyed my work.
The fact that something is actually understandable and relatable doesn't mean that it's unsophisticated or banal. It just means that it's crystal-clear. And if you can't explain it, that doesn't necessarily mean it's so brilliant that ordinary mortals can't fathom it. It might just mean that it makes no sense.
I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.
During the Second Boer War, from 1899 to 1902, Britain was rampantly jingoistic: anyone who opposed the war was cast as a traitor. The 'Guardian' stood against it and ran a campaign for peace while the brilliant 'Guardian' reporter Emily Hobhouse exposed the concentration camps for the Boers run by the British.
Beatbullying's 'The Big March 2012' is such a brilliant campaign and I am very proud to be a part of it. I have been a victim of cyber bullying myself and I know firsthand just how hurtful it can be. People think that they can hide behind computers and send nasty and hurtful comments to people, and this is wrong.
Even before I went to the UN, I often would want to say something in a meeting - only woman at the table - and I'd think, 'OK well, I don't think I'll say that. It may sound stupid.' And then some man says it, and everybody thinks it's completely brilliant, and you are so mad at yourself for not saying something.
I had a few really bad years in school, just from not fitting in and being bullied. It was kind of brilliant being a military brat, though, because when you're in that kind of situation, you just think, 'I only have to hang on for another year, because then we'll move. It'll be fine if I can just get out of here.'
The main thing is to believe writers know what their voices are, and if they are left alone, they will come through with something. There are a load of brilliant U.S. comedies: at the moment, I'm loving 'Girls.' People say the U.S. is more conservative; I think, actually, it is a bit looser here, but trends change.
There have been some brilliant and very successful standalone books that work in themselves and also seem to refresh a series. Anyone who writes a series lives in fear of it becoming stale, so you do whatever you can to keep it fresh - although it does feel a bit nerve-racking to write outside of your comfort zone.
In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.
A few of Ellison's short stories from the 1940s and 1950s were widely anthologized over the years. After a while, it became generally known that he was at work on another novel. Though he remained aware ever afterward of the authority 'Invisible Man' gave to him, no second novel followed his brilliant debut in 1952.
I use all kinds of resources for researching my novels. I'm not shy about calling up experts and asking questions, or emailing, or buying textbooks and references. The Internet is always a brilliant way to find instant facts, but it's not a great way to really understand your subjects in depth without a lot of work.
I'm always involved with the Aerospace Program and NASA and Goddard Space Flight Center. And if kids feel so inclined, they can log onto NASA and the Optimus Prime Spinoff Award, which we present every year to some of the brilliant young minds that are taking up into the academics of space, science, technology, math.
I really love 'Real Housewives.' It's like the, you know, comedy stuff that's, like, intentionally funny. Like, I love 'Nathan for You,' that Comedy Central show. It's just brilliant. My friend Bill Eichner has a show called 'Billy on the Street' that I write for, and even if I didn't write for it, I'd still love it.
I actually went to see 'Rushmore,' and I came late, and I missed myself. It was great, that scene. I caught that scene the other day on TV, funny enough, the first scene that you see with Jason Schwartzman and myself, where we talk about his grades. That's a brilliant scene, and I have to say, we play it brilliantly.
To portray an iconic character has been brilliant in itself, and to be able to do that on a show like 'Once Upon a Time' enhances that because the show puts a spin on characters and makes them very different and puts core values that are very different that aren't in the original fairy tales a lot of people relate to.
Growing up, my parents were Roman Catholic - strict Catholics - from New Orleans. I understood the idea in the principle of spirituality. I noticed it in the stories that I read. The Trinity was something that was brought up consistently: the power of three. Things happened in threes, and I thought that was brilliant.
I came down successfully through Picasso and Braque, down through Pollock, I guess, but I began to stop at Franz Kline and the Abstractionists. I like their design, brilliant design, marvelous color layers. But I don't find any human content there. I'm from an old school, and painting has to have human content for me.
The ideal job letter starts with a brilliant light. Then we realize that this brilliant light is actually sunlight, shafts of it, pouring through trees onto a thick bed of pine needles. Soft dusty resin floats in the sun shafts, invitingly. The smell of pine and sap rises from the forest floor. A twig snaps underfoot.
The prescience of the founding fathers continues to astonish me. They were freedom fighters. They made America. They gave us this magical country. They also were slaveowners - which is confusing to their legacy. How could such brilliant men have only secured freedom for themselves, but not their wives or their slaves?
I've always been fascinated by the concept of reincarnation. I learned that many brilliant people were interested in reincarnation, including Carl Jung. I'm a big Jungian. So I began writing novels involving theories integrating past and present, even if the past element in the novel took place 500 or 1,000 years ago.
'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger' not only applies to the deeply personal subject matter of 'To the Bone' but to simply getting a film about people with eating disorders made. Without the brilliant Julie Lynn, Bonnie Curtis, and Karina Miller producing, there's no way this project would be coming to fruition.
Often, when people ask me what I read as a young girl, I lie. Or, I should say, I lie by omission. I tell them about my brilliant fourth-grade teacher, Miss Artis, who assigned us 'Johnny Tremain' and 'Where the Red Fern Grows' and 'Tuck Everlasting,' all books that made an impression on me. And people nod in approval.
People who do not have funny in them are not funny when they read funny lines. Sorry. Just doesn't work that way. Seriously, this is the biggest rule of all. You live and die with your casting decisions. Your actors are the heart and soul of the whole thing. Without brilliant actors, you will not have a brilliant film.
People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a level of providence to his every decision but he was a cunning and calculating politician; from the cultivation of his image as a hayseed from Illinois, to his ability to keep this country together under dire circumstances.
I would love to make a Brazilian film, but it would have to be something very close to my heart. It's such a personal thing, so I'd want to do my family proud. I'd want to do justice to Brazilian cinema. I think Brazilian cinema is brilliant. I would really love to do something, but I'm just waiting for the right thing.
My general view is that capitalism is an amazing innovation and job-creation machine. But what we've done historically that has been so brilliant is that we've moderated it with appropriate tax policy, with regulation, with workers' rights and infrastructure in our society that make sure that everyone has an opportunity.