Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I became a larger than life figure for one reason only. When you're quoted in the 'Wall Street Journal', the 'New York Times', constantly as the expert in the business people assume you're a lot bigger than you are. And then I had to run like hell to catch up with my own image.
You need that marketing power. You need to go do the interviews. You need to put yourself out there and risk and be open to the fact that people are going to not like you, and they are just going to rip you apart, and whatever you say in an interview can get quoted out of context.
What I had said was that as a cricketer, you have to take care of your body and look after your fitness levels, and someone altered that statement and quoted me as saying that I wanted to quit playing Test cricket. It's totally untrue, and as long as I am fit, I want to play in all formats.
The journey that 'In Praise of Slowness' has made since publication shows how far this message resonates. The book has been translated into more than 30 languages. It appears on reading lists from business schools to yoga retreats. Rabbis, priests and imams have quoted from it in their sermons.
Alinsky's 1971 book, 'Rules for Radicals,' is a favorite of the Obamas. Michele Obama quoted it at the Democratic Convention. One Alinsky tactic is to 'Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.' That's what the White House did in targeting Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer.
There's a dangerous bottom-lining, and super-summarizing that happens in a lot of our press and our media, and sort of our politicians' talking points, that's dangerously simple. I don't know a better way to say it. And there's usually a lot more complicated facts going on than what is quoted and quotable.
I just got on Twitter because there was some MTV film blog that quoted me on something really innocuous that I supposedly said on Twitter before I was even on Twitter. So then I had to get on Twitter to say: 'This is me. I'm on Twitter. If there's somebody else saying that they're me on Twitter, they're not.'
There is a part of me that will forever want to be walking under autumn leaves, carrying a briefcase containing the works of Shakespeare and Yeats and a portable chess set. I will pass an old tree under which once on a summer night I lay on the grass with a fragrant young woman and we quoted e.e. cummings back and forth.
Truly, learning appears to be a reverse geometric progression with experiences at one hour, one day, one month or one year dramatically more influential and formative than later experiences. As has often been quoted, 85% of brain development takes place by age 3, and yet we spend only 4% of our educational dollars by that point.
When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it.
I'm really aware of the conversations that surround young actresses in Hollywood. I always get myself into a hole with these conversations, and I get weirdly quoted, and I sound militant and like I'm not thankful at all, and I'm so thankful of everything that's happening. But I'm an active observer of the machinations of this world.
