Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.
Wherever I can get a fast track, I'll try to because I can't stand the airport experience. If you can afford priority boarding, then do it. Nobody wants an unpleasant experience before it starts.
I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.
In a way, I'd rather go into an interview and be disliked, and have unpleasant things written about me, than to have a wonderful, glowing article written that is in no way a reflection of who I am.
I have gone to many theaters where it is so unpleasant with the commercials before the movie, the volume, and the disrespect of the filmgoers. So I understand people not wanting to go to the theater.
It is surprising how many people who don't read believe they have a book in them. Why? Nobody would imagine that Alfred Brendel took up the piano on a whim at 25 when he found accountancy unpleasant.
When Americans think of college these days, the first word that often comes to mind is 'debt.' And from 'debt' it's just a short hop to other unpleasant words, like 'payola,' 'kickback,' and 'bribery.'
It should be quite clear that it is possible for unpleasant people who are small in various ways other than in their artistic genius to produce great art. Art and morality have no necessary connection.
There is the natural tendency that all of us are vulnerable to, to deny unpleasant realities and to look for any excuse to push them away and resolve to think about them another day long in the future.
It's hard not to get a big head in the film industry, there are people on a set paid to cater to your every need, from the minute you arrive until you go home. It's kind of strange, but not unpleasant.
It's not easy for anybody in a position of responsibility... There are some very unpleasant meetings. I try to think what nice things will come after my meetings are over... having a nice glass of wine.
When I'm writing a novel, I'm dealing with a double life. I live in the present at the same time that I live in the past with my characters. It is this that makes a novelist so eccentric and unpleasant.
Journalists always explain that people are mad at them because they tell the truth, which is often unpleasant or uncomfortable to hear. However, they fail in situations where there is more than one truth.
Sometimes the very best way to deal with unpleasant things is to depict them in ways that allow people to laugh at them and destroy the power of unsayable things, rather than refusing to acknowledge them.
I find the parallels between how some investors refuse to recognise the trends and our reaction to some of our environmental challenges very powerful. There is an unwillingness to process unpleasant data.
The first interviews I gave were entirely unpleasant. You have people trying to trip you up with impolite questions that have nothing to do with the books. It's simply vulgar curiosity, and I won't have it.
When I stopped making films, they were getting on to the more realistic films and the explicit films and all. They were depicting life as it is, and some of it was unpleasant. I gradually moved away from that.
Communicate and just be open with each other. Have an unpleasant talk once in a while so it does not turn into a festering resentment, which is inevitable. It has happened with every girlfriend I have ever had.
Obviously, the Night's King is clearly a symbol of something very unpleasant in our psyche, and he even raises wights from the dead, which is probably everybody's worst fear, being actually used after we're dead.
I had always studied French and was obsessed with French films. I hated the way American films always had happy endings. I liked the way French films had dark and unpleasant characters; it was much more realistic.
There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.
Procrastination comes in two types. Some of us procrastinate in order to pursue restful activities - spending time in bed, watching TV - while others delay difficult or unpleasant tasks in favor of those that are more fun.
I have my own difficulty with movies in which the suffering of the characters is too real, and many find it difficult to watch comedies that rely too heavily on embarrassment; the vicarious reaction to this is too unpleasant.
When I was growing up, nothing unpleasant was shown in the home. And when I was in art school, the only art that was presented to me was Abstract Expressionism. But I was interested in the grim stuff. It seemed more exciting.
There's no fun in relationships. OK - that's not strictly true. I will agree that the first bit can be not totally unpleasant. There's the initial meeting and the heart quickening and the stomach-churning excitement of it all.
I think when you have lawyers arguing over whether you can keep a detainee at 46 degrees... for two hours, that's not torture. It may be unpleasant, it may be coercive... but let's say what torture actually is, and that's not it.
There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.
Fame can be very dangerous, because you can start to enjoy that part of it. And that's not the good part of what I do for a living. The good part is the making of films. The unpleasant part is the fame part, if you're not careful.
There is nothing more unpleasant than watching someone on a TV or movie set act like they are entitled to a particular kind of treatment just because they have been doing it for longer. We are all in the same boat - one job at a time.
I have been agreeably disappointed in my idea of the camels. They are far from unpleasant to ride; in fact, it is much less fatiguing than riding on horseback, and even with the little practice I have yet had, I find it shakes me less.
If someone says something unpleasant, I can't say it doesn't smart a bit. It always does. Someone can take a really nasty swipe if they want because it kind of feels powerful for a person to write in a paper and get that thing out there.
I am one of those people who are out of touch with their emotions. I tend to treat my emotions like unpleasant relatives - a long-distance call once or twice or year is more than enough. If I got in touch with them, they might come to stay.
Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands.
Saying that something is accessible gives it this implication that people need something, and thinking that we know what people need or want is really unpleasant. I don't like to think that way, like, predicting what it is that the people want.
Where do thoroughbreds go after they lose one too many races, throw one too many riders, or develop a limp? Many thousands of thoroughbreds end up being slaughtered for horse meat. The unpleasant truth is horse meat is eaten in Europe and Asia.
The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect, not a pleasurable memory of itself, but an immediate, constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself.
Effective listening is something that can absolutely be learned and mastered. Even if you find attentive listening difficult and, in certain situations, boring or unpleasant, that doesn't mean you can't do it. You just have to know what to work on.
When you are in an unpleasant environment that makes you feel uncomfortable, one of the key ways to improve that situation is through design. That's why I think it is so important to help develop and showcase young designers, as they are our future.
I suppose there are actors who are worried about their public image. But I've never had any trouble playing unpleasant characters. It is only a part. Which is why you do it -because you are interested in exploring something you never could or would be.
One year, I was a patron of a new opera. It was, to put it kindly, unpleasant to the ear. The friends I went with hated it. Keeping quiet about my contribution, I was outed when one of them, reading the program at the restaurant during dinner, saw my name.
I started out printing silk screen t-shirts. I sold ink pens. I worked construction. I worked at a gas station. I pumped gas. I was a mechanic for a little bit. I went into sewers, down into sewer lines. I had a lot of somewhat unpleasant gigs for a time there.
Until the nineteen-seventies, Western countries paid little attention to corruption overseas, and bribery was seen as an unpleasant but necessary part of doing business there. In some European countries, businesses were even allowed to deduct bribes as an expense.
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
What surprised me most about fame is how unpleasant it can be. I used to think it was going to be so fun. I got excited about the parties. You don't anticipate friends being jealous of you and critics giving your music bad reviews. Media and rumors - that stuff hurts.
One of the things I noticed is that if you look up the word ambition you will see that when it's applied to women, it's almost always negative. If a woman is ambitious she's cutthroat, she's seen as more unpleasant. Whereas when its attached to a man it's far less negative.
I think feminism's a bit misinterpreted. It was about casting off all gender roles. There's nothing wrong with a man holding a door open for a girl. But we sort of threw away all the rules, so everybody's confused. And dating becomes a sloppy, uncomfortable, unpleasant thing.
You show up at high school, there's all these kids you don't know, and you're terrified that people will have some kind of wrong or unpleasant impression of you. You just don't want anything to ruin your public persona, because you actually have a public persona in high school.
When you go into to vacationing with kids, what people don't get is that there is a portion of it that's going to be unpleasant because you're traveling with children. When people have these expectations that it's going to be perfect or amazing, that has never been my experience.
For wok cooking, use oils with a high smoke point and low polyunsaturated-fat content: grapeseed oil, peanut oil, etc. Sesame oil and olive oil will burn and taste bitter. Oils with high polyunsaturated-fat contents like soybean oil will also make your food texturally unpleasant.
If you see a gaggle of teenagers walking towards you, you tend not to make eye contact, because you know they're going to recognise you. You learn to adapt: 99.999 per cent of people aren't looking to be harmful or unpleasant; they just want something, a photograph or an autograph.