Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016) King of Thailand
Source: "King Bhumibol's Reign" in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/magazine/king-bhumibol-s-reign.html (21 May 1989)
Cited in Times Literary Supplement, 6 March 2009.
Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016) King of Thailand
Source: "King Bhumibol's Reign" in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/magazine/king-bhumibol-s-reign.html (21 May 1989)
“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.”
W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage
Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 50
Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian
Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it. That's not what the Republicans do. … I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist. But, no, I'm not like Mitt Romney, whose book is called No Apology, the Case for American Greatness. Really? Always waving the big foam number one finger; we're not number one in most things. We're number one in military. We're number one in money. We're number one in fat toddlers, meth labs, and people we send to prison. We're not number one in literacy, money spent on education. We're not even number one in social mobility. Social mobility means basically the American dream, the ability of one generation to do better than the next. We're tenth. That's like Sweden coming tenth in Swedish meatballs.
“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“I don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want”
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Aldous Huxley book Brave New World
Variant: I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want sin.
Source: Brave New World