Quotes about bit (1744 quotes, page 17)

“We're in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)
Context: We have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me: We're in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down.

“When quite young I can remember I had no thought or wish of surpassing others. I was rather taken with a liking of little arts and bits of learning.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Reflections on his earlier life, written when he was 27 (December 1862), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 11.
Context: When quite young I can remember I had no thought or wish of surpassing others. I was rather taken with a liking of little arts and bits of learning. My mother carefully fostered a liking for botany, giving me a small microscope and many books, which I yet have. Strange as it may seem, I now believe that botany and the natural system, by exercising discrimination of kinds, is the best of logical exercises. What I may do in logic is perhaps derived from that early attention to botany.

Art , Learning

“As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse, assigning to each his task as in a prison.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Hofnung un Shrek, 1906. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 279.
Context: I fear you. As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse, assigning to each his task as in a prison. And you will exterminate the creator of new worlds,—the free human will, and stop up the purest well of human happiness—the power of the one to face thousands, to stand up to peoples and generations.

“I like to be a little bit of a rebel as an actor, so I am interested in the unpopular person and the lesser-understood character. It's a bold choice to try to find empathy in an unlikeable place in storytelling.”

Laura Dern (1967) American actress, director, producer

On choosing an unlikeable role in a movie
New Zealand Herald interview (June 2018)

“It's not karma so much, but justice, which is a little bit different, because there is a definite consciousness behind justice.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Doing Good — for the right reasons!" (13 March 2008)
Context: My favorite thing on this topic is what God has to say about it — so I'm going to look up a Bible verse. So everyone who's "scared of the Bible" — now is the time to run away!... "Beware practicing you righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.... But when you give to the poor — do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." I really like that! It's not karma so much, but justice, which is a little bit different, because there is a definite consciousness behind justice.

Justice

“The scotch egg is such a Scottish food. It's as though a great Scottish chef said "I need a tasty snack. Let's take an egg… and wrap it in meat! Makes it a bit harder."”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Lyrics, Misc.

Food

“The latent function of schooling, that is, the hidden curriculum, which forms individuals into needy people who know that they have now satisfied a little bit of their needs for education, is much more important…”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

We the People interview (1996)
Context: The latent function of schooling, that is, the hidden curriculum, which forms individuals into needy people who know that they have now satisfied a little bit of their needs for education, is much more important... The idea that people are born with needs, that needs can be translated into rights, that these rights can be translated into entitlements, is a development of the modem world and it's reasonable, it's acceptable, it's obvious only for people who have had some of their educational needs awakened or created, then satisfied, and then learned that they have less than others. Schooling, which we engage in and which supposedly creates equal opportunities, has become the unique, never-before-attempted way of dividing the whole society into classes. Everybody knows at which level of his twelve or sixteen years of schooling he has dropped out, and in addition knows what price tag is attached to the higher schooling he has gotten. It's a history of degrading the majority of people.

People , Education , School

“… the [Obama] administration has spent, in my view, too much time, in maintaining its extended hand of engagement toward the regime without getting anything in return. Meanwhile, the clock has been ticking. Some countries in the area are becoming more antsy about the imminence of Iran's ability to be equipped with weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, the rhetoric and language from some key countries would be to mention the fact we are exploring this and this is an option on the table. I could not say otherwise. But that doesn't mean to me that there is a major change of policy. We need to think a little bit outside the box and perhaps look at other avenues. It's not limited to the character of this administration because successive, previous administrations have fallen systematically into the same “loophole” -- and I'm not even saying the same “trap.” Einstein said, if I'm not mistaken, that “thinking that doing more of the same will produce a different outcome is a sign of insanity.””

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

When I look at the overall diplomacy of the free world, particularly of the U.S., I can only see a repeat pattern of the same attempts made while hoping to obtain a different result. Something's got to change.
As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

World , Hope , Thinking , Change

“What has been clear all these years is that the regime from the get-go was antagonistic; was trying to and continues to try to foment instability -- ultimately to force the region to succumb to some kind of a modern-day Shiite caliphate under Iranian regional hegemony; all of it perhaps backed by the very deterrent we talked about at the beginning of the interview: forcing the world to submit to that as a fait accompli. I find it a little bit difficult for a lot of people to sort of agree to some kind of a fait accompli and say, “Well, there's no way we can change the course of events and Iran will undoubtedly under this regime demand to have its way.” The question is the regime that is in Iran – the regime that has now taken our country hostage and is willing to do anything for its own survival -- and not to be confused with Iran as a country.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

People , World , Way , Question

“Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you.”

Остин О'Малли (1858–1932)

Dogs , Revenge

“If you’re even a little bit different than what is considered the norm, then you’re an oddball.”

Марк Фишбах (Markiplier) (1989)

“It's a great big step for me to open my heart up even a little bit. ”

John Denver (1943–1997) American singer, songwriter, activist, and humanitarian

Heart

“Strange," mused the Director, as they turned away, "strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It's madness.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

People , Imagination , Game , Thinking

“Put it off for a bit. All life is putting off. Well, not entirely. ”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Life

“When you have the chance to fight for victory or a podium finish, you have the motivation to push that extra bit out of yourself.”

Niki Lauda (1949–2019) Austrian former Formula 1 racing driver

Motivation , Fight , Chance , Victory

“I have Asperger's syndrome and that means I'm sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances - being different is a superpower. It makes you think differently. And especially in such a big crisis like this one we need to think outside the box. We need to think outside our current system, that we need people that think outside the box and who aren't like everyone else.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Greta Thunberg Explains Why Her Asperger's Is A 'Superpower' That Helps Her Activism https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/greta-thunberg-arpergers-activism_n_5d77e5cee4b064513575d260, HuffPost (10 September 2019)
2019

Thinking , Box , People , Making love

“Although we revolutionary socialists are always accused of being Utopian, nothing strikes me as more Utopian than the reformist belief that with a bit of tinkering and some good faith, we can systematically improve the world. You have to ask how many decades of broken promises and failed schemes it will take to disprove that hope. Marxism isn’t about saying you’ll get a perfect world: it’s about saying we can get a better world than this one, and it’s hard to imagine, no matter how many mistakes we make, that it could be much worse than the mass starvation, war, oppression, and exploitation we have now. In a world where 30,000 to 40,000 children die of malnutrition daily while grain ships are designed to dump food into the sea if the price dips too low, it’s worth the risk.”

China Miéville (1972) English writer

Interview with Joan Gordon

Faith , Imagination , Food , War

“Seeing a lot of water like that every day is probably an important thing for human beings. For human beings might be a bit of a generalization—but I do know it’s important for one person: me. If I go for a time without seeing water, I feel like something’s slowly draining out of me. It’s probably like the feeling a music lover has when, for whatever reason, he’s separated from music for a long time. The fact that I was raised near the sea might have something to do with it.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running (2009)

Time , Personality , Music , Water

“It’s a good reason for postponing pleasures that you will then have more time in which you can enjoy looking forward to them. I remember exactly when, at the age of eight, I changed over from eating the best bits first to eating them last.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 255

Pleasure , Time , Age , Change

“Many cities are predominantly white in America, many larger cities; but with Pittsburgh, the whiteness there is a bit thicker, that it’s almost atmospherically white, spiritually white…”

Damon Young (writer) (1979) American writer and editor

On the racial makeup of Pittsburg in “Damon Young on How to Make It as a Writer in the 2020s: "Move to Pittsburgh" https://www.inverse.com/article/56127-damon-young-very-smart-brothas-interview in Inverse (2019 Jun 4)

“I want to be able to show up and raise the hell at the precise right moment that might tip the scales in a way that will make something a little more clear, or a little bit more just, for people I care about…”

Tressie McMillan Cottom American writer, sociologist, and professor

On what her writing goals are in “Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom: Raising Really Good Hell for People Who Cannot” https://www.guernicamag.com/dr-tressie-mcmillan-cottom-raising-really-good-hell-for-people-who-cannot/ in Guernica Magazine (2019 Mar 20)

Way , Hell , Making love , People

“Traumas, or very powerful, primal experiences, especially when they’re experienced by large numbers of people, have a tendency to affect everything they touch. At that border, it wasn’t just one person who died. It was many, untold numbers—mouths full of earth. I think when you have a massive collective experience like that, the trauma remains in the earth. I think the earth has a memory, trees have a memory, rivers have a memory. If we’re a little bit open to it, we pick it up…”

Kapka Kassabova (1973) author

On land holding the ghosts of trauma in “Mouths Full of Earth: An Interview with Kapka Kassabova” https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/09/12/mouths-full-of-earth-an-interview-with-kapka-kassabova/ in The Paris Review (2017 Sep 12)

Tree , Personality , People , Thinking

“I come up with a concept and might doodle a little bit to get some ideas flowing, but I mostly write and take notes. I write an outline. In a way, I feel like I can make the art fit the story that needs to be told, so I start with the story first.”

Jen Wang (1984) American comics artist

On her creation process in “Q & A with Jen Wang” https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/81155-q-a-with-jen-wang.html in Publishers Weekly (2019 Sep 12)

Art , Way , Idea , Making love

“But even if all the other stuff seems a bit esoteric, just think of all those other avatars at all those other gatherings, concerts, dances, ceremonies, parties and meals; think of all that talk, all those ideas, all that sparkle and wit!”

Iain Banks Culture series

“Think of all that bullshit, the nonsense and non-sequiturs, the self-aggrandisement and self-deception, the boring stupid nonsense, the pathetic attempts to impress or ingratiate, the slow-wittedness, the incomprehension and the incomprehensible, the gland-addled meanderings and general suffocating dullness.”
Source: Culture series, Look to Windward (2000), Chapter 11 “Absence of Gravitas” (p. 245)

Idea , Thinking , Dance

“I had a rudimentary knowledge of dancing and had learned a bit of tap at dancing school, but it was mostly a case of picking it up as one went along.”

Bessie Love (1898–1986) American actress (1898–1986)

On dancing in film, from [Leslie, Wilkinson, What Are They Doing Now? Part 14, Photoplay Film Monthly]

Knowledge , School , Learning , Dance

“I’m a little bit highbrow and a little bit trashy…That’s what I think good storytelling is. If you can lure in an audience and have a good time with them, but also teach them what it’s like — to be a person of color, to be poor — that’s a success.”

Christopher Oscar Peña

On how he defines good storytelling in “San Jose’s Christopher Oscar Peña no longer ‘Insecure’ about work” https://www.sfchronicle.com/tv/article/San-Jose-s-Christopher-Oscar-Pe-a-no-longer-11297163.php in SF Gate (2017 Jul 18)

Time , Success , Personality , Thinking

“I have a strange love and affinity for South Texas and Texas in general. I carry a bit of dissonance for loving a place so many people outside of Texas hate. The reputation Texas has in places that I have lived is a rough one. The politics have skewed so far to the right and I’m usually in an environment that is mostly liberal so I find myself having to defend a place I no longer live in. But the Texas I know, the people I know, the experiences I’ve lived don’t always sync up with the image of Texas at the moment.”

Mando Alvarado actor

On his relationship with home state Texas in “SIN MUROS: INTERVIEW WITH “LIVING SCULPTURE” PLAYWRIGHT MANDO ALVARADO” https://thetheatretimes.com/sin-muros-interview-living-sculpture-playwright-mando-alvarado/ in The Theatre Times

Love , Hate , People , Making love

“Of course if we make good things, it is not only to the credit of science; it is also to the credit of the moral choice which led us to good work. Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it. Such power has evident value — even though the power may be negated by what one does with it.I learned a way of expressing this common human problem on a trip to Honolulu. In a Buddhist temple there, the man in charge explained a little bit about the Buddhist religion for tourists, and then ended his talk by telling them he had something to say to them that they would never forget — and I have never forgotten it. It was a proverb of the Buddhist religion:To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.What then, is the value of the key to heaven? It is true that if we lack clear instructions that enable us to determine which is the gate to heaven and which the gate to hell, the key may be a dangerous object to use.But the key obviously has value: how can we enter heaven without it?”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

The Value of Science (1955)

Hell , Religion , Forgetting , Bad luck

“In the British vacuum of passive-aggressive public transport and mumbled apologies, Chris Martin’s stomach-ribbing charisma on stage can be as nauseating as doing star jumps right after lunch, and it’s not hard to see how the everlasting hate for Coldplay was born. But when we hate on them, are we just acknowledging that we want to experience more from life? Or are we negating the fact we feel these everyday – average, yet no less meaningful – emotions deep down, too? I think it’s a bit of both.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

Ryan Bassil, February 11 2016. source http://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/6w8v44/why-do-we-hate-coldplay

Hate , Star , Thinking , Life

“Stop giving a s— what other people think of you. We make decisions too often based on that…When we start to live for ourselves, and be a little bit more selfish, I think we’ll lead more fulfilling lives. So I think what we need to do, is stare at ourselves in the mirror a little bit longer, and really own who we are and not try to be what we think others want us to be.”

Lena Waithe (1984) American actress, producer, and screenwriter

On how women should embrace their true selves in “Lena Waithe's Message to Women: 'Stop Giving a S--- What Other People Think'” https://variety.com/video/lena-waithe-message-to-women-variety-cover-shoot/ in Variety Magazine

Selfishness , People , Thinking , Decision

“You can only aim at equality by giving some people the right to take things from others. And what ultimately happens when you aim for equality is that A and B decide what C should do for D, except that they take a bit of commission off on the way.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Milton Friedman vs Free Lunch Advocate” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qe7fLL25AQ (1980s)

Way , People

“Black people have had to become great at seeing ourselves where we are not present because that’s where we grew up. I see myself in Downton Abbey. Even before they introduced the black character, I was right there. Some weeks I was upstairs, some weeks I was downstairs! But it is different when you have a character who looks like you, so I’m glad to have plugged that gap a little bit.”

Suzan-Lori Parks (1963) American writer

On the United Kingdom being behind the United States when it comes to incorporating Black characters in “Suzan-Lori Parks: 'People in America are often encouraged not to think'” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/sep/21/suzan-lori-parks-interview-royal-court-father-comes-home-from-the-wars-obama in The Guardian (2016 Sep 21)

People

“The trend of employment is towards a high level, and a recurrence of chronic mass unemployment is most unlikely. The Keynesian techniques are now well understood, and there is no reason to fear a repetition of the New Deal experience of a government with the will to spend its way out of a recession, but frustrated in doing so by faulty knowledge. The political pressure for full employment is stronger than ever before; the experience of the inter-war years bit so deeply into the political psychology of the nation that full employment, if threatened, would always constitute the dominant issue at any election, and no right-wing party could now survive a year in office if it permitted the figures of unemployment which were previously quite normal.”

Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) British politician

'The Transition from Capitalism' in Richard Crossman (ed.), New Fabian Essays (Turnstile Press, 1952), pp. 39–40

Way , War , Fear , Knowledge

“The words are not the same and the feeling is not the same. You know, they say in France that translation is like a woman. She is either beautiful or faithful. So it’s better when she’s beautiful because when she’s too faithful it might be very ugly. This is French people. This translation, though, is very well made. This is my American editor, who knows me very well who has made the translation. But in any translation you lose a little bit.”

Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist

On her views regarding the translation of works in “AN INTERVIEW WITH MARJANE SATRAPI” http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_10_003261.php in Book Slut (October 2004)

Feeling , Beauty , Faith , People

“My Aunt Agatha, for instance, is tall and thin and looks rather like a vulture in the Gobi desert, while Aunt Dahlia is short and solid, like a scrum half in the game of Rugby football. In disposition, too, they differ widely. Aunt Agatha is cold and haughty, though presumably unbending a bit when conducting human sacrifices at the time of the full moon, as she is widely rumoured to do, and her attitude towards me has always been that of an austere governess, causing me to feel as if I were six years old and she had just caught me stealing jam from the jam cupboard: whereas Aunt Dahlia is as jovial and bonhomous as a dame in a Christmas pantomime.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Much Obliged, Jeeves

Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)

Time , Game , Christmas , Football

“This information is about the total transformation of every aspect of our lives: political, economic, religious, social, scientific, cultural, educational and personal. If what I say is true, the current ways of thinking, living, relating and expressing our inner selves will be fundamentally altered in the time ahead. If this is your first acquaintance with this information, you may find it difficult to accept and believe, especially if you are approaching it from an orthodox religious or philosophical background. If you find it impossible to believe, please be assured that I shall not be the slightest bit offended or even disappointed.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Great Approach (2001)

Time , Personality , Disappointment , Thinking

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to the City of Atlanta (September 1864)

Peace , Country , Fate , War

“In fact, giving society cheap, abundant energy at this point would be the moral equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. With cheap, abundant energy, the attempt clearly would be made to pave, develop, industrialize, and exploit every last bit of the planet—a trend that would inevitably lead to a collapse of the life-support systems upon which civilization depends.”

Paul R. Ehrlich (1932) American scientist and environmentalist

"An ecologist's perspective on nuclear power", Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report vol. 28, no. 5-6 (May-June, 1975) https://fas.org/faspir/archive/1970-1981/May-June1975.pdf, page 5.

Support , Life , Dependency

“The French covering army would have blown us to bits.”

Alfred Jodl (1890–1946) German general

This quote was made about World War II regarding Hitler's army and how the French army would have been able to easily defeat the German army yet the French chose not to attack the Germans.

“Man must smash to bits his stolen, contrived Christian faith through powerful, enormous suffering of the heart, through an amazement that cannot be rejected. Through this, man becomes very small and despicable in his own eyes.”

Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the German Peasants' War

"Special Exposure of False Faith" (1524)
Wu Ming Presents Thomas Müntzer, Sermon to the Princes

Faith , Suffering , Heart

“Mindless vandalism can take a bit of thought.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Cut It Out (2004)

“I will remember him as a man who is honestly seeking the truth. And a bit more: there was also the courage to find and take risks to defend this truth.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Grzegorz Strzelczyk, a Catholic priest who co-authored a book that was a conversation record between him and Vetulani, in an interview with Tygodnik Sanocki http://tygodniksanocki.pl/2017/10/08/czy-w-mozgu-mieszka-bog/ (in Polish).

Truth , Courage

“Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

Roy Moore (1947) American former judge

Jim Ziegler, Alabama state auditor, in [2017-11-09, Philip Wegmann, Alabama state auditor defends Roy Moore against sexual allegations, invokes Mary and Joseph, The Washington Examiner, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/alabama-state-auditor-defends-roy-moore-against-sexual-allegations-invokes-mary-and-joseph/article/2640217]

Parent

“Henson was, by all accounts, a bit of a saint. Read any biography of the man, and you will walk away almost suspicious of his overwhelming decency and personal integration, his unfailing optimism and boundless energy. What made the biggest impression on those around him was apparently not his astounding creativity, but the passionate and compassionate way he lived his life.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

About, "The Gospel According to Jim Henson" by David Zahl

Optimism , Reading , Personality , Passion

“His ascension to the post of Prime Minister was a bit of a surprise, since he was not a frontrunner and was neither from the Congress nor the BJP, predictably the two largest winners. However, since an alliance between them was out of the question, it was left to the Congress to throw its weight behind a number of regional parties and take control. The Janata Dal and Gowda emerged the biggest winners.”

H. D. Deve Gowda (1933) Indian politician

S. Chandrashekar in: Past Prime Ministers: Those who came before:H D Deve Gowda http://news.in.msn.com/elections-2014/past-prime-ministers-those-who-came-before?page=12, MSN News. 26 May 2014

Question

“I know there are people in this room who go to school every day and get treated like shit for no reason. Or you go home and you feel like you can’t tell your parents the whole truth about yourself. Beyond putting yourself in one box or another, you worry about the future. About college or work or even your physical safety. Trying to create that mental picture of your life—of what on earth is going to happen to you—can crush you a little bit every day. It is toxic and painful and deeply unfair.”

Ellen Page (1987) Canadian actress

Coming Out Speech (2014)

School , Home , Pain , Future

“It all came back to my guruji saying bahut kali-ka rup dekhaya tumne. (You have shown a lot of Kali in you). Calm down a little bit. Parvati-ka roop lo.”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

Take on the image of [[w:Parvati|Parvati
When she chose the name while at Nityagram, quoted in "I have been a hippie all my life".

“Ever since I’d shown my bleeding arms to my sweetheart we hadn’t spoken a word. I’d simply decided to wait until she told me she appreciated carved tatoos. But she never did. She just ignored my obvious suffering. The pain in my gut, the secret gnawing at my belly didn’t concern her one damn bit. Things got so bad for me I finally took to smoking like all my buddies were already doing. I rolled up whole pages of old funny books and smoked the shit until my lungs ached. I’d cut vines from the ivy that crawled up the sides of the chicken coop and puff on my homemade cigars until my head buzzed.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 91.

Pain , Waiting , Bad luck , Suffering

“Shaun: You know, when you sponsor a child like Doris here, you’ll be doing more than just putting food on her table. If every Australian gave a dollar a week to someone like Doris, that would guarantee her a weekly income of about 18 million dollars. Almost a billion dollars a year. That buys a lot in Doris’ village. Enough coconuts to stretch from here to Neptune transported in solid gold space shuttles fuelled by burning bank notes. Does seem a bit excessive doesn’t it?”

Shaun Micallef (1962) Australian actor

The Micallef P(r)ogram(me)

Food

“The heart of my soul is bloody with sorrow. … (Nonverbatim: I have done my utmost for peace, despite England pushing the Boers out of their inheritance bit by bit, and taking advantage of us in every conference and native war. My hope till the present war had been for a South African Confederacy under English protection – the Cape, Natal, Free State and Transvaal all having equal rights and local self-government.) … But now we can only leave it to God. If it is His will that the Transvaal perish, we can only do our best.”

Piet Joubert (1834–1900) Boer politician and general

The Diary of a Siege, 1900, H.W. Nevinson.
In conversation with Henry Nevinson, October 2, 1899, at the outbreak of war. According to Nevinson, Joubert spoke English with a "piquant lack of grammar and misuse of words".

God , Peace , Soul , War

“Young Columbian Santiago Martinez argues a bit much about the the stroke of this project; nevertheless, Taliesin needs more like him, to make the debates stand the transient of the facts.”

Santiago Martínez Delgado (1906–1954) Colombian Muralist, Painter and Illstrator

Frank Lloyd Wright
Edgar Kaufmann conversation, letter to Edgar Kaufmann Jr, 1932, Wis.
About Martinez

Making love

“You are the first person who has been able to illustrate the book adequately since Tenniel, though I still argue as I think I argued with you years ago that your Alice is a little bit too much of a gamin.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Graham Greene, quoted in Bandersnatch, 151, July 2011, p. 8

Personality , Thinking , Books

“Under what circumstances is continuing to live like this the best option? Only if you have no belief that any alternative is possible. Only then. The celebrities feel better for taking part. The callers feel better for donating. The Haitians get a bit of aid that they should rightly have been given under the covenant of brotherhood that exists between us all, and we all just smile and pretend there’s no alternative. There is another way. There is the way. To live in accordance with truth, to accept we are on a planet that has resources and people on it. We have to respect the planet so we can use the resources to nourish the people. Somehow this simple equation has been allowed to become extremely confusing.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Smile , People , Truth , Way

“If we make any kind of decent, useful life for ourselves we have less need to run from it to those diminishing pleasures of the movies. When we go to the movies we want something good, something sustained, we don’t want to settle for just a bit of something, because we have other things to do. If life at home is more interesting, why go to the movies? And the theatres frequented by true moviegoers — those perennial displaced persons in each city, the loners and the losers — depress us. Listening to them — and they are often more audible than the sound track — as they cheer the cons and jeer the cops, we may still share their disaffection, but it’s not enough to keep us interested in cops and robbers. A little nose-thumbing isn’t enough. If we’ve grown up at the movies we know that good work is continuous not with the academic, respectable tradition but with the glimpses of something good in trash, but we want the subversive gesture carried to the domain of discovery. Trash has given us an appetite for art.”

Pauline Kael book Going Steady

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Home , Personality , Art , Pleasure

“These fingers are from Florence. Yves Saint Laurent himself designed my arse. My nipples are reconstructed from an early unfinished blue print by Coco Chanel, hence their lopsided charm. One of them is on my shoulder. The other five I keep handily between my toes, which, in themselves are a bit embarrassing. But fuck it, it was the 80’s, you had to have suede.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On fashion and cosmetic surgery.
What It Is (2009)

“There is a certain amount of sham in shamanism. There is a certain amount of theatre. It’s as loosely knit as that. We’re sort of coming out of the closet a bit more over the next couple of years. We’re going to be bringing out – manifesto’s too pushy a word – if it’s a theatre of marvels, we’re bringing out a theatre programme in the next couple of years. We’re working on it at the moment – our unified field theory of spookiness where we try to explain everything from language, consciousness, grey aliens to Rosicrucianism or whatever. It is a grand, mad theory which I’m working my best on at the moment to make it rational. It is an anti-rationalistic theory but I’m trying to couch it in rational terms so that it is not as insular as a lot of magic stuff.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Madness , Making love

“Roger is just the greatest player of all time. He is the most beautiful player I’ve ever seen and I don’t ever get tired of watching him. Rod Laver is my idol, Pete Sampras is the greatest grass court player ever, but Roger is just the greatest player of all. I think we can all appreciate how incredible he is even more lately, because he’s shown a bit more emotion on court and he’s become a father so he seems a bit more human, more relatable. That makes what he’s doing seem even more amazing.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

John McEnroe. http://www.atpchampionstour.com/news62.html

Time , Beauty , Grass , Thinking

“The reason is not to glorify "bit chasing"; a more fundamental issue is at stake here: Numerical subroutines should deliver results that satisfy simple, useful mathematical laws whenever possible.”

Donald Ervin Knuth book The Art of Computer Programming

[...] Without any underlying symmetry properties, the job of proving interesting results becomes extremely unpleasant. The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms, Section 4.2.2 part A, final paragraph [Italics in source]
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)

Mathematics , Law

“The point is that when I see a sunset or a waterfall or something, for a split second it's so great, because for a little bit I'm out of my brain, and it's got nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And I wonder if I can somehow find a way to maintain that mind stillness.”

Chris Evans (actor) (1981) American actor

Way

“Chicano" was a bad word when I was coming up. At least that's what the elders said. The word referred to a Mexican born in the U.S., so by that definition, I'm not Chicano. I was born in Tijuana, but the Mexicans didn't see me as Mexican and the Americans didn't see me as American. I'm a man without a flag. When I started working among Chicanos as an adult, some accepted me, but some didn't. On either side [of the border] I was the "other"; I've always been the other. Later on when I had a bit of success, people on both sides were much more enthusiastic about embracing me. The word "Latino" seems meaningless to me, and "Hispanic" is just wrong. These days, I just tell people my nationality is "Writer.”

Luis Alberto Urrea (1955) Mexican-American poet

On finding his niche as a writer in “AN INTERVIEW WITH LUIS ALBERTO URREA” http://www.bookslut.com/features/2011_12_018440.php in Bookslut (December 2011)

Bad luck , People , Success

“I feel very lucky to still feel like I’m full of ideas. I think sometimes being in the beginning or the middle of things is almost the best bit. This sounds terrible, because it sounds so ungrateful, but I’m never as excited by the aftermath of things: whether or not they are successful. It’s lovely if they are, obviously, but actually the really exciting bit is when it’s an idea in your head and you’re getting working on it.”

Tracey Thorn (1962) English singer and songwriter

On whether she feels creatively satisfied in “Tracey Thorn: ‘Not everything you do is cool’” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jan/27/tracey-thorn-another-planet-a-teenager-in-suburbia-interview in The Guardian (2020 Jan 27)

Success , Thinking , Idea , Love

““Never fancied him anyway,” I’d write when a boy dumped me. I’d leave out things that had gone wrong, or been difficult. I think it was partly an exercise in defiance, a refusal to be defeated by life’s adversities. So in that sense, my diary was a bit of a self-help manual, written by me, for me.”

Tracey Thorn (1962) English singer and songwriter

On reading past diaries in “Tracey Thorn: ‘I went through a phase of carrying Camus under my arm’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/tracey-thorn-interview-another-planet-memoir in The Guardian (2020 Jan 25)

Help , Boy , Self-confidence , Thinking

“…Teenagers today are so fluid and non-binary; they’re fantastically unafraid. My house [growing up] was a bit like that. I’ve loved men and I’ve loved women and I was raised to feel like I could love who I wanted. We could talk about everything in the world.”

Saffron Burrows (1972) English actress, model and writer

On her upbringing and the next generation in “Saffron Burrows: ‘I was raised to feel like I could love who I wanted’” https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/feb/19/saffron-burrows-i-was-raised-to-feel-like-i-could-love-who-i-wanted in The Guardian (2020 Feb 19)

Housing , World , Love , Making love

“How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense.”

Franz Kafka book The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis (1915)

Sleep , Forgetting

“It’s all a bit anarchic, I suppose, but it’s also highly effective. Flexible, responsive, mobile, heuristic, with intelligence distributed to the lowest level...A bit like an ideal human society, I suppose; free individuals seeking out ways to advance the common good.”

Stephen Baxter book Timelike Infinity

Source: Timelike Infinity (1992), Chapter 12 (p. 266)

Way , Intelligence

“While not a panacea, candidly recognizing the absence of any good logical arguments for God’s existence, giving up on divine allies and advocates as well as taskmasters and tormentors, and prizing a humane, reasonable, and brave outlook just might help move this world a bit closer to a heaven on earth.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 6 “Atheists, Agnostics, and “Brights”” (p. 149)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

World , God , Help

“If I was a junkman selling you cars,
Washing your windows and shining your stars,
Thinking your mind was my own in a dream
What would you wonder and how would it seem?
Living in castles a bit at a time
The King started laughing and talking in rhyme.
Singing words, words between the lines of age.
Words, words between the lines of age.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Words (between the lines of age)
Song lyrics, Harvest (1972)

Singing , Time , Star , Dreams

“Men don’t know anything! Men don’t know when their lives became so entirely awful, when everyone else turned into such a tosser! A man does not know how he came by the half a pie he is holding in his hand. And scientists—those frauds!—seize on this, and try to use it as proof of the mysteries of human consciousness and the unknowable nature of the brain, which is rubbish! The brain is the simplest organ in the body. It only has three bits. There’s the front bit, which is the bit you scratch when you come in at half one in the morning, and the person you live with says, “Where the fuck were you?””

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

The middle bit, which tries to come up with the excuse. And the back bit, which plays the last song that was on in the pub.
What It Is (2009)

Personality , Fraud , Men , Nature

“Generation after generation, humankind fights to preserve the status quo, maintaining "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know," a bit of folk cynicism that assumes the unknown to be dangerous.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power, p. 197

Fight

“I probably feel a bit threatened, as so many people do... look, it is a fact of life and I try to treat people as people, and not put them in pigeonholes.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Interview with Liz Hayes for 60 Minutes, when asked how he felt about homosexuality, quoted in Quoted in The Daily Telegraph https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/what-does-abbott-fear-they-might-do-to-him/news-story/ba3ffa814f3fe0be7b28e78cc536e2f7, 8 Mar, 2010.
Leader of the Opposition (2009-2015)

Life , People , Feeling

“I guess in the end I'm a bit like Bill Clinton on this matter, who said that he thought [abortion] should be safe, legal and rare. And I underline 'rare'.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Stated in interview: "The Contender". 60 Minutes. ninemsn.com.au. 5 March 2010 http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=1020354.
Leader of the Opposition (2009-2015)

“We were sowing so much misinformation that some of it came back and bit us.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Source: House of Suns (2008), Chapter 39 (pp. 516-517)

“Suffering exists only because it was good for our genes. Conditionally-activated negative emotions were fitness-enhancing in the ancestral environment. In the current era, apologists for mental pain are serving as the innocent mouthpieces of the nasty bits of code which spawned them.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

" The Good Drug Guide: The Responsible Parent's Guide to Healthy Mood-Boosters for All the Family https://www.hedweb.com/gooddrug.htm", BLTC Research, 2012

Pain , Suffering

“I should say that when people talk about capitalism it's a bit of a joke. There's no such thing. No country, no business class, has ever been willing to subject itself to the free market, free market discipline. Free markets are for others. Like, the Third World is the Third World because they had free markets rammed down their throat. Meanwhile, the enlightened states, England, the United States, others, resorted to massive state intervention to protect private power, and still do. That's right up to the present. I mean, the Reagan administration for example was the most protectionist in post-war American history. Virtually the entire dynamic economy in the United States is based crucially on state initiative and intervention: computers, the internet, telecommunication, automation, pharmaceutical, you just name it. Run through it, and you find massive ripoffs of the public, meaning, a system in which under one guise or another the public pays the costs and takes the risks, and profit is privatized. That's very remote from a free market. Free market is like what India had to suffer for a couple hundred years, and most of the rest of the Third World.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1995–1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

History , Country , Business , War

“I think that the best of artists are androgynous in a sense. If a man is a very macho male, I don't know whether he'll make a very good director, he may make a very good craftsman. Or if a woman is a very sort of typically feminine woman, I don't think she will make a very good film. She has to have a bit of both.”

Aparna Sen (1945) Indian filmmaker, script writer and actress

Rendezvous with Simi Garewal, Rendezvous with Simi Garewal - Aparna Sen & Konkana Sen - 24 Mar 2014 (First Broadcast 2003), at 7 Min 51 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkkOKmyld5k

Sense , Thinking , Making love

“Going to Bits. This phrase me to day and is indeed the one I have been looking for; not tragic, not mortal disintegration; only a central weakness which prevents me from concentrating or settling down I have so wanted to write and write ahead. The phrase "obligatory creation" has haunted me. I have so wanted to get out of my morning bath promptly: have decided to do so beforehand, and have then lain in it as usual and watched myself not getting out. It looks as if there is a physical as well as a moral break in the orders I send out. I have plenty of interesting thoughts but keep losing them like the post cards I have written, or like my cap. I can't clear anything up yet interrupt a 'good read' in order to clear up. I hope tomorrow to copy out a piece of someone else's prose: it is the best device known to me for taking one out of inself, Plunge into anothers minutiae.'”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

31-1-61

p. 224
Commonplace Book (1985)

Hope , Reading

“I learned to pay attention to the readers and not to the madness…Because to be a writer in Turkey is a bit like being kissed on one cheek and slapped on the other.”

Elif Shafak (1971) Turkish writer

On focusing on her readership in “Elif Shafak: ‘I thought the British were calm about politics. Not any longer’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/16/elif-shalak-i-thought-the-british-were-calm-about-politics-booker-prize-shortlist in The Guardian (2019 Sep 16)

Madness , Kiss , Learning

“Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Wisdom made a breach and battered
Babylon to bits: she scattered
To the hedges and ditches
All our nursery gnomes and witches.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Babylon"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

Wisdom

“Latinos are still considered a bit of 'other', Arabs are still 'others,' Africans as American as they can be are still visually 'other' so I would like to say, 'hey we are part of the same family.' We all contribute to this nation. We overindex in the consumption of entertainment but we underindex in the representation and the quality of representation.”

Esai Morales (1962) American actor

On the “other” status of Latinos in “Esai Morales On Latinos, Hollywood and Trump” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/esai-morales-latinos-hollywood-trump-n426866 in NBC News (2015 Sep 17)

Family , Parting

“No one in the world has (ever) laughed,
the least bit without weeping at the same time.”

Khwaja Mir Dard (1721–1785) Urdu writer

A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody: Couplet no. 297, p. 299
Poetry

World , Time

“Most of us struggle for years against beliefs that have been deeply rooted in our being. We do everything we can think of to try to resist and fight against the beliefs when all we really need to do is sit down and directly pull these roots up so we can see them clearly and then replace them. It may be a bit time consuming, but look at it this way… you have the choice to struggle against them every day of your busy life or to take an hour or two of your time and focus specifically on doing the work necessary to alter them for good so you no longer have to struggle against them.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Time , Business , Thinking , Way

“I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body...because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist

From an interview with poet and critic Louise Chandler Moulton, 1883.
Source: [Alberghene, Janice, Clark, Beverly, Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays, 2013, 1999, 9781138798977, Routledge]

Soul , Girl , Nature , Love

“By saying that all my characters have a little bit of me in them, I mean that I try to be invested and empathetic in all my characters—whether they are principal or secondary, deeply flawed and not very “nice.””

Jessica Hagedorn (1949) Filipino-American playwright, writer, poet, storyteller, musician, multimedia performance artist

If you’re in tune with your story then the characters do come at you organically. There isn’t an order to how they might appear.
Source: On how she invests part of herself in her characters in “JESSICA HAGEDORN” http://www.tayoliterarymag.com/jessica-hagedorn in TAYO Literary Magazine

“A [stand-up] bit is a bar of gold. A talk-show panel story is something that's too good to throw out but not good enough to use.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012 — Present), Season 3 (2014)

“I never took any courses. I think I might have taken a very basic one at some point during film school. I think it was a required class you had to take, and I think they went over the format a little bit. Other than that, I never took any writing courses or screenwriting courses or anything like that. I just tried to read as much as possible.”

Aaron Guzikowski (1974) American screenwriter

School , Thinking , Reading

“Old Sparky seems such a thing of perversity when I look back on those days, such a deadly bit of folly. Fragile as blown glass, we are, even under the best of conditions. To kill each other with gas and electricity, and in cold blood? The folly. The horror.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

The Green Mile (1996)

“I’ve never really defined myself by a single identity—and in these times where identity means so much, I sometimes feel like I’m a bit of an outsider to every identity. Perhaps that makes me uniquely suited to writing about teens, who often feel on the outside”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

NEAL SHUSTERMAN’S INCLUSIVE YA AND TALKING TO THE AUTHOR ABOUT REPRESENTATION https://bookriot.com/neal-shusterman-interview/ (May 26, 2020)

Making love , Feeling , Time

“Each of us can contribute, though. With our votes, our voices, our food choices, our skills and our dollars. We must overhaul both corporate practices and government policies. We must transform culture. Building community around solutions is the most important thing. I am never going to give up working to protect and restore this magnificent planet. Every bit of habitat we preserve, every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent, really does matter. Thankfully, I'm not motivated by hope, but rather a desire to be useful.”

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (1980) American marine biologist and policy expert

Source: A love story for the coral reef crisis https://www.ted.com/talks/ayana_elizabeth_johnson_a_love_story_for_the_coral_reef_crisis (April 2019)

Motivation , Communication , Hope , Food

“I’m a bit of a lone wolf…I don’t give interviews or do publicity unless I have a book out—too distracting. My desk is where the real work happens.”

Donna Tartt (1963) American writer

On her philosophy regarding interviews and publicity in “Donna Tartt on The Goldfinch, Inspiration, and the Perils of Literary Fame” https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a29022016/donna-tartt-goldfinch-interview/ in Town & Country (2019 Sep 12)

Wolf , Books

“Bits are beginning to drop off.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Source: On approaching his 90th birthday, 2011

“Violence is a bit like antibodies. Small doses build up until you can reject and be immune to the most horrific events.”

Bernard MacLaverty book Cal

Source: Novels, Cal (1983), Ch.5 - p.127

“To act in a language that I’m not fully immersed in, not fully fluent in, it does pose a bit of a challenge. It does have some good in it as well; there are pros and cons actually. But I do believe if there is a point that I could just be acting like I would in Japanese, but in English, I’m sure that would be so much fun and exciting. One major challenge is that I can’t just do an ad-lib, I can’t do it off the cuff, so really that’s the difference. But it is exciting.”

Yōsuke Kubozuka (1979) Japanese actor

Yosuke Kubozuka Talks New Crime Drama Giri/Haji https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2019/10/17/yosuke-kubozuka-giri-haji-interview/ (October 17, 2019)

“So many of the very funny things are very natural, we do them all every day. They’re just that little bit heightened, which is what makes you fall on the floor when you’re doing it. Sometimes we can’t finish a take because we’re laughing too much, and sometimes you see the cameraman chuckling and we have to do it again. Not having done many comedies, that must be the sign of a very funny script!”

Nathaniel Parker (1962) British actor

Interview with Nathaniel Parker https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/mrsjones/nathaniel

Making love , Nature

“Mum said school mighta been different for me if I only give a damn. Maybe it was wasted on me like the teachers said. I didn't have any philosophy in me then, so I didn't know what to listen for. Most of it was pointless crap. Don't reckon I met a single wise person all the years I stayed but like I say, I wasn't paying close attention. And the thing is I miss it a bit. That's something I never thought I'd hear myself say. I didn't know what I was, what I could do. Except the lame things I did do.”

Tim Winton (1960) Australian writer

Part I, Ch.6 - p.43
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

School , Personality , Teachers

“We have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me: We're in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2016, September 2016, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

“Even in physics, there is no infallible procedure for generating reliable knowledge. The calm order and perfection of well-established theories, accredited by innumerable items of evidence from a thousand different hands, eyes and brains, is not characteristic of the front-line of research, where controversy, conjecture, contradiction and confusion are rife. The physics of undergraduate text-books is 90% true; the contents of the primary research journals of physics is 90% false. The scientific system is as much involved in distilling the former out of the latter as it is in creating and transferring more and more bits of data and items of 'information'.”

John Ziman (1925–2005) New Zealand physicist

John Ziman in "Reliable Knowledge: an Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science" (1978)

Knowledge , Perfection , Falseness , Books

“Censors will try to censor a little bit more each year”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

because, like editors and other officious people, censors don't feel they are getting anywhere unless they are up and doing
"Dirty Business" (1973), p. 83
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)