Quotes about bother (519 quotes, page 5)

“How to save the old that's worth saving, whether in landscape, houses, manners, institutions, or human types, is one of our greatest problems, and the one that we bother least about.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Source: Over the River (1933), Ch. 39

Problem , Housing

“"… the secret of a long lasting marriage is…… communication. When we talk about issues and really open up to each other, things are great between us. When we keep things to ourselves, grudges and resentments build up and we end up arguing." …"What good is talking if neither of you are really committed?… marriage comes down to actions. I think people talk too much about the things that bother them, instead of actually doing the little things that keep a marriage strong. You have to know what your spouse needs from you, and then you do it. And you avoid doing the things that harm the relationship. If your spouse acts the same way, your marriage can make it through anything."”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Micah and Nicholas Sparks, Chapter 8, p. 113-114
2000s, Three Weeks with My Brother (2004)

Marriage , People , Secret , Way

“If I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Paris Review interview (1958)

Hate , Envy

“I've painted for a very long time, but I don't get tired or bored by it; I love to do it. If I don't paint one day, I don't feel well physically or mentally. My eyes bother me when I don't paint. But when I paint a full day, I feel satisfied and everything seems to be OK. I would never stop, never retire. I don't see how people can retire; I don't understand that. My brother Moses died while he was painting. He was actually working on a painting, and the last words he said were to the model: "Phoebe, don't frown."”

Raphael Soyer (1899–1987) American artist

Then he died. He worked to the very last minute.
As quoted in Paper Lanterns (Quotations from The Sun) p. 59.

Love , People , Feeling , Understanding

“Why do you bother asking, when you know the answer and you also know that you don't intend to believe it?”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

“Life did what it did, purposelessly, and only humans strove to impose a meaning where no meaning was needed. She viewed herself as random flotsam upon the face of the deep. Without a religious foundation, she wasn’t bothered by any questions of an insult to God or the hubris of Prometheus that might have arisen.”

Justina Robson book Natural History

Source: Natural History (2003), Chapter 8 “Briefing” (p. 103)

Life , God , Question

“Galileo had provided the methodology for the analysis of motions on and near the earth and had applied it successfully. Copernicus and Kepler had previously obtained the laws of motion of the planets and their satellites. …But Galileo had succeeded in deriving numerous laws from a few physical principles and… the axioms and theorems of mathematics. …The Keplerian laws …were not logically related to each other. Each was an independent inference from observations. …They seemed to be suspended in the same vacuum in which the planets moved.
Galileo's laws had the additional advantage of supplying physical insight. The first law of motion and the law that the force of graviation gives… a downward acceleration of 32 ft/sec2… explain the vertrical rise and fall of bodies, motion on slopes, and projectile motion. Kepler's laws… had no physical basis. …Kepler tried to introduce the idea of a magnetic force which the sun exerted… But he failed to related the behavior of the planets to the precise laws of planetary motion. …
The new astronomical theory was completely isolated from the theory of motion on earth. …it bothered mathematicians and scientists who believed that all the phenomena of the universe were governed by one master plan instituted by the master planner—God.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematics and the Physical World (1959), pp. 224-225

God , Law , Behavior , Mathematics

“Traslation: Now it happens that turtles are great speed enthusiasts, which is natural.
The esperanzas know that and don't bother themselves about it.
The famas know it, and make fun of it.
The cronopios know it, and each time they meet a turtle, they haul out the box of colored chalks, and on the rounded blackboard of the turtle's shell they draw a swallow.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

'Ahora pasa que las tortugas son grandes admiradoras de la velocidad, como es natural. Las esperanzas lo saben, y no se preocupan. Los famas lo saben, y se burlan. Los cronopios lo saben, y cada vez que encuentran una tortuga, sacan la caja de tizas de colores y sobre la redonda pizarra de la tortuga dibujan una golondrina.'
Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Color , Nature , Time , Drawing

“"You can never be too safe." Yes, you can. How many of us bother to inspect the hydraulic brake lines in our cars before we start the engine and head off to work? Doing so would be safer than simply assuming that the lines were intact and driving off. After all, prior to launching a space vehicle, the people at NASA make no similar assumptions. They go through a countdown of all systems, taking nothing for granted. Erring on the side of over-caution is costly, and so is erring on the side of under-caution, though for a given choice, one might be costlier than the other.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

1970s, Economics for the Citizen (1978)

People , Cars

“As the technology matures, it becomes less and less relevant. The technology is taken for granted. Now, new customers enter the marketplace, customers who are not captivated by technology, but who instead want reliability, convenience, no fuss or bother, and low cost.”

Donald A. Norman (1935) American academic

Source: The Invisible Computer (1998), Ch. 10

“Maybe you would prefer not to be bothered with how the government is run. If that's the case then you have no right to complain when your taxes are raised, or if your children's education is substandard, or you have to wait a year for a vital operation. Good government does not happen by itself but is the result of individual effort. One of the easiest and most effective things you can do is simply to ask for information. I hope I've given you the tools and confidence to do exactly that.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 286.
Your Right to Know: A Citizen's Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, 2nd Edition

Children , Education , Hope , Confidence

“At this late date in the post-Christian Era, it might be questioned whether the Bible should even be brought into an ethical discussion. I argue that it should. Many people who do not explicitly call on the Bible for backing are nevertheless influenced by what they believe the Bible says. (Everyone knows about the Good Samaritan, even though they may not be able to remember what Samaritans in general were.) It is considered good form to speak politely of Scripture: revere it, but don't bother reading it seems to be the rule. Above all, don't read it thoughtfully.”

Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) American ecologist

Filters Against Folly (1985)

People , Question , Reading

“I quote somewhere a correspondence with Ken Arrow, after he wrote Arrow and Hahn. I wrote to him and I said that the trouble is that neoclassical economists confuse risk with uncertainty. Uncertainty means non-probabilistic. And he said, 'Quite true, you're quite correct that Keynes is much more fruitful, but the trouble with the General Theory is, those things that were fruitful couldn't be developed into a nice precise analytical statement, and those things that could were retrogressions from Keynes but could be developed into a nice precise analytical statement.' That's why mainstream economics went that route. And my answer is, I would hope that even Nobel Prize winners didn't believe that regression is growth, which it clearly isn't. But that's right. The fear that everybody has, you see, is nihilism: you won't be able to say what's going to happen. Well, evolutionists don't worry about being unable to predict. You ask the evolutionists, who tell you what happened in the past, just what next species is going to appear, and the answer is, anything could. Right? Does that bother people? Explanation is the first thing in science. If you can't explain, you don't have anything. But you needn't necessarily predict. Now, if you know the future's uncertain, what does that mean? It means basically, the way Hicks put it in his later years, that humans have free will. The human system isn't deterministic or stochastic, which is deterministic with a random error. Humans can do thins to change the world.”

Paul Davidson (1930) Post Keynesian economist

quoted in Conversations with Post Keynesians (1995) by J. E. King

People , World , Fear , Hope

Patrick Allen (1927–2006) Film, television and voice actor

E4, She's All That' Trail

School

“First, there are good people out there; they just don’t make so much of a racket. Second, if you don’t make waves, then the bad guys don’t get washed overboard. And third, nobody bothers to bad-mouth you unless they’re afraid of you. So think of it as kind of a compliment.”

Barbara Boxer (1940) American politician

Barbara Boxer, in Blind Trust, a novel, Chronicle Books, San Francisco 2009, p. 30. http://books.google.com/books?id=BehMxQNuLAMC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30

People , Guy , Thinking

“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are—nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought?—but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

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

Speech in South Carolina (19 July 2016)
2010s, 2016, July

Women , Men , People , World

“Pop culture is filth. It is now completely degenerate. Why do you never hear anyone humming a current pop song any more? Because none of them is hummable, or even worth bothering to remember. What is the main topic on TV sitcoms and "dramedies"? You know what. Why do you stand in the aisle in Blockbuster muttering to yourself: "There isn't a single damn movie in here I want to watch?"”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Because Hollywood produces nothing but crap, crap, crap.
Unpleasant Truths: A conservative view of the world today http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire080202.asp, National Review August 2, 2002.

“But the old man had provided his kids with one priceless gift: He’d encouraged them to read, and he didn’t bother too much about the content, subscribing to the theory that good books ultimately speak for themselves.”

Jack McDevitt book Ancient Shores

Source: Ancient Shores (1996), Chapter 16 (p. 168)

Books , Reading

“I was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters… In between two of the segments she asked me…"But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?" I said, "Type faster." This was widely quoted, but the "six months" was changed to "six minutes," which bothered me. It's "six months."”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Asimov Laughs Again (1992)
General sources

Quotes , Change

“Real Freedom is to not feel limited when wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, in our busy life we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Not Always So (page 95)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)

Life , Feeling , Business , Freedom

“In economics, as in politics, no national reservoir can stand the strain when everyone is turning on the taps and few are bothering to see that the catchments to the reservoir are working.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

Eye on Australia: Speeches and Essays of Geoffrey Blainey (1991)

“It seems to me ridiculous to try to believe that Gao E sat down and wrote the last 40 chapters [of Dream of the Red Chamber]. I'm sure that's not true. Because you can see the way Gao E works. Gao E is trying I think just to reconcile – he's not altering, I think he doesn't feel he can alter what's been found. I think he tried to alter things occasionally to square one thing with another. If you're just making something up, forging something, you wouldn't be bothered about trying to reconcile inconsistencies. You'd make jolly well sure that they didn't occur.”

David Hawkes (sinologist) (1923–2009) British sinologist

Source: Interview, 1998, pp. 146–147

Dreams , Way , Feeling , Thinking

“He said in an injured tone: “Mister, naturally the staff won’t bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?
“Of course, of course,” I said. But I knew he was lying, because I knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make any other way. What other kind of hotel was there?”

Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) American science fiction writer and editor

The Gold at the Starbow’s End (p. 381)
Platinum Pohl (2005)

Money , Way , Lying , Nature

“This time of year, the whole crazy city could go in one big fire storm. There were times that he almost wished that it would. He hated this smoggy, tawdry Babylon of a city, its endless tangle of freeways, the strange-looking houses, the filthy air, the thick, choking, glossy foliage everywhere, the drugs, the booze, the divorces, the laziness, the sleaziness, the porno shops and the naked encounter parlors and the massage joints, the weird people wearing their weird clothes and driving their weird cars and cutting their hair in weird ways. There was a cheapness, a trashiness, about everything here, he thought. Even the mansions and the fancy restaurants were that way: hollow, like slick movie sets. He sometimes felt that the trashiness bothered him more than the out-and-out evil. If you kept sight of your own values you could do battle with evil, but trashiness slipped up around you and infiltrated your soul without your even knowing it. He hoped that his sojourn in Los Angeles was not doing that to him.”

Robert Silverberg (1935) American speculative fiction writer and editor

Source: Short fiction, Against Babylon (1986), p. 264

Hate , People , Hope , Angels

“You never needed anybody.
If you had ever bothered to come to know me, you'd know that that is the exact opposite of the truth.
Well, well. So we part in utter ignorance of each other.”

Orson Scott Card book Lovelock

Lovelock (1994)

Truth , Parting

“Here's my throat. I carry no weapon. You could have killed me at any time, even when I knew you were my enemy. Why did you need to deceive me into trusting you first? Were you afraid that death wouldn't bother me enough, unless I felt betrayed?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Memory Of Earth (1992)

Death , Time

“Honest, I was never happier in my life. I've felt that I was facing a kind of all-round challenge—the challenge of 41 years, the challenge that comes from carrying 230 pounds for 21 seasons, the challenge from a bunch of National League pitchers who want to prove that I can't hit as well in this league as I did in the American and the doubt exists that I can be of any help to our team through another year. It's keyed me up and given me a fresh target. I feel better than I have felt in four years. My legs haven't bothered me a bit. Bill McKechnie is a great guy to work for, and I am going to give him and Boston everything I have.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "'Never Happier in My Life' Ruth Tells Grantland Rice; Babe Is Inspired by Challenge of National League Pitchers—Legs Feel Great" by Grantland Rice, in The Boston Globe (March 26, 1935), p. 21

Life , Guy , Feeling , Help

“What was the necessity for the entire procedure of ritual slaughter? For the sake of self discipline. It is far more appropriate for man not to eat meat; only if he has a strong desire for meat does the Torah permit it, and even this only after the trouble and inconvenience necessary to satisfy his desire. Perhaps because of the bother and annoyance of the whole procedure, he will be restrained from such a strong and uncontrollable desire for meat.”

Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz book Keli Yekar

Keli Yekar, quoted in Abraham Chill, The Mitzvot: The Commandments and Their Rationale (New York: Bloch, 1974), p. 400; as quoted in Richard H. Schwartz, Judaism and Vegetarianism (New York: Lantern Books, 2001), p. 11 https://books.google.it/books?id=zo5TqKQVcEgC&pg=PA11.

Strong

“How it happened that I in particular discovered the relativity theory, it seemed to lie in the following circumstance. The normal adult never bothers his head about space-time problems. Everything there is to be thought about it, in his opinion, has already been done in early childhood. I, on the contrary, developed so slowly that I only began to wonder about space and time when I was already grown up. In consequence I probed deeper into the problem than an ordinary child would have done.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

In Carl Seelig's Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography (1956), Seelig reports that Einstein said this to James Franck, p. 71 http://books.google.com/books?id=VCbPAAAAMAAJ&q=%22how+it+happened%22#search_anchor.
I sometimes ask myself how did it come that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up. Naturally, I could go deeper into the problem than a child with normal abilities.
Variant translation which appears in Einstein: The Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark (1971), p. 27 http://books.google.com/books?id=6IKVA0lY6MAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false
Attributed in posthumous publications

Lie , Problem , Time , Childhood

“In many ways I still resent the wretched yellow journalism that was clearly evident in (the media's) treatment of the game — 60 Minutes in particular. I've never watched that show after Ed Bradley's interview with me because they rearranged my answers. When I sent some copies of letters from mothers of those two children who had committed suicide who said the game had nothing to do with it, they refused to do a retraction or even mention it on air. What bothered me is that I was getting death threats, telephone calls, and letters. I was a little nervous. I had a bodyguard for a while.”

Gary Gygax (1938–2008) American writer and game designer

GameSpy interview, Pt. I (15 August 2004)

Death , Children , Way , Game

“I don't bother with drugs myself 'cause I'm at that age now; I don't need to. If I want a rush, I just get out of a chair when I don't expect it. Forget to give yourself a couple of days notice before you tie your shoes. Whoosh! What a rush!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On drugs and middle-age.
Monster (2004)

Age , Shoe , Forgetting

“We established [The Gloria Estefan Foundation] in 1993, because I was getting so many pitches from charities that I thought the best way to maximize our charity dollars was to establish a foundation, where you can do so many things. [The royalties from] four of my songs go directly to my foundation, and I don't have to bother people for money. I have been funding it myself all these years, from diffent concerts that I do that pay right to my foundation. It's what I love to do. It's something that makes me very happy... [The foundation has helped] from small things to large things. Every time there has been a natural disaster, we, thought the American Red Cross, have helped. Not just here, but in Nicaragua and Honduras. Obviously, Miami is very close to my heart.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

cbs4.com (February 9, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love , Money , People , Way

“There are no arguments. Can anyone who has reached the limit bother with arguments, causes, effects, moral considerations, and so forth? Of course not. For such a person there are only unmotivated motives for living. On the heights of despair, the passion for the absurd is the only thing that can still throw a demonic light on chaos. When all the current reasons — moral, esthetic, religious, social, and so on — no longer guide one's life, how can one sustain life without succumbing to nothingness? Only by a connection with the absurd, by love of absolute uselessness, loving something which does not have substance but which simulates an illusion of life. I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Love , Life , Mountain , Motivation

“We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.”

George Bernard Shaw You Never Can Tell

You Never Can Tell, Act I (1898)
1890s

“Advertising works. Brand names are better known if advertised with sexy or alluring pictures, and better-known brands sell better. Why does it work? Because the price the consumer would have to pay in ignoring the subliminal message is just to high. Better to be fooled into buying the second best ice-cream than go to all the bother of educating yourself into the ability to resist salesmen.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 5

Education , Fools

“Nell teaches aspects of parenthood never understood before. If she cries or makes a mess or decides to be contrary (and these are relatively rare), it doesn't bother. There is always Chris's silence to compare it to. What is seen now so much more clearly is that although the names keep changing and the bodies keep changing, the larger pattern that holds us all together goes on and on. In terms of this larger pattern the lines at the end of this book still stand. We have won it. Things are better now. You can sort of tell these things.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Afterword (1984)

Books , Silence , Change

“Animals arrived, liked the look of the place, took up their quarters, settled down, spread, and flourished. They didn't bother themselves about the past — they never do; they're too busy.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 4

Business , Past , Animals

“They are a very great boon to mankind, dentists,’ said Isabel. ‘And I’m not sure that we are grateful enough to them. I’m not sure that we even bother to thank them.’ She paused. Were there any statues of dentists? She thought not. And yet there should be.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 8.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Nothing has happened since two or three days.... nothing special, only the Ladies van Loon have visited me this morning, I have shown them a few of my studies, and talked a lot about [Huis] 't Velde and {[w|nl:Vorden|Vorden}}. Now I could tell you further, how little I still feel at home, how a certain nostalgia or quiet sorrow plunges me down, and how an indefinite hurry for an even more uncertain future dominates my whole [being? ]; but why should I bother You by telling You my inner life..”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands): Er is sedert de twee of drie dagen.. ..niets bijzonders voorgevallen, alleen de freules van Loon zijn heden morgen bij mij geweest, ik heb paar mijn studies laten zien, en verder veel over 't Velde en Vorden met hen gesproken; nu zou ik UE nog verder kunnen zeggen, hoe weinig ik mij nog te huis gevoel, hoe een zeker heimwee, of stil verdriet mij ter nederdrukt, en, hoe een onbestemd jagen, naar een nog onbestemder toekomst mijn gehele [aanschijn[?] beheerst; maar waar om zou ik UE vermoeijen; door UE mijn innerlijk leven mede te delen..
J.W. Bilders, in his letter [including a pencil-sketch of trees along a water] to Georgina van Dijk van 't Velde, from Castle Voorst in Warnsveld, 22 Oct. 1868; from an excerpt of the letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/751208 in the RKD-Archive, The Hague
In 1868 Bilders traveled to the North of The Netherlands, to make sketches
1860's + 1870's

Life , Feeling , Home , Nostalgia

“I think there were a lot of Christian people who simply stayed home for reasons that I can't figure out. But I think every time we lose major elections or major issues like the same-sex marriage issue or the marijuana issue, it's because Christians just didn't show up and vote.I lay the blame though at the feet of those who sit faithfully in church each Sunday; they probably heard their pastor talk about the importance of this election and how so much was on the line, and yet maybe because they just didn't want to bother with having to stand in line at an election polling place, they just didn't go vote. And we're going to pay dearly for that.If I were Cardinal Dolan or any of the Catholic bishops or priests, I would certainly be very frustrated and discouraged and wonder why aren't they understanding that if they join a church and belong to it, why would they not respect its teachings as having validity. It's one thing to say "well, I can't agree with everything" although I'm not sure why you'd join a church if you dismiss it. But to be openly contemptuous of its teaching and doctrine, it's something I can't understand.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Focus on the Family radio program http://www.focusonthefamily.com/radio.aspx?ID={D560C7FD-E01C-4B76-845E-9B5C2FCD3A34}, , quoted in [2012-11-08, Huckabee: Any Time We Lose 'It's Because Christians Just Didn't Show Up and Vote', Kyle, Mantyla, Right Wing Watch, http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/huckabee-any-time-we-lose-its-because-christians-just-didnt-show-and-vote, 2012-11-09]

Marriage , People , Sex , Home

“Life has no 'isms' in it, Supermind also has no 'isms'. It is the mind that introduces all 'isms' and creates confusion. That is the difference between a man who lives and a thinker who can't: a leader who thinks too much and is busy with ideas, trying all the time to fit the realities of life to his ideas, hardly succeeds, while the leader who is destined to succeed does not bother his head about ideas. He sees the forces at work and knows by intuition those that make for success. He also knows the right combination of forces and the right moment when he should act…. At one time it was thought that the mind could grasp the whole Truth and solve all the problems that face humanity. The mind had its full play and we find that it is not able to solve the problems. Now, we find that it is possible to go beyond mind and there is the Supermind which is the organization of the Infinite Consciousness. There you find the truth of all that is in mind and life…. For instance, you find that Democracy, Socialism and Communism have each some truth behind it, but it is not the whole Truth. What you have to do is to find out the forces that are at work and understand what it is of which all these mental ideas and 'isms' are a mere indication. You have to know the mistakes which people commit in dealing with the truth of these forces and the truth that is behind the mistakes also. I am, at present, speaking against democracy; that does not mean that there is no truth behind it. I know the truth [behind democracy], but I speak against democracy because that mentality is at present against the Truth that is trying to come down.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

May 18, 1926
India's Rebirth

Life , People , Truth , Democracy

“The great thing about being a comedian is that it kind of doesn't matter how you look. It's actually a disadvantage to be too good-looking. There's a Darwinian advantage to being funny. If you're a good-looking fella, you can't be bothered to make up jokes.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Simon Mills (November 14, 2005) "Top Table", The Daily Mail.

“Whether people in Pakistan understand fashion or not, it is a true everyday-living history of our times. People judge you by the clothes and shoes that you wear; they are not bothered whether you live in Clifton, Nazimabad, Gulshan or FATA or anywhere. Everything is perceived by what you are wearing.”

Deepak Perwani (1973) Pakistani fashion designer

http://www.aajtv.com/exclusive/index.php?id=31, December 25, 2008.

People , Shoe , History , Fashion

“I'll never be bothered if I don't have a hit because you look at the songs that are hits and they're none of my favourites. Just the fact that we do have fans waiting here, that's exciting enough.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

Stephen Downie (May 20, 2005) "Second coming", The Courier-Mail, News Limited, p. 51.

Waiting

“I would have liked to have had kids, and had a family, but I think in my profession it's quite difficult to achieve because you're always working. I think I'm the kind of person as well, had I had kids, I wouldn't have gone on working. I would have jacked it all in. But it's a wonderful life I have, so I'm very fulfilled in other ways. Am I ever bothered by it? Well it's too late now”

Elaine Paige (1948) English singer and actress

laughs
Rock and pop (2006)

Life , Family , Way , Thinking

“You can bother me to autograph anything you want. When you quit bothering me to sign autographs, then I'll know I'm through. Slip me the old apple and a pen. And tell 'em to keep on bothering me.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Speaking to autograph seeker, as quoted in "'Never Happier in My Life' Ruth Tells Grantland Rice..."

“[W]hat bothers the New York Times is not racism per se, but who is the racist and who are her targets.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, The Double Standards of Postmodern Justice (2018)

Time

“I remember an old proverb. It says that youth thinks itself wise just as drunk men think themselves sober. Youth is not wise! Youth knows nothing about life! Youth knows nothing about anything except for massive cliches which for the most part through the media of pop songs are just foisted on them by middle-age entrepreneurs and exploiters who should know better. When we start thinking that pop music is close to God, then we'll think pop music is aesthetically better than it is. And it's only the aesthetic value of pop music that we're really concerned. I mean the only way we can judge Wagner or Beethoven or any other composer is aesthetically. We don't regard Wagner or Beethoven nor Shakespeare or Milton as great teachers. When we start claiming for Lennon or McCartney or Maharishi or any other of these pop prophets the ability to transport us to a region where God becomes manifest then I see red. We're satisfied with our little long playing record, ten pop numbers or thereabouts a side. This is great art, we've been told this by the great pundits of our age. And in consequence why should we bother to learn? There's nothing more delightful than to be told: "You don't have to learn, my boy. There's nothing in it. Modern art? There's nothing in it." When you're told these things you sit down with a sigh of relief: "Thank God I don't have to learn, I don't have to travel, I don't have to exert myself in the slightest. I am what I am. Youth is youth. Pop is pop. There's no need to progress. There's no need to do anything. Let us sit down, smoke our marijuana (an admirable thing in itself but not the end of anything), let us listen to our records and life has become a single moment. And the single moment is eternity. We're with God. Finis!”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Pop Music

Life , Men , God , Youth

“At this time a high-ranking SS leader hinted to me that Himmler was preparing decisive steps. In February 1945, the Reichsführer-SS had assumed command of the Vistula Army Group, but he was no better than his successor at stopping the Russian advance. Hitler was now berating him also. Thus what personal prestige Himmler had retained was used up by a few weeks of commanding frontline troops. Nevertheless, everyone still feared Himmler, and I felt distinctly shaky one day on learning that Himmler was coming to see me about something that evening. This, incidentally, was the only time he ever called on me. My nervousness grew when Theodor Hupfauer, the new chief of our Central Office- with whom I had several times spoken rather candidly- told me in some trepidation that Gestapo chief Kaltenbrunner would be calling on him at the same hour. Before Himmler entered, by adjutant whispered to me: "He's alone." My office was without window panes; we no longer bothered replacing them since they were blasted out by bombs every few days. A wretched candle stood at the center of the table; the electricity was out again. Wrapped in our coats, we sat facing one another. Himmler talked about minor matters, asked about pointless details, and finally made the witless observation: "When the course is downhill there's always a floor to the valley, and once it is reached, Herr Speer, the ascent begins again." Since I expressed neither agreement nor disagreement with this proverbial wisdom and remained virtually monosyllabic throughout the conversation, he soon took his leave. I never found out what he wanted of it, or why Kaltenbrunner called on Hupfauer at the same time. Perhaps t hey had heard about my critical attitude and were seeking allies; perhaps they merely wanted to sound us out.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 427-428

Wisdom , Fear , Decision , Learning

“When you get to my age, and I'm 66 now, you realize that the world is a madhouse and that most people are operating in fantasy anyway. So once you realise that, it doesn't bother you much.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

From Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian (2007)

People , Age , World

“I am not bothered by the fact that I am not understood. I am bothered when I do not know others.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects, Chapter I

“Leon regarded Archie with triumph, smiling almost grotesquely, a caricature of a smile really. Leon was not accustomed to smiling. But something else was behind the smile, behind those icy cold eyes, a smile that said he had not believed a word of what Archie had said. Which did not bother Archie in the least. The important thing was that Leon had chosen to pretend he had believed.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 81

Smile

“A lot of the things that have been accomplished in science have been accomplished on the basis of ignorance … in the sense that you import into the science people from outside. Because once you have an established science, it has got its high priests — the guys who know everything that will work or won't work. And they don't want to be bothered. So you have to have a challenge. And the great thing is that young people are ignorant, and we should catch them before they turn into the priesthood. So I think that science should have a much more daring approach.”

Sydney Brenner (1927–2019) South African biologist, Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002

Sydney Interview on the Genbank 25th Anniversary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDm7i3Rc8wU

People , Guy , Thinking , Sense

“My first question [upon ascending to Heaven], believe it or not, will be, 'Did Adam and Eve have a belly button?' I don't know why, but that has bothered me for years.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution (1996)

Question

“I pretty much use sketchbooks to note down great ideas of somebody else I've just had. A good sketchbook means you don't actually need to bother with having a memory yourself. You can get away with a fair bit of substance abuse if you always carry a notepad and a sharp pencil around with you.”

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

from "Street Sketchbook" by Tristan Manco
Other sources

Idea , Memory

“Matter of fact, the first three or four chapters are all some of you might want to bother with. That gets you to page 123 or so, which is a nice length, a nice novella sort of length.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (2000)

“Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction. He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages, and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gave the enemy. Everywhere he met adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons. He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever. He was convinced that his own officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. "The best friend a person has," he would say at that time, "is one who has just died."”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 166

People , Imagination , Lying , Solitude

“I don’t know. You have to ask them. I’m not a hater, and so sometimes it’s hard for me to understand why somebody hates somebody. It could have been because of my policies, maybe they didn’t like my religion. I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a myriad of reasons. That’s what happens when you’re the president. It can either bother you or not bother you. I chose… I really am. I’m honored to have served. I’m glad I served, and I gave it my all, and that’s all you can do at life. I got back; and this sounds corny to some, I understand, but when I looked in the mirror, I know I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of any short-term politics or popularity. I think that’s important.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview with Bill O'Reilly http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/08/bill-oreilly/bill-oreilly-tells-obama-he-also-asked-bush-about-/ (November 2010), Fox News.
2010s, 2010

Life , Hate , Religion , Soul

“I'm not going to worry about the Cure slipping down into the second division; it doesn't bother me because I never expected to be in the first division anyway.”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

A soccer reference
Alternative Press

“From day one his standard operating procedure … was a blend of ignorance, amnesia, and dissembling. Like a panicky passenger lunging for a life preserver, he would, under stress, concoct almost any fact or anecdote to advance his ideological beliefs. Ronald Reagan brought to mind Will Rogers' comment that "It's not what he doesn't know that bothers me, it's what he knows for sure that just ain't so."”

Mark J. Green (1945) American lawyer

Comments on Ronald Reagan, in Reagan's Reign of Error (1987)
see Josh Billings

Life

“I could almost smell her fear… Why did it bother me so much? Because she and I were the only women here, and we had to be better than the men. Braver, quicker, whatever. It was a rule for playing with the big boys.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Anita
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, The Laughing Corpse (1994)

Women , Men , Fear , Boy

“When a movie is this bad, it's hard to adequately describe its awfulness in words. The temptation exists to write something along the lines of: "Something this horrible has to be seen to be believed." Of course, that kind of advice would lead to e-mail death threats and other assorted nasty comments from those who spend money on The Devil's Rejects. … Aside from its poor production values, horrendous acting, and ignoble morality, The Devil's Rejects isn't engaging cinema. Even if the simple act of sitting in a movie theater watching people get hacked up for 90 minutes doesn't bother you, the dullness and repetition is likely to.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=934 of The Devil's Rejects (2005).
Half-star reviews

Death , Money , People

“I was reminded of how much I had misjudged the potential the profession would see in the time series rational expectations models. When I, as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) around 1970 did some work on the econometrics of rational expectations time series models, I felt rather apologetic about the extreme assumptions in the models. I did not expect others to regard them as anything more than a passing gimmick. Richard Sutch had just written in his MIT doctoral dissertation (1968) an exposition of the coefficient restrictions implied for time series representations of long-term and short-term interest rates, but he never bothered to publish this work. I remember conversations with him and others about rational expectations models, and I did not come away thinking they were the wave of the future.”

Robert J. Shiller (1946) American economist

Robert J. Shiller (1984), Review of Rational Expectations and Econometric Practice by Robert E. Lucas, Thomas J. Sargent.

Thinking , Time , Future

“Zuko saysThermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, so it doesn't bother you any more.”

Arnold Sommerfeld (1868–1951) physicist

As quoted in: J.Muller, Physical Chemistry in Depth (Springer Science & Business Media, 1992), p. 1. No primary source is given in that book.
Disputed

Understanding , Thinking , Time

“Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

On the morality of the firebombing campaign http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html)

War , Thinking , Time

“Floating around the Internet these days, posted and e-mailed back and forth, are a number of writings attributed to me, and I want people to know they're not mine. Don't blame me.Some are essay-length, some are just short lists of one and two-line jokes, but if they're flyin' around the Internet, they're probably not mine. Occasionally, a couple of jokes on a long list might have come from me, but not often. And because most of this stuff is really lame, it's embarrassing to see my name on it.And that's the problem. I want people to know that I take care with my writing, and try to keep my standards high. But most of this "humor" on the Internet is just plain stupid. I guess hard-core fans who follow my stuff closely would be able to spot the fake stuff, because the tone of voice is so different. But a casual fan has no way of knowing, and it bothers me that some people might believe I'd actually be capable of writing some of this stuff.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Don't Blame Me https://web.archive.org/web/20120621054133/http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/dontblame.html
Internet, Georgecarlin.com (official website)

People , Stupidity , Way , Problem

“The declining intellectual quality of political leadership is the result of the growing complexity of the world. Since no one, be he endowed with the highest wisdom, can grasp it in its entirety, it is those who are least bothered by this who strive for power.”

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author

One Human Minute (1986)
Context: The book does not contain “everything about the human being,” because that is impossible. The largest libraries in the world do not contain “everything.” The quantity of anthropological data discovered by scientists now exceeds any individual’s ability to assimilate it. The division of labor, including intellectual labor, begun thirty thousand years ago in the Paleolithic, has become an irreversible phenomenon, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Like it or not, we have placed our destiny in the hands of the experts. A politician is, after all, a kind of expert, if self-styled. Even the fact that competent experts must serve under politicians of mediocre intelligence and little foresight is a problem that we are stuck with, because the experts themselves cannot agree on any major world issue. A logocracy of quarreling experts might be no better than the rule of the mediocrities to which we are subject. The declining intellectual quality of political leadership is the result of the growing complexity of the world. Since no one, be he endowed with the highest wisdom, can grasp it in its entirety, it is those who are least bothered by this who strive for power.

Wisdom , World

“I didn't receive the DEC message, but I can't imagine I would have been bothered if I have. I get tons of uninteresting mail, and system announcements about babies born, etc.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

First reaction to reports of the first commercial "spam" email, sent by DEC salesman, Gary Thuerk (8 May 1978), as quoted in "Reaction to the DEC Spam of 1978" http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html#msg
1970s
Context: I didn't receive the DEC message, but I can't imagine I would have been bothered if I have. I get tons of uninteresting mail, and system announcements about babies born, etc. At least a demo MIGHT have been interesting. … The amount of harm done by any of the cited "unfair" things the net has been used for is clearly very small. And if they have found any people any jobs, clearly they have done good. If I had a job to offer, I would offer it to my friends first. Is this "evil"? … Would a dating service for people on the net be "frowned upon" by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.

Imagination , Baby

“I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro, of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
Context: I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro, of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is. That is particularly true of many whites who have elevated condescension to an art form by advancing a monolithic view of blacks in much the same way that the mythic, disgusting image of the lazy, dumb black was advanced by open, rather than disguised, bigots.

Life , Learning

“I once wrote, in The Information, that an Englishman wouldn't bother to attend a reading even if the author in question was his favorite living writer, and also his long-lost brother — even if the reading was taking place next door.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Off the Page: Martin Amis" (2003)
Context: I once wrote, in The Information, that an Englishman wouldn't bother to attend a reading even if the author in question was his favorite living writer, and also his long-lost brother — even if the reading was taking place next door. Whereas Americans go out and do things. But Meeting the Author, for me, is Meeting the Reader. Some of the little exchanges that take place over the signing table I find very fortifying: they make up for some of the other stuff you get.

Question , Reading

“I have often been called a Nazi, and, although it is unfair, I don't let it bother me. I don't let it bother me for one simple reason. No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Give War a Chance

Give War a Chance (1992)

“Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Ride the River (1983), Ch. 5
Context: Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else.

Love , People , World , Time

“If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions.”

Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) writer and salonist

In "My Country 'tis of Thee", ADAM International Review, No. 299 (1962)
Context: I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself.
Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals.
Individual superiority can alone feed the soul and give back through some materialisation of itself this individualised wealth of being.

“Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate — you do not have to bother about it, any more than you need trouble about your digestion.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 71.
Context: Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation. Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate — you do not have to bother about it, any more than you need trouble about your digestion.

“I have had three personal ideals: One to do the day's work well and not to bother about tomorrow.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

Remarks at a farewell dinner address in New York (20 May 1905), later published in Aequanimitas, and Other Addresses (1910 edition), p. 473.
Context: I have had three personal ideals: One to do the day's work well and not to bother about tomorrow. You may say that is not a satisfactory ideal. It is; and there is not one which the student can carry with him into practice with greater effect. To it more than anything else I owe whatever success I have had — to this power of settling down to the day's work and trying to do it well to the best of my ability, and letting the future take care of itself.
The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, toward my professional brethren and toward the patients committed to my care.
And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came, to meet it with the courage befitting a man.
What the future has in store for me, I cannot tell — you cannot tell. Nor do I care much, so long as I carry with me, as I shall, the memory of the past you have given me. Nothing can take that away.

Personality

“It always did bother me that the American public were more interested in me than in my work.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 2
Context: It always did bother me that the American public were more interested in me than in my work. And after all there is no sense in it because if it were not for my work they would not be interested in me so why should they not be more interested in my work than in me. That is one of the things one has to worry about in America.

“Some things just come without any real understanding. I don't bother to question it or myself anymore.”

Russell Crowe (1964) New Zealand-born Australian actor, film producer and musician

Interview with Paula Nechak (1997)
Context: Some things just come without any real understanding. I don't bother to question it or myself anymore. If you get into a situation like L. A. Confidential, where you can just totally get inside the character, that's a privileged position. Now that I'm more aware of the process I realize it's the position you always want to aim for.

Understanding , Question

“If the United States is attacked, I will defend it.
My problem is the United States' defending the interests of the Union Oil Company or the United Fruit Company. Those are not American interests. They're private-money interests, and that bothers me a great deal.”

Paul Fussell (1924–2012) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Humanities interview (1996)
Context: I'm a pacifist about certain things. I'm a pacifist in the way I define national interest. I use this example frequently: If the Mexicans decided to cross the Texas border with firearms, I would be down there in a moment with a rifle and a whistle to direct the troops to repel them. If the United States is attacked, I will defend it.
My problem is the United States' defending the interests of the Union Oil Company or the United Fruit Company. Those are not American interests. They're private-money interests, and that bothers me a great deal.

Money , Problem

“Don't bother me, I said. I'm the night manager of this office and when I tell you something it's final.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Hello Out There (1941)
Context: When, at the age of eighteen, I was the manager of the Postal Telegraph office at 21 Taylor Street in San Francisco, I remember having been asked by the clerk there, a man named Clifford, who the hell I thought I was. And I remember replying very simply and earnestly somewhat as follows: If you have ever heard of George Bernard Shaw, if you have ever read his plays or prefaces, you will know what I mean when I tell you that I am that man by another name.
Who is he? I remember the clerk asking.
George Bernard Shaw, I replied, is the tonic of the Christian peoples of the world. He is health, wisdom, and comedy, and that's what I am too.
How do you figure? The clerk said.
Don't bother me, I said. I'm the night manager of this office and when I tell you something it's final.

Night

“I'm a rootless man, but I'm neither psychologically distraught nor in any wise particularly perturbed because of it. Personally, I do not hanker after, and seem not to need, as many emotional attachments, sustaining roots, or idealistic allegiances as most people. I declare unabashedly that I like and even cherish the state of abandonment, of aloneness; it does not bother me; indeed, to me it seems the natural, inevitable condition of man, and I welcome it. I can make myself at home almost anywhere on this earth and can, if I've a mind to and when I'm attracted to a landscape or a mood of life, easily sink myself into the most alien and widely differing environments.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

White Man, Listen! (1957)

Life , People , Home , Mood

“For many people, I've ceased to be a human being. I've become an issue, a bother, an "affair." … And has it really been so long since religions persecuted people, burning them as heretics, drowning them as witches, that you can't recognize religious persecution when you see it?”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: For many people, I've ceased to be a human being. I've become an issue, a bother, an "affair." … And has it really been so long since religions persecuted people, burning them as heretics, drowning them as witches, that you can't recognize religious persecution when you see it? … What is my single life worth? Despair whispers in my ear: "Not a lot." But I refuse to give in to despair … because … I know that many people do care, and are appalled by the … upside-down logic of the post-fatwa world, in which a … novelist can be accused of having savaged or "mugged" a whole community, becoming its tormentor (instead of its … victim) and the scapegoat for … its discontents…. (What minority is smaller and weaker than a minority of one?)

People , Religion

“I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me,
I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me.”

Amanda Palmer (1976) American punk-cabaret musician

Do You Swear to Tell the Truth the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth So Help Your Black Ass (2010)
Lyrics

Laughter

“Fame was sufficiently novel for me to be flattered by the company I would be keeping. I had not bothered to read her writings; her evisceration of other victims was thus unknown to me.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

1970s
Context: Ever since the secret trip to China, my own relationship with Nixon had grown complicated. Until then I had been an essentially anonymous White House assistant. But now his associates were unhappy, and not without reason, that some journalists were giving me perhaps excessive credit for the more appealing aspects of our foreign policy while blaming Nixon for the unpopular moves.
These tendencies were given impetus by an interview I granted to the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, without doubt the single most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press. I saw her briefly on Nov. 2 and 4, 1972, in my office. I did so largely out of vanity. She had interviewed leading personalities all over the world. Fame was sufficiently novel for me to be flattered by the company I would be keeping. I had not bothered to read her writings; her evisceration of other victims was thus unknown to me.

As quoted in "Special Section: Chagrined Cowboy" in TIME magazine (8 October 1979) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,916877,00.html

Reading

“I'm often asked by students how a photographer gets over the fear and uneasiness in many people about facing a camera, and I just say that any sensitive man is bothered by a thing like that unless the motive is so strong and the belief in what he’s doing is so strong that it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to do the picture. And I advise people who are bothered by this to cure it by saying to themselves, what I’m doing is harmless to these people really, and there’s no malevolence in it and there’s no deception in it, and it is done in a great tradition, examples of which are Daumier and Goya. Daumier’s Third Class Carriage is a kind of snapshot of some actual people sitting in a railway carriage in France in eighteen-something.”

Walker Evans (1903–1975) American photographer

As quoted in: Bruce Jackson (1987) Fieldwork, p. 87

People , Fear , Motivation , Strong

“But today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of 'separate but equal', when it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can’t be bothered.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Remarks at Bowie State University ceremony (17 May 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/17/remarks-first-lady-bowie-state-university-commencement-ceremony
2010s
Context: But today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of 'separate but equal', when it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can’t be bothered. Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they're sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching T. V. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they're fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper. Right now, one in three African American students are dropping out of high school. Only one in five African Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 has gotten a college degree; one in five.

People , Education

“Why rush to the barricades or, for that matter, why even bother to vote?”

Bob Black (1951) American anarchist

Preface to the Preface
Preface to The Right To Be Greedy (1983 edition)
Context: I was coming from the New Left of the 60’s, but I was increasingly disgruntled with the left of the 70’s. It retained or exaggerated all the faults of the 60’s left (such as current-events myopia, theoretical incoherence, historical amnesia and — especially — the cult of the victim) while denying or diminishing its merits, among them a sense of revolution against the totality, a sense of verve and vitality, and a sense of humor. The left demanded more sacrifice and promised less satisfaction, as if there was not already too much sacrifice and too little satisfaction. I began to wonder whether the failure of the left to root itself in a substantial social base, or even to hold on to much of what base it once had (mostly on campus, and among the intelligentsia, and in the counter-culture), might not in part derive from its own deficiencies, and not only from government repression and manipulation. Maybe the leftists were not so smart or the masses so stupid after all. Guilt-tripping might not go over very well with ordinary people who know they are too powerless to be too guilty of anything. Demands for sacrifice lack appeal for those who have already sacrificed, and been sacrificed, too much and for too long. The future promised by the left looked to be — at worst, even worse — and at best, not noticeably better than the status quo. Why rush to the barricades or, for that matter, why even bother to vote?

“I could tell you about my strengths and weaknesses. I'm creative and intelligent and able to rock the boat and do things that can create uncomfortable situations and then not be bothered about it. But I'm not the best diplomat, I don't have a lot of patience for being sunny and making people happy.”

Holden Karnofsky (1981) American nonprofit executive

In an interview https://80000hours.org/2014/10/interview-holden-karnofsky-on-the-importance-of-personal-fit/ with Benjamin Todd, January 2014

People , Intelligence , Patience , Happiness

“Am I bothering you, miss?”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

Self-degradation

“So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here — not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1970s, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (1973)
Context: So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here — not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

Thinking

“Those who discover things for themselves and express them in their own way are not overly bothered by the fact that others have already discovered these things — have even discovered them over and over again — and have expressed what they found in all manner of ways.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1960)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: Total innovation is a flight from comparison and also from imitation. Those who discover things for themselves and express them in their own way are not overly bothered by the fact that others have already discovered these things — have even discovered them over and over again — and have expressed what they found in all manner of ways.

Way

“A lot of people can’t be on their own. They get frightened. Isolation doesn’t bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security.”

Jimmy Page (1944) British guitarist of Led Zeppelin

People , Sense

“The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

My Story (1974; co-written with Ben Hecht; 2007 edition), p. 133 Variant: The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them. As paraphrased in On Being Blonde : Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes (2004) by Paula Munier, p. 52

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Marilyn Monroe / Quotes
On Being Blonde (2007)

Love , Truth , People , Fools

“It’s incredibly misogynist to tell me I can only write a certain type of woman. Because that’s saying women must be a certain type of person. That puts us back to the Stone Age—like women are saints and therefore not human and if we stray beyond that model, we’ll be severely punished. It denies us any humanity. It doesn’t even bother me. It just bounces off me. It’s such a ridiculous notion that my novels are misogynist because I don’t write the kind of women you want.”

Gillian Flynn (1971) American author and critic

On her novels being called misogynistic in “Gillian Flynn Isn’t Going to Write the Kind of Women You Want” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/06/gillian-flynn-isnt-going-to-write-the-kind-of-women-you-want in Vanity Fair (2018 Jun 28)

Women , Personality , Age

“I have to be a risk-taker and just tell the truth the way it is. Everything that bothers me. Everything that must be told. Fearlessly. My loyalty is to the inner vision. There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Way , Truth , Loyalty

“There was a time, Prax knew, that the violence would have bothered him. Not the blood or bodies. He’d spent more than enough time doing dissections and even autonomous-limb vivisection to be able to wall off what he was seeing from any particular sense of visceral horror. But that it was something done in anger, that the men and women he’d just seen blown apart hadn’t donated their bodies or tissues, would have affected him once. The universe had taken that from him, and he couldn’t say now exactly when it had happened. Part of him was numb, and maybe it always would be. There was a feeling of loss in that, but it was intellectual.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 51 (p. 563)

Loss , Anger , Time , Universe

“Nothing ever stops me. Certainly coming into Hollywood, I knew that there would be certain limitations. But I also couldn’t play a woman or I couldn’t play a white hero. To play Asian and to speak with accents because I speak Japanese, it never really bothered me. All I always look for in every piece is how can I use this piece to move to the next step? So the worst thing about playing Asian bad guys would be to not be remembered…”

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (1950) American actor

On being undaunted as an actor in “Comic-Con 2001: An Interview With Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa” http://fanboyplanet.com/comic-con-2001-an-interview-with-cary-hiroyuki-tagawa/ in Fanboy Planet (2001 Jul 27)

Bad luck , Guy