Quotes about favorite
page 3

Billy Collins photo

“I find it impossible to think of "favorite" poets. I would rather list the ones I cannot stand.”

Billy Collins (1941) American poet

Interview with Kritya: In the Name of Poetry

Ihara Saikaku photo
Ai Weiwei photo

“My favorite word? It’s 'act.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Karen Smith et al. Ai Weiwei (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon), London: Phaidon Press, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

Dave Matthews photo
Bruce Dickinson photo
Rachel Trachtenburg photo
Warren Buffett photo

“In fact, when we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1988 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1988.html
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Truman Capote photo
Sacha Baron Cohen photo

“In Kazakhstan the favorite hobbies are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis.”

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971) English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and voice actor

Borat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2l0nu6m2cw.

Anita Dunn photo

“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices. You're going to challenge. You're going to say, "Why not?". You're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here's the deal: These are your choices, they are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?" And Mao Zedong said, you know, "You fight your war, and I'll fight mine." And think about that for a second. You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war, you lay out your own path, you figure out what's right for you. You don't let external definition define how good you are internally, you fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.”

Anita Dunn (1958) American political strategist

Speech at the Washington National Cathedral for St. Andrews Episcopal High School's (of Bethesda Maryland) graduation on June 5, 2009. It was broadcast on the Glenn Beck Show, Oct 15, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi1zg2NOCn8 http://www.saes.org/academics/lower_school/newsletter.aspx?StartDate=6/2/2009

“Communist writers likewise maintain that the Judaic-Christian code of ethics is "class" morality. By this they mean that the Ten Commandments and the ethics of Christianity were created to protect private property and the property class. To show the lengths to which Communist writers have gone to defend this view we will mention several of their favorite interpretations of the Ten Commandments. They believe that "Honor thy Father and thy Mother" was created by the early Hebrews to emphasize to their children the fact that they were the private property of their parents. "Thou shalt not kill" was attributed to the belief of the dominant class that their bodies were private property and therefore they should be protected along with other property rights. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" were said to have been created to implement the idea that a husband was the master of the home and the wife was strictly private property belonging to him. This last line of reasoning led to some catastrophic consequences when the Communists came into power in Russia. In their anxiety to make women "equal with men" and prevent them from becoming private property, they degraded womankind to the lowest and most primitive level. Some Communist leaders advocated complete libertinism and promiscuity to replace marriage and the family.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Fred Astaire photo

“Oh, there's no such thing as my favorite performance. I can't sit here today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others. I just don't look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say 'all right, that's that. What's next?”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Fred Astaire, interviewed by Dan Navarro for American Classic Screen Magazine, September/October 1978.

Robert T. Bakker photo

“Ceratosaurus is and has been my favorite dino since 1958. This is a minority taste. I’ve met only one dino-digger who rated it #1 in desirability.”

Robert T. Bakker (1945) American paleontologist

As quoted in Dr. Robert Bakker Answers Your Questions http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/03/10/2217251/dr-robert-bakker-answers-your-questions, science.slashdot.org, (March 11, 2013)

Octavio Paz photo
Sania Mirza photo
Lawrence Lessig photo

“Kids are my favorites … their spirit and curiosity has not yet been dulled by schools.”

Julius Sumner Miller (1909–1987) American physicist

As quoted in "TV and Classroom Physicist : 'Professor Wonderful,' Julius Sumner Miller, Dies" by Gerald Faris, in The Los Angeles Times (16 April 1987) http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-16/news/mn-721_1_julius-sumner-miller

Daniel Dennett photo
Peggy Moran photo
David Lynch photo

“When I was little in Spokane, Washington I drew all the time… and my father would bring paper home … and I mostly drew browning automatic water-cooled sub-machine guns… that was my favorite.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

As quoted in Pretty as a Picture : The Art of David Lynch (1997)

Halldór Laxness photo
Sarah Palin photo
Paul Fussell photo

“One of my favorite quotes is from Hemingway, who said, "Never persuade yourself that war, no matter how necessary, is not a crime." … It is. Sometimes it's necessary, but it's always awful, and that's my point.”

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

Fussell here slightly paraphrases Hemingway's statement from his Foreword to Treasury for the Free World (1946): Never think that war, no matter how necessary nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.
Humanities interview (1996)

Megan Mullally photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“My favorite wine is usually whatever is right in front of me.”

What Would Jack Do?

Noel Fielding photo

“[When asked if he has a favorite woodland creature]”

Noel Fielding (1973) British comedian and actor

HermAphroditeZine, Autumn 1999

Phil Brooks photo

“Last week, i… i extended a hand to the WWE Universe in a much needed intervention. You know, i don't know if you people know this or not, but i'm not the only one who knows that pills and cigarettes and alcohol are harmful. Medical science has proven this, so there's a surgeon general put in place to put warning labels on all of these products. I guess he's just there to warn the smart people that already know, huh? This is my crusade, and i will continue my crusade for as long as there are people who need help, as long as there are people out there who need change in their lives. One person in particular i've been helping for quite some time now, i'd like to introduce him to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you… Luke Gallows. (Gallows raises his fist) That's right, some of you may recognize him as "Festus", but that was a lifetime ago. And it's a lifetime that he'd just as soon regret. It's a lifetime of torturous drug abuse and neglect, you see, it started just like it started for all of you people, one, one little pill. Just one little pill to take the edge off, one painkiller. And then one turns to two, two turns to four, four turns to eight, so on and so forth. And sure, his friends, his family were there, but they enabled him. They didn't help him, they thought they were but they were slowly rotting him from the inside out. But then i helped him, just like i could help all of you. Trust me, this is just the start, this doesn't end here, it begins here and now. I will continue to reach out and help those who can't help themselves. Holds up brown paper bag On December 1st, this is scary, people, pay attention. On December 1st, a very dangerous addictive new drug hits the streets. Now this scares me because it's a socially accepted over-the-counter drug and it's gonna be widely available all over the world. And it's scary because it's more dangerous than any prescribed medication, it's more harmful than chain smoking an entire carton of unfiltered cigarettes, it is more dangerous than corroding your liver with a fifth of gin or vodka and then chasing it with your Daddy's favorite beer. (Punk pulls a Jeff Hardy DVD out of the bag) "Jeff Hardy, My Life, My Rules" And what an appropriate title, for a loser who destroyed his life and his career living by his rules. And what makes me sick to my stomach is Jeff didn't just ruin his life, he didn't just end his career. (Crowd chants Hardy) He ruined the lives of all his fans because he's planted seeds of destruction in all of the people, all of the drug addicts like yourself who actually looked up to the Charismatic Enabler like he was some sort of a prophet. Well, if you people have any brain-cells left, if there's anything left of your memory that's not burnt out, all you need to know is that the last chapter of this DVD is the most important one you need to watch because it tells the whole story. It's a cage match between myself and Jeff Hardy, where i ended Jeff's career in the WWE… FOREVER! I'm the reason he's not here! And I know how hard it is to deprogram your weak little brains from all the lies you've been fed all over the years, but you owe it to yourselves. Look yourself in the mirror, search inside yourself for that shred of self-respect that might be left, and when it comes to this, when it comes to this garbage, (Holds up DVD) just say no.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

November 27, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Frances Bean Cobain photo

“It's Friday the 13th. my favorite holiday. Keep it weird.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

13 September 2013 https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666/status/378591763666972672
Twitter https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666 posts

Charlotte Salomon photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Will Cuppy photo
James K. Morrow photo

“For moral reasons, the young Reverend Peter Sparrow declined to join the Saturday night gatherings of the Erebus Poker Club. Gambling, he knew, was Satan’s third favorite pastime, after sex and ecumenicalism.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: This Is the Way the World Ends (1986), Chapter 8, “In Which Our Hero Witnesses Some of the Many Surprising Effects of Nuclear War, Including Sundeath, Timefolds, and Unadmittance” (p. 97)

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“Seaboard Air Line, which was thought by numerous innocents to provide a foothold in aviation, was another favorite, although, in fact, it was a railroad.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter IX, The Price, p. 106

Bret Easton Ellis photo
George Will photo
Sigmund Freud photo

“A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of success that often induces real success.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

From The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones, Vol. I, ch. 1 (1953) p. 5
Eine Kindheitserinnerung aus »Dichtung und Wahrheit«, first published in the journal Imago, vol. 5 issue 2 (1917), p. 57 books. google http://books.google.com/books?id=05FXAAAAMAAJ&q=Eroberergef%C3%BChl = http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29946/29946-h/29946-h.htm
1910s

Ronnie James Dio photo

“We always seem to begin or end in Philadelphia, it's the best place to start and the best place to stop. You're fantastic. My favorite place. Thank you!”

Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer

From "Dio's Live At The Spectrum" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwX8yF8k0ls

Giorgio Morandi photo
Jonah Goldberg photo

““[Thanksgiving is] my favorite holiday, I think. It's without a doubt my favorite American Holiday. I love Christmastime, Chanuka etc. But Thanksgiving is as close as we get to a nationalist holiday in America (a country where nationalism as a concept doesn't really fit). Thanksgiving's roots are pre-founding, which means its not a political holiday in any conventional sense. We are giving thanks for the soil, the land, for the gifts of providence which were bequeathed to us long before we figured out our political system. Moreover, because there are no gifts, the holiday isn't nearly so vulnerable to materialism and commercialism. It's about things -- primarily family and private accomplishments and blessings -- that don't overlap very much with politics of any kind. We are thankful for the truly important things: our children and their health, for our friends, for the things which make life rich and joyful. As for all the stuff about killing Indians and whatnot, I can certainly understand why Indians might have some ambivalence about the holiday (though I suspect many do not). The sad -- and fortunate -- truth is that the European conquest of North America was an unremarkable old world event (one tribe defeating another tribe and taking their land; happened all the time) which ushered in a gloriously hopeful new age for humanity. America remains the last best hope for mankind. Still, I think it would be silly to deny how America came to be, but the truth makes me no less grateful that America did come to be. Also, I really, really like the food.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

"Thanksgiving" http://web.archive.org/web/20041126231505/http://www.nationalreview.com:80/thecorner/04_11_24_corner-archive.asp (24 November 2004), The Corner, National Review
2000s, 2004

Berenice Abbott photo
Lew Rockwell photo
Stephen King photo

“YouTube is very addictive. I refused to put it on my favorite places because it's too easy to go there.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Stephen King Visits YouTube - Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz9CMhMWl_E

Lewis Black photo

“Now, maybe you thought you could get clever by adding an "-ing" to your favorite curse word. Well, the bill also prohibits "compound use, including hyphenated compounds … and other grammatical forms including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms." Fortunately for me, they didn't include the pluperfect subjunctive. So all you stuffed shirts can just have been having had to bite me.”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

The Daily Show (2004-3-24), "Back in Black," regarding H.R. 3687 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h108-3687, intended to expand the definition of "profane broadcasts."

Goran Višnjić photo
Jayne Mansfield photo
Robert J. Sawyer photo
John Scalzi photo
Chris Walla photo

“My favorite sport is Scrabble.”

Chris Walla (1975) American musician

20 questions with Christopher Walla (2000)

Oliver Sacks photo
Amy Lee photo
Jack Kirby photo

“My favorite thing about Kirby’s artwork was his storytelling. He was really a film director doing comics.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Source: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, the abandoned hero of Marvel’s grand Hollywood adventure, and his family’s quest http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/jack-kirby-the-forgotten-hero-in-marvels-grand-hollywood-adventure/, Los Angeles Times, (September 25, 2009).

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“When the crowd acclaims its favorites it applauds itself.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 208

Wolfram von Eschenbach photo

“Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival…was where love and marriage were brought together. It was an apple of a story. That's my favorite love story.”

Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170–1220) German knight and poet

Joseph Campbell (ed. Robert Walter and Phil Cousineau) The Hero’s Journey (Novato: New World Library, [1990] 2003) p. 104.
Criticism

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo

“After the war [1918] etching became Kirchner's favorite medium. He attributed this to its responsiveness. 'Etchings', he wrote, 'develop in the first states the most immediate hieroglyphs. Rich in lively handwriting and rich in variety of motifs, the etchings are like a diary of the painter.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

de:Louis de Marsalle, in Uber Kirchners Graphik, Genius 3, no. 2 (1921), p. 258; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 53
1920's

John Scalzi photo

“What’s the point of being in charge if you can’t indulge in pointless favoritism.”

John Scalzi (1969) American science fiction writer

Source: Old Man’s War (2005), Chapter 7 (p. 124)

Richard Rodríguez photo

“His name was William Saroyan. He was the first writer I fell in love with, boyishly in love. I was held by his unaffected voice, his sentimentality, his defiant individualism. I found myself in the stories he told… I learned from Saroyan that you do not have to live in some great city — in New York or Paris — in order to write… When I was a student at Stanford, a generation ago, the name of William Saroyan was never mentioned by any professor in the English Department. William Saroyan apparently was not considered a major American talent. Instead, we undergraduates set about the business of psychoanalyzing Hamlet and deconstructing Lolita. In my mind Saroyan belongs with John Steinbeck, a fellow small town Californian and of the same generation. He belongs with Thornton Wilder, with those writers whose aching love of America was formed by the Depression and the shadow of war. … Saroyan's prose is as plain as it is strong. He talks about the pleasure of drinking water from a hose on a summer afternoon in California's Central Valley, and he holds you with the pure line. My favorite is his novel The Human Comedy… In 1943, The Human Comedy became an MGM movie starring Mickey Rooney, but I always imagined Homer Macaulay as a darker, more soulful boy, someone who looked very much like a young William Saroyan…”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

"Time Of Our Lives" (26 May 1997) http://www.cilicia.com/armo22_william_saroyan_6.html

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Lillian Gish photo

“For Lillian Gish, My Favorite Actress. On the occasion of her 1st visit to New York of which this book is a practical guide. From Her Chattel, F. Scott Fitzgerald”

Lillian Gish (1893–1993) American actress

F. Scott Fitzgerald's letter to Gish, written within a copy of Tender is the Night http://gothamist.com/2013/01/29/fitzgerald_pens_letter_to_favorite.php
About

Wesley Willis photo

“You are my favorite movie star / You are my big buddy / You are a low-down rotten man / You are crazy like a roll lizard”

Wesley Willis (1963–2003) American singer-songwriter

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Lyrics, Solo

KT Tunstall photo
Johannes Bosboom photo

“As a schoolboy drawing-lessons became my favorite, and that pleasure was not ignited a little when, by the time of my twelfth year, the cityscape-painter B. J. van Hove became our neighbor. Since then I began to long for the moment that I would be allowed to change the school bench for a place in his studio. That desire was already satisfied in the autumn of [18]31.”

Johannes Bosboom (1817–1891) Dutch painter

origineel citaat van Johannes Bosboom, in Nederlands: Als schoolknaap was de teekenles mij de liefste geworden en die lust werd niet weinig aangewakkerd, toen, omstreeks mijn twaalfde jaar, de stadsgezichtschilder B. J. van Hove onze buurman werd. Sinds dien tijd begon ik sterk te verlangen naar het oogenblik, waarop ik de schoolbank tegen een plaatsje in zijn atelier zou mogen verwisselen. Dat verlangen werd reeds bevredigd in het najaar van [18]31.
Source: 1880's, Een en ander betrekkelijk mijn loopbaan als schilder, p. 7

Peter D. Schiff photo
Michael Chabon photo
John Muir photo

“I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of this favorite spruce. … The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; bright streams from the snow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthus spreads precious carpets in its shade. But the best words only hint its charms. Come to the mountains and see.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

[Concerning the Hemlock Spruce, now called Mountain Hemlock http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=TSME:]
Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 8: The Forests

Bert McCracken photo
Iain Banks photo
Dara Ó Briain photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Parallels, spirals, and reflections are some of my favorite literary patterns.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

"Putting It Together" p. 20
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

Ilana Mercer photo
Davey Havok photo
Ben Gibbard photo
William Lloyd Garrison photo
Robert Southey photo

“He passed a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility;
And he owned with a grin
That his favorite sin
Is pride that apes humility.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 8. Compare: "And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin / Is pride that apes humility", Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts.
The Devil's Walk http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/devil.rs1860.html (1799)

Theodor Mommsen photo

“This (The launching of an invasion into Armenia) was itself hazardous; but the smallness of the number (of the army, not more than 15,000 men) might be in some degree compensated by the tried valour of the army consisting throughout of veterans. A much worse circumstance was the temper of the soldiers, to which Lucullus, in his high aristocratic fashion, had given far too little heed. Lucullus was an able general, and - according to the aristocratic standard - an upright and benevolent man, but very far from being a favorite with his soldiers. He was unpopular, as a decided adherent of the oligarghy; unpopular, because he had vigorously checked the monstrous usury of the Roman capitalists in Asia Minor; unpopular, on account of the toils and fatigues which he inflicted on his troops; unpopular, because he demanded strict discipline in his soldiers and prevented as far as possible the pillage of the Greek towns by his men, but withal caused many a waggon and many a camel to be alden with the treasures of the East for himself; unpopular too on account of his manner, which was polished, stately, Hellenising, not at all familiar, and inclining, wherever it was possible, to ease and pleasure. There was no trace in him of the charm which creates a personal bond between the general and the soldier.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Pt. 1, Chpt 2. "Rule of the Sullan Restoration" Translated by W.P. Dickson
Beginning of the Armenian War
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Scott Lynch photo

“Maybe this is going to complicate the hell out of things. So what? You’re the complication I want more than anything else. You’re my favorite complication.”

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 8 “The Five-Year Game: Infinite Variation” section 2 (p. 449)

Tom Baker photo
Harry Truman photo

“My favorite animal is the mule. He has more sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating — and when to stop working.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Mr. Citizen, Harry Truman (1960)

Ethan Allen photo
John Donne photo
Prem Rawat photo
Natalie Merchant photo
Robert F. Kennedy photo
Robin Williams photo
Daniel Handler photo

“At this point in the dreadful story I am writing, I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidoptrerist, a word which usually means "a person who studies butterflies." In this case, however, the word "lepidopterist" means "a man who was being pursued by angry government officials," and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were--four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right--and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured--he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life--but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.”

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Pendleton Ward photo
S. S. Van Dine photo
Dennis Miller photo
Ayn Rand photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Favoritism, elitism, leader-worship, they crept back and cropped out everywhere. But she had never hoped to see them eradicated in her lifetime, in one generation; only Time works the great changes.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Day Before the Revolution” p. 265 (originally published in Galaxy, August 1974)
Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1974
Hugo nominee for Best Short Story in 1975
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)

André Maurois photo