Quotes about gaming
page 12

Vince Lombardi photo

“We shall play every game to the hilt with every ounce of fiber we have in our bodies.”

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

reported in Donald T. Phillips, Run To Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership (2001), p. 16.

Conor Oberst photo

“And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment.
We're still the pawns in their game.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Jürgen Klinsmann photo

“We have to sit together and discuss things, who we're counting on, how we want to build towards the next couple games, and there's not much time. That will be a lot of conversations coming up the next couple days.”

Jürgen Klinsmann (1964) German footballer and manager

Press conference http://www.espnfc.com/team/united-states/660/blog/post/2657429/jurgen-klinsmann-under-scrutiny-after-bad-day-for-us (10 October 2015)
2010s, 2015

Fritz Leiber photo

“You are not the first to be shocked and horrified by chess,” he assured her. “It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them.”

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction

“The 64-Square Madhouse” (p. 74); originally published in If, May 1962
Short Fiction, A Pail of Air (1964)

Anil Kumble photo
Henry Van Dyke photo
Kapil Dev photo

“If I can do something for the game and the young cricketers through the ICL, I will not budge”

Kapil Dev (1959) Indian cricketer

Quoted in "Profile: Kapil Dev".

Brian Clevinger photo
Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo

“I will have nothing to do with this pseudo-religious approach to politics. I part company with the Congress and Gandhi. I do not believe in working up mob hysteria. Politics is a gentleman's game.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Speaking to journalist Durga Das in London (December 1920) as quoted in Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity : The Search for Saladin (1997) by Akbar S. Ahmed, p. 67

Jascha Heifetz photo
Neal A. Maxwell photo

“The classical theory of probability was devoted mainly to a study of the gamble's gain, which is again a random variable; in fact, every random variable can be interpreted as the gain of a real or imaginary gambler in a suitable game.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter IX, Random Variables; Expectation, p. 212.

China Miéville photo
Babe Ruth photo
André Maurois photo
Jacob Bronowski photo

“When a child begins to play games… he enters the gateway to reason and imagination together.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

Huey P. Newton photo
Mr. T photo

“I'm Mr. T and I'm a "Night Elf Mohawk"! What's YOUR game?”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

World of Warcraft Advert (2007)

“Once you know the rules of the game, you can change them.”

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Source: Artificial Societies of Intelligent Agents (2001), p. 94

Victor Villaseñor photo
Oliver Stone photo
Will Wright photo
Sam Harris photo

“We are now in the 21st century: all books, including the Koran, should be fair game for flushing down the toilet without fear of violent reprisal.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

[Sam Harris, 10 October 2005, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/bombing-our-illusions_b_8615.html, "Bombing Our Illusions", The Huffington Post, 2006-10-16]
2000s

Brandon Boyd photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“A nervous blonde nymphet who thought that politics was some kind of game played by old people, like bridge.”

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

1970s, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (1973)

Satoru Iwata photo
Michel Foucault photo
Nancy Pelosi photo
Jussi Halla-aho photo

“The ruling Left milks the working Swedes to maintain a predominantly idle immigrant population, who thankfully vote for the Left. Swedish society has to support two parasites, each living in a symbiotic relationship with the other. That is, in this particular game of thought.”

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

Jussi Halla-aho (2006), translation published in the blog Multicultural Discourse in Finland and Sweden http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.ch/2006/08/multicultural-discourse-in-finland-and.html, August 30, 2006
2005-09

Tina Fey photo
Chris Kamara photo
David Gerrold photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Charles Bernstein photo

“People who hadn't noticed me, or who had written me off as a game show host, started to reassess me. There were people who hadn't seen me as a stand-up artist and liked it. Suddenly I was in fashion again.”

Bob Monkhouse (1928–2003) English entertainer

Independent on Sunday obituary http://web.archive.org/web/20100522031727/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bob-monkhouse-jokewriter-to-the-stars-and-the-longreigning-king-of-primetime-comedy-dies-at-75-578058.html

Mary McCarthy photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Hermann Hesse photo
John Maynard Smith photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo
Philip K. Dick photo
H. G. Wells photo
Asger Jorn photo

“GO TO HELL BASTARD STOP. REFUSE PRIZE STOP. NEVER ASKED FOR IT STOP. AGAINST ALL DECENCY MIX ARTIST AGAINST HIS WILL IN YOUR PUBLICITY STOP. I WANT PUBLIC CONFIRMATION NOT TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN YOUR RIDICULOUS GAME.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote from Wikipedia: the text of Asger Jorn's telegram in 1964, to the president of the Guggenheim Museum, Harry F. Guggenheim
Jorn was awarded a Guggenheim Award including a generous cash prize, by an international jury assembled by Lawrence Alloway; he rejected!
1959 - 1973, Various sources

Frank Lampard photo
Maxime Bernier photo

“During the final months of the campaign, as polls indicated that I had a real chance of becoming the next leader, opposition from the supply management lobby gathered speed. Radio-Canada reported on dairy farmers who were busy selling Conservative Party memberships across Quebec. A Facebook page called Les amis de la gestion de l’offre et des régions (Friends of supply management and regions) was set up and had gathered more than 10,500 members by early May. As members started receiving their ballots by mail from the party, its creator, Jacques Roy, asked them to vote for Andrew Scheer.
Andrew, along with several other candidates, was then busy touring Quebec’s agricultural belt, including my own riding of Beauce, to pick up support from these fake Conservatives, only interested in blocking my candidacy and protecting their privileges. Interestingly, one year later, most of them have not renewed their memberships and are not members of the party anymore. During these last months of the campaign, the number of members in Quebec had increased considerably, from about 6,000 to more than 16,000. In April 2018, according to my estimates, we are down to about 6,000 again.
A few days after the vote, Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the CBC, calculated that if only 66 voters in a few key ridings had voted differently, I could have won. The points system, by which every riding in the country represented 100 points regardless of the number of members they had, gave outsized importance in the vote to a handful of ridings with few members. Of course, a lot more than 66 supply management farmers voted, likely thousands of them in Quebec, Ontario, and the other provinces. I even lost my riding of Beauce by 51% to 49%, the same proportion as the national vote.
At the annual press gallery dinner in Ottawa a few days after the vote, a gala where personalities make fun of political events of the past year, Andrew was said to have gotten the most laughs when he declared: “I certainly don’t owe my leadership victory to anybody…”, stopping in mid-sentence to take a swig of 2% milk from the carton. “It’s a high quality drink and it’s affordable too.” Of course, it was so funny because everybody in the room knew that was precisely why he got elected. He did what he thought he had to do to get the most votes, and that is fair game in a democratic system. But this also helps explain why so many people are so cynical about politics, and with good reason.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

page 23 in "Live or die with supply management", chapter 5 previewed April 2018 http://www.maximebernier.com/my_chapter_on_supply_management of "Doing Politics Differently: My Vision for Canada"

Tony Gonzalez photo

“I’m going into my 13th year in the NFL, and I switched over [to a plant-based diet] two years ago. … [T]he day after a game, everybody’s sore … and I’m jumping rope and they’re looking at me like, ‘Man you’re supposed to be the old guy on the team. You’re acting like you’re the youngest guy on the team.”

Tony Gonzalez (1976) American football and basketball player

"NFL’s Tony Gonzalez: Turn Back Time With Tofu" https://www.peta.org/blog/nfls-tony-gonzalez-turn-back-time-tofu/, interview with PETA (November 10, 2009).

Jack Buck photo

“Gibson … swings and a fly ball to deep right field. This is gonna be a home run! UNBELIEVABLE! A home run for Gibson! And the Dodgers have won the game, five to four; I don't believe what I just saw! I don't BELIEVE what I just saw!”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling an injured Kirk Gibson's walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series off Dennis Eckersley.
1980s
Source: Jack Buck's call of Kirk Gibson's home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series on CBS Radio (via WJBC-AM in Bloomington, Illinois) http://www.wjbc.com/media/buck4.MP3

Prem Rawat photo
Harry Chapin photo
Walt Whitman photo
Conor McGregor photo
Matt Ridley photo
Martin Sheen photo
Michael Savage photo

“At least some Americans are still having children. Unfortunately, many of those children spend their formative years being taught how to surrender. The emasculation of American boys is one step short of suicide. […] Schoolyards used to be filled with kids at recess playing games like "kill the guy with the ball." Nobody died. Boys played with G. I. Joes and girls played with dolls. Kids played freeze tag without a single incident of sexual harassment. […] Not too many years ago, cartoons were filled with violence. Bugs Bunny tied a gun barrel in a knot and Elmer Fudd's gun went kaboom, covering his own head in black soot. Wile E. Coyote chased the Road Runner and fell off a cliff to his destruction. We as children watched Superman cartoons, but we knew not to try and jump off the roof. Teenage boys watched Rocky and Rambo and Conan films. Then they went home without trying to kill anybody. […] We did not need liberals to tell us the difference between pretend and real life. Common sense and our parents handled that. Now schools across the country are canceling gym class. Dodgeball apparently promotes aggression […]. Even rock-paper-scissors is too violent. Rocks and scissors could be used by children to harm each other. Paper requires murdering trees. It's no wonder that Islamists produce strapping young men while America produces sensitive crybabies […]. Muslim children are taught hate in madrassas. They are taught how to kill infidels and the blasphemers. American boys are suspended from school for arranging their school lunch vegetables in the shape of a gun. […] During World War II, young boys volunteered to go overseas to save the world. […] Now American kids on college campuses retreat to their safe spaces to escape from potential microagressions. Islamists cut off heads and limbs and our young boys shriek at the drop of a microaggression. And we haven't seen the worst of it.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country after Obama (2016)

Paul Thurrott photo

“Is this thing even worth reviewing? Right off the bat, I'm glad to see that my initial reactions to this thing were accurate. Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Apple iPad Hands-On First Impressions http://winsupersite.com/article/product-review/apple-ipad-hands-on-first-impressions in Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows (6 October 2010)

Robert Aumann photo

“"Interactive Decision Theory" would perhaps be a more descriptive name for the discipline usually called Game Theory.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

Robert Aumann (2000) Collected Papers: Vol. 1. p. 47

Simone de Beauvoir photo

“One cannot help but be struck by the diversity that characterizes efforts to study the management process. If it is true that psychologists like to study personality traits in terms of a person's reactions to objects and events, they could not choose a better stimulus than management science. Some feel it is a technique, some feel it is a branch of mathematics, or of mathematical economics, or of the "behavioral sciences," or of consultation services, or just so much nonsense. Some feel it is for management (vs. labor), some feel it ought to be for the good of mankind — or for the good of underpaid professors.
But this diversity of attitude, which is really characteristic of all fields of endeavor, is matched by another and more serious kind of diversity. In the management sciences, we have become used to talking about game theory, inventory theory, waiting line theory. What we mean by "theory" in this context is that if certain assumptions are valid, then such-and-such conclusions follow. Thus inventory theory is not a set of statements that predict how inventories will behave, or even how they should behave in actual situations, but is rather a deductive system which becomes useful if the assumptions happen to hold. The diversity of attitude on this point is reflected in two opposing points of view: that the important problems of management science are theoretical, and that the important problems are factual.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

quote in: Fremont A. Shull (ed.), Selected readings in management https://archive.org/stream/selectedreadings00shul#page/n13/mode/2up, , 1957. p. 7-8
1940s - 1950s, "Management Science — Fact or Theory?" 1956

Allen Ginsberg photo

“1. You can't win. 2. You can't break even. 3. You can't even get out of the game.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Several publications attribute the quote to Ginsberg, probably the first one is The Coevolution Quarterly in 1975 [Google books https://books.google.it/books?id=MylJAQAAIAAJ&q=%22ginsberg%27s+theorem%22&dq=%22ginsberg%27s+theorem%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y], but there's is no evidence whatsoever that he ever pronounced it. A more detailed analysis can be found in this post https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/you_cant_win_you_cant_break_even/
Misattributed, Ginsberg's theorem

“Note the situation is different when the player is permitted to vary his stakes. In this case there exist advantageous strategies, and the game depends on the strategy.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter VIII, Unlimited Sequences Of Bernoulli Trials, p. 200

Arsène Wenger photo

“Everybody has a different opinion in this league and nobody is a prophet. I personally don’t know who will win the league. I managed 1,600 games so, if Nani knows, he must be 1,600 times more intelligent than I am.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

About Nani, (December 2010) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/8222215/Arsene-Wenger-mocks-Nani-for-dismissing-Arsenals-Premier-League-title-chances.html

“First let me persuade you of my metaphysics and epistemology, then my theory of science, then my ethics and social theory, and then having done all that, I will convince you of my political theory. Over the past two decades, I have become convinced that this is a mug’s game… The reason Plato, Hobbes, Marx, Mill, and Rawls (many others could be named) garner widespread attention as political theorists has much more to do with their destinations than with their starting points.”

Ian Shapiro (1956) American political theorist

Shapiro, Ian. 2011. The Real World of Democratic Theory. Princeton University Press. p. 254; As cited in: Michael A. Fotos. Vincent Ostrom’s Revolutionary Science of Association http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/colloquia/materials/papers/Fotos_VO's%20RevolutionaryScienceOfAssociation_15Mar2013.pdf, Lecturer in Political Science, Ethics, Politics, and Economics Yale University, New Haven CT : About Vincent Ostrom.

Mikhail Baryshnikov photo

“You know, I never planned to leave. I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. You know, I played their game, pretending, of course. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB… Horrifying.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948) Soviet-American dancer, choreographer, and actor born in Letonia, Soviet Union

Statement in television interview: Larry King (May 5, 2002). " Interview with Mikhail Baryshnikov http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/05/lklw.00.html", Larry King Weekend, CNN.

Wilt Chamberlain photo
Alan Turing photo
Joseph Joubert photo
Paul Thurrott photo

“Android and the DROID X are, warts and all, already neck and neck with the iPhone 4. It's scary to think how one-sided this would be if Google just put a handful of UI experts on the [Android app] marketplace. Game over, Apple. Game over.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Droid Attack Spells Doom for iPhone http://winsupersite.com/article/mobile-computing-devices/droid-attack-spells-doom-for-iphone in Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows (21 September 2010)

Milton Friedman photo
M. C. Escher photo

“My work is a game, a very serious game.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

No known direct citation to a work or interview with Escher; it appears in The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Perfect Cover Letter (1997) by Susan Ireland, p. 258 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9OMcWS5K-JMC&pg=PA258, and The Universal Book of Mathematics : From Abracadabra to Zeno's Paradoxes (2004) by David Darling, p. 107
disputed quotes

John Steinbeck photo

“Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men like himself who joined together in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him.”

Source: The Wayward Bus (1947), Ch. 3

Amir Peretz photo

“It's really tough to make it to the Paralympic Games”

Jagseer Singh (1987) Paralympic long jumper

Jagseer Singh on the size on Indian Contingent to the 2012 London Paralympics. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/others/With-more-support-we-can-do-wonders-Jagseer-Singh/articleshow/15576449.cms

Roberto Clemente photo

“Only yesterday the practical things of today were decried as impractical, and the theories which will be practical tomorrow will always be branded as valueless games by the practical man of today.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Introduction, The Nature of Probability Theory, p. 6.
An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition)

Chuck Hagel photo

“This is a ping-pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad, are not beans. They're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.”

Chuck Hagel (1946) United States Secretary of Defense

On the Iraq troop surge of 2007, Excerpts From Senate Iraq Meeting, The Bellingham Herald, 24 January 2007, 2007-01-25 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAQ_EXCERPTS?SITE=WABEL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT,
2007

Joseph Goebbels photo

“I believe in God. When everything collapses, we grip the last hold, we look from the secure haven how the godless society of the old, holy Europe falls apart. May the game begin.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Ich glaube an Gott. Wenn alles stürzt, fassen wir die letzte Planke und schauen vom sicheren Port, wie die entgötterte Gesellschaft des alten, heiligen Europa zusammenstürzt. Möge das Spiel beginnen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Jeb Bush photo
Robin Williams photo

“A time will come, a time will come,
(Though the world will never be quite the same),
When the people sit in the summer sun,
Watching, watching the beautiful game.”

Arnold Wall (1869–1966) university professor, philologist, poet, mountaineer, botanist, writer, radio broadcaster

Poem: A Time Will Come (1915); Cited in: John Arlott, ‎Fred Trueman (1971) Arlott and Trueman on cricket. p. 173
He is referring to cricket; later, "the beautiful game" was used to describe football.

John Adams photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“Obamacare is a marketplace in the same way the Knockout Game is a game.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Desperately Needed: Dose of Kim Jong-un Justice” http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/desperately-needed-dose-of-kim-jong-un-justice/, WorldNetDaily.com, February 13, 2014.
2010s, 2014

W. Brian Arthur photo
Reggie Fils-Aimé photo

“Back in my 20s, I was playing poker to avoid living. I wasn’t very satisfied with life. I used to play in a big game in Archway. And we’d play as much as we possibly could and for as much money as we had, and that went on for a couple of years.”

Patrick Marber (1964) English comedian, actor and screenwriter

Interview in Jewish Chronicle, 26 September 2007 http://thejc.com/home.aspx?AId55759&ATypeId1&searchtrue2&srchstrpatrick%20marber&srchtxt1&srchhead1&srchauthor1&srchsandp1&scsrch0

Mary Matalin photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
K. S. Ranjitsinhji photo
Wilt Chamberlain photo
Jacques Derrida photo
Mahela Jayawardene photo

“Mahela is a class player so it would be great to have him back and in the form he was in before he got injured [injured his thigh during a cricket game]”

Mahela Jayawardene (1977) Former Sri Lankan cricketer

Wicketkeeper-batsman Tim Ludeman of the Adelaide Strikers, The Advertiser (January 19, 2016), "Adelaide Strikers may roll the dice on star import Mahela Jayawardene" http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/cricket/adelaide-strikers-may-roll-the-dice-on-star-import-mahela-jayawardene/news-story/120958219581e550e2750ca5e45bc479
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