Quotes about nobody
page 11

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Bode Miller photo

“Fame is almost a poison. I couldn’t care less, in fact I lived better when I was a nobody.”

Bode Miller (1977) American alpine ski racer

Interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, 16 Feb. 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11385083/

Northrop Frye photo

“The bedrock of doubt is the total nothingness of death. Death is a leveler, not because everybody dies, but because nobody understands what death means.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter 8, p. 230

Daniel Handler photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“There's a good reason why nobody studies history. It just teaches you too much.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

KGNU benefit at the University of Colorado at Boulder, April 5, 2003 (context: João Goulart) http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/fscm2/contentviewer.php?content_id=299
Quotes 2000s, 2003

Alex Jones photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Wesley Clark photo

“The truth is, about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

92nd Street Y Cultural Center (2007)

Adam Smith photo
Ted Hughes photo

“Nobody knew the Iron Man had fallen.
Night passed.”

Source: The Iron Man (1968), Ch. 1 : The Coming of the Iron Man

Mariah Carey photo
Akio Morita photo
Glen Cook photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Hans Freudenthal photo
Christine O'Donnell photo

“Christine O'Donnell: But let me tell you something! They — homosexuals' special rights groups can get away with so much more than nobody else can!
Alan Colmes: Well, what are they getting away with here, Christine? Tell me what you’re seeing…
Christine O'Donnell: They're getting away with nudity!
Fay: Oh, right.
Christine O'Donnell: They're getting away with nudity! They're getting away with lasciviousness! They're getting away with perversion!
Fay: Oh, Christine…
Christine O'Donnell: They're getting away with blasphemy!”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

2000-06-26
Television series
Hannity & Colmes
Fox News
Christine O'Donnell: how can she be taken seriously? Rush says she's electable.
Pam
Spaulding
Pam's House Blend
2010-09-19
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/17374/christine-odonnell-how-can-she-be-taken-seriously-rush-says-shes-electable
2010-10-20
2010-09-15
Christine O'Donnell Does Not Like Gays.
Instaputz
http://instaputz.blogspot.com/2010/09/christine-odonnell-does-not-like-gays.html
2010-10-20
about 2000 New York City Gay Pride Parade
TV appearances

Svetlana Alliluyeva photo

“When my mother left us, he [Stalin] was left completely alone. And I think what came next, in the late 30s and after the war in the 40s - I think that was a result of his complete loneliness on top of the world. Nobody would argue with him anymore.”

Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926–2011) daughter of Joseph Stalin

Stalin's daughter Lana Peters dies in US of cancer http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15931683, BBC News, (29 November, 2011).

Suze Robertson photo

“Although teaching in the class is so terribly tiring... I continued my work perfunctorily in a way that nobody could notice it. Because I lived with that firm intention: in a few years I will start painting. And I saved for this by being as sober as possible with everything.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Al is dat klassikale lesgeven ook zóó vermoeiend.. ..ik zette mijn werk plichtmatig voort, zodat wel niemand 't aan mij kon merken. Want ik leefde op het vaste voornemen: over eenige jaren ga ik schilderen. En daar spaarde ik voor, door in alles zoo sober mogelijk te wezen.
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 31

David Boaz photo
Fiona Apple photo

“If you don't have a date
Celebrate
Go out and sit on the lawn
And do nothing
'Cause it's just what you must do
Nobody does it anymore.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Waltz (Better Than Fine)
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Andy Warhol photo
Arlo Guthrie photo
Neil Gaiman photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstitution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent – or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought – destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position – leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that – like Chomsky – looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"In enemy territory? An interview with Christopher Hitchens." http://www.johannhari.com/2004/09/23/in-enemy-territory-an-interview-with-christopher-hitchens, Interview with Johann Hari (2004-09-23): On the Bosnian War
2000s, 2004

Grace Hopper photo

“I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. … they carefully told me, computers could only do arithmetic; they could not do programs.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

As quoted in Grace Hopper : Navy Admiral and Computer Pioneer (1989) by Charlene W. Billings, p. 74 ISBN 089490194X

Al-Mahdi photo

“Nehru’s daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, carried her father’s game much farther. In her fight for a monopoly of power, she split the Congress Party, and made a common cause with the Communists. Well-known Communists and fellow-travellers were given positions of power in the ruling Congress Party, in the Government at the Centre as well in the States, and in prestigious institutions all over the country. The Muslim-Marxist combine of “historians” had already captured the Indian History Congress during the days of Pandit Nehru, and many honest historians had been hounded out of it. Now this combine was placed in control of the Indian Council of Historical Research and entrusted with extensive patronage. The combine took over the National Council of Educational Research and Training also, and laid down the guidelines for producing school textbooks on various subjects. The Jawaharlal Nehru University was created and financed on a fabulous scale in order to collect Communist professors from all over the country, and form them into a frontline brigade for launching all sorts of anti-Hindu campaigns. The smokescreen for this Stalinist operation was provided by the slogan of Secularism which nobody was supposed to question, or examine as to what it had come to mean. Its meaning had to be accepted ex-cathedra, and as laid down by the Muslim-Marxist combine. In the new political parlance that emerged, Hinduism and the nationalism it inspired, became blackned as “Communalism.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Small wonder that the word “Hindu” started becoming a dirty word in the academia as well as the media.
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Gertrude Stein photo

“It bothers a lot of people, but like you said, it's nobody's business, it came from the Judeo-Christian ethos, especially Saint Paul the bastard, but he was complaining about youngsters who were not really that way, they did it for money, everybody suspects us or knows but nobody says anything about it.”

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

Stein's comment about homosexuality and homophobia, from a conversation with Samuel Steward recounted in Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (1977)

Morrissey photo
Gary Gygax photo
Prem Rawat photo
Philip Pullman photo
Morrissey photo

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Mordecai Richler photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually merely inertia or lack of will-power.”

Nul ne mérite d’être loué de bonté, s’il n’a pas la force d’être méchant: toute autre bonté n’est le plus souvent qu’une paresse ou une impuissance de la volonté.
Maxim 237.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

David Brooks photo
Adam Roberts photo
Ingvar Kamprad photo

“Nobody can guarantee a company or a concept of eternal life, but no one can accuse me of not having tried to.”

Ingvar Kamprad (1926–2018) Entrepreneur

Quoted by Richard Milne in " Ikea’s fiendishly complex construction http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9682882-2d9f-11e2-9988-00144feabdc0.html," Financial Times, November 13, 2012.

Alexander McCall Smith photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Alexander Pope photo

“You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Credited as Epigram: An Empty House (1727), or On a Dull Writer; alternately attributed to Jonathan Swift in John Hawkesworth, The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin (1754), p. 265. Compare: "His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home", William Cowper, Conversation, line 303.
Misattributed

Lucy Maud Montgomery photo
Kate Bush photo

“Nobody else can share this.
Here comes one and one makes one,
The glorious union.
Well it could be love,
Or it could be just lust,
But it will be fun.
It will be wonderful.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Kick Inside (1978)

Tom Clancy photo
Arsène Wenger photo
Bob Dylan photo

“You go to Sodom and Gomorrah, but what do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), Jokerman

Kage Baker photo
Eugène Delacroix photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo

“Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Sunday Times [London] (20 June 1971)

Matt Ridley photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“My goal is always again to bring people together. But if I'm forced to fight for something I really care about, I will never, ever back down and our country will never, ever back down. Thank you. I've fought for my family. I've fought for my business. I've fought for my employees. And now, I'm going to fight for you, the American people like nobody has ever fought before.”

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

Victory speech after winning New Jersey and other states Tuesday night (7 June 2016) – TIME transcript http://time.com/4360872/donald-trump-new-jersey-victory-speech-transcript/
2010s, 2016, June

Edward Heath photo

“This was a secret meeting on a secret tour which nobody is supposed to know about. It means that there are men, and perhaps women, in this country walking around with eggs in their pockets, just on the off-chance of seeing the Prime Minister.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Remarks to the press after Harold Wilson was hit by eggs thrown by demonstrators on two successive days (1 June 1970), quoted in Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1998), p. 305.
Leader of the Opposition

Donald J. Trump photo

“I looked out, the field was, looked like million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there was practically nobody standing there. And they said, "Donald Trump did not draw well." I said, "It was almost raining!" The rain should've scared them away but God looked down and said we're not going to let it rain on your speech.”

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

Trump speaking at the CIA Headquarters about his inauguration crowd and the press coverage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMBqDN7-QLg, FOX 10 Phoenix (21 January 2017)
2010s, 2017, January

Tom Baker photo
Theo Walcott photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Kent Hovind photo
Geronimo photo

“They held us in San Antonio … We had tents and blankets but no arms. We had food. But every minute we expected to be taken out and shot. Nobody said it aloud. Geronimo had been promised that he would not die by bullets (by Usen, the Apache God), but the rest had not.”

Geronimo (1829–1909) leader of the Bedonkohe Apache

Jasper Kanseah, a fellow captive, as quoted in Geronimo and the End of the Apache Wars (1990), by Charles Leland Sonnichsen, p. 101.
About

Germaine Greer photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Connie Willis photo
Klaus Kinski photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Khaled Hosseini photo

“Giti: Nobody ever came for my hand.”

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Jack White photo
Justina Robson photo
Niels Henrik Abel photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Ryan Adams photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo

“The hand of God is creating a new World & working miracles…We are becoming the U. S. of Europe under German leadership, a united European Continent, nobody ever hoped to see. The Jews [are] beeing thrust out of their nefarious positions in all countries, whom they have driven to hostility for centuries.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Letter to Margarethe Landgraffin von Hessen (3 November 1940), quoted in John C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 212
1940s

Miguel de Cervantes photo
E.E. Cummings photo
Paul Davies photo
Paul Krugman photo

“I do not think that word “compromise” means what Mr. Ryan thinks it means. Above all, he failed to offer the one thing the White House won’t, can’t bend on: an end to extortion over the debt ceiling. Yet even this ludicrously unbalanced offer was too much for conservative activists, who lambasted Mr. Ryan for basically leaving health reform intact.Does this mean that we’re going to hit the debt ceiling? Quite possibly; nobody really knows, but careful observers are giving no better than even odds that any kind of deal will be reached before the money runs out. Beyond that, however, our current state of dysfunction looks like a chronic condition, not a one-time event. Even if the debt ceiling is raised enough to avoid immediate default, even if the government shutdown is somehow brought to an end, it will only be a temporary reprieve. Conservative activists are simply not willing to give up on the idea of ruling through extortion, and the Obama administration has decided, wisely, that it will not give in to extortion.So how does this end? How does America become governable again?”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Regarding the ongoing 2013 U.S. government shutdown
[Paul Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/krugman-the-dixiecrat-solution.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1381867276-0uKEJS5eBZAKIo/by2ipKQ, The Dixiecrat Solution, New York Times, October 13, 2013, October 15, 2013]
The New York Times Columns

Neil Gaiman photo
James E. Lovelock photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“Plowboy: You truly feel that all the major changes in history have been caused by science and technology?
Asimov: Those that have proved permanent—the ones that affected every facet of life and made certain that mankind could never go back again—were always brought about by science and technology. In fact, the same twin "movers" were even behind the other "solely" historical changes. Why, for instance, did Martin Luther succeed, whereas other important rebels against the medieval church—like John Huss—fail? Well, Luther was successful because printing had been developed by the time he advanced his cause. So his good earthy writings were put into pamphlets and spread so far and wide that the church officials couldn't have stopped the Protestant Reformation even if they had burned Luther at the stake.
Plowboy: Today the world is changing faster than it has at any other time in history. Do you then feel that science—and scientists—are especially important now?
Asimov: I do think so, and as a result it's my opinion that anyone who can possibly introduce science to the nonscientist should do so. After all, we don't want scientists to become a priesthood. We don't want society's technological thinkers to know something that nobody else knows—to "bring down the law from Mt. Sinai"—because such a situation would lead to public fear of science and scientists. And fear, as you know, can be dangerous.
Plowboy: But scientific knowledge is becoming so incredibly vast and specialized these days that it's difficult for any individual to keep up with it all.
Asimov: Well, I don't expect everybody to be a scientist or to understand every new development. After all, there are very few Americans who know enough about football to be a referee or to call the plays … but many, many people understand the sport well enough to follow the game. It's not important that the average citizen understand science so completely that he or she could actually become involved in research, but it is very important that people be able to "follow the game" well enough to have some intelligent opinions on policy.
Every subject of worldwide importance—each question upon which the life and death of humanity depends—involves science, and people are not going to be able to exercise their democratic right to direct government policy in such areas if they don't understand what the decisions are all about.”

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

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

Nigel Lythgoe photo
Yogi Berra photo
Maddox photo
Peter Gabriel photo

“Turning the tide, you are on the incoming wave.
Turning the tide, you know you are nobody's slave.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Shaking the Tree
Song lyrics, Shaking the Tree (1990)

John Gilmore photo

“If you're watching everybody, you're watching nobody.”

John Gilmore (1955) Internet activist, software programmer and contributor to the GNU project

As quoted in Subject: <nowiki>[IP http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200303/msg00427.html</nowiki> John Gilmore on government trustworthiness and spy gear]

Stephen L. Carter photo
Lewis Pugh photo

“When you are walking up a mountain to attempt something that nobody’s ever tried before, and you pass people bringing corpses down, it becomes very clear that if you get it wrong, the consequences could be fatal.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 234, describing his swim on Mt Everest (2010)
21 Yaks And A Speedo (2013)

Roger Ebert photo
John C. Dvorak photo

“The Apple iPad is not going to be the company's next runaway best seller. Not if the industry can help it. … with the iPad, Apple may have irked its somewhat new partner Intel Corp. Intel gets spanked by nobody.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

"The iPad faces industry backlash" in The Wall Street Journal MarketWatch (12 February 2010) http://marketwatch.com/story/apples-ipad-faces-industry-backlash-2010-02-12
2010s

Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Rene Balcer photo

“Nobody's reasonable when they're in love. That's the whole point of it.”

Rene Balcer (1954) screenwriter, producer and director

Det. Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Michael Swanwick photo