Quotes about nobody
page 11

“[Responding to criticism from Dr. Hesse] Voodoo, Dr Hesse's piece de risistance', is case in point. Nobody knows it, everybody uses it as a paradigm of backwardness and confusion. And yet Voodoo has a firm though still not sufficiently understood material basis, and a study of its manifestations can be used to enrich, and perhaps even revise, our knowledge of physiology.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Pg. 50.
Against Method (1975)

Knowledge, Study

“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/

“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

Death, Understanding

“Entertaining a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or entertaining a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do. If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you. But if you refuse to entertain a notion--which is just a fancy way of saying that you refuse to think about a certain idea--you have to be much braver than someone who is merely facing some bloodthirsty animals, or some parents who are upset and find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself, particularly if the idea comes from a sinister villain.”

Daniel Handler book The Vile Village

Lemony Snicket
The Vile Village (2001)

Way, Idea, Thinking, Parent

“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

History, Study

“Scum, nazi, filth, trash, garbage, maggots. We're all ruled by little chicken-neck nellies, going "Kill everybody! I get off when I talk about cutting people's power off! I'm a nelly!" RAARGH! Just simpering control freaks, in big nerd packs, taking everything over, ruling everything. Becoming police officers with weapons, tasering us for fun. I've had it with control freaks and scum! You people are cancer! Ugh! Alright, I'm not in a good mood now. I start thinking about Bill Gates, that little chicken-neck, hopping around, little murdering eugenicist. You know how he walks, like a demonic elf. "I'm Bill Gates! I'm gonna shoot you up with something that's gonna kill you deader than a hammer. How's a 30 year death from gut disease sound, African children? Roll up the sleeves! I'm a little chicken-neck bastard, and nobody's got the will to see what I am!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex's Bill Gates Chicken-Neck Bastard 'Rant' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-5WgcMV_o, September 2011.

Death, Children, People, Disease

“Is it possible for us to make an analysis which will disclose this element that has wrought such a strangely different result here in our country? It must be an element that was present among the peoples of Europe while they were still in Europe. It could not have been brought here except by them. There has been nobody else to bring it. The original human materials were the same in both cases.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

People, Country

“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)

Truth

“Nobody would claim that America has never made mistakes, never failed to live up to its own rhetoric. Nothing in the universe is perfect. There isn’t a nation anywhere on the planet whose record for slavery and slaughter isn’t worse. What the British did to the Irish and the Scots would have had their leaders doing the hemp dance right along with the Nazis at Nuremberg. And even the Swiss thought it was acceptable to inflict unspeakable cruelties on Gypsies and their children.
The difference, for better or worse, is that America never seems to stop examining and reexamining its historical failures, while other countries do their damnedest to sweep theirs under the rug and forget them.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Wanna Buy a Future?" http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?p=173 2 June 2009.

Children, Failure, Universe, Dance

“With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter XI, Part II, p. 202 (See also Thorstein Veblen).

People, Decision, Appearance, Parting

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

Ted Hughes book The Iron Man

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

Night

“Who's gonna love you when it all falls down?
Who's gonna love you when your bankroll runs out?
Who's gonna care when the novelty's over?
When the star of the show isn't you anymore.
Nobody cares when the tears of a clown fall down
(I guess your mama never told you what goes around comes back around).”

Mariah Carey (1970) American singer-songwriter

"Clown", Charmbracelet, 2002. Supposedly written about Carey’s brief relationship with Eminem
Lyrics

Love, Star, Tear

“…the remarkable thing about management is that a manager can go on for years making mistakes that nobody is aware of, which means that management can be a kind of a con job.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 154.

“Why do sorcerers always use languages nobody understands? Even Goblin and One-Eye do it. Each has confided that he cannot follow the tongue the other uses. Maybe they make it up?”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 53, “The Recovery” (p. 677)

Confidence, Understanding

“A very large percentage of the founding Fathers, men who signed the Declaration of Independence and others after them, lost everything. They paid a price. But nobody wants to pay a price now; they want it handed to them. That has to change.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Dangers Inherent in Public Education (March 24, 1986)

Men, Change

“No. It is not wonderful. It is an ugly world. Not like this one. Anarres is all dusty and dry hills. All meager, all dry. And the people aren’t beautiful. They have big hands and feet, like me and the waiter there. But not big bellies. They get very dirty, and take baths together, nobody here does that. The towns are very small and dull, they are dreary. No palaces. Life is dull, and hard work. You can’t always have what you want, or even what you need, because there isn’t enough. You Urrasti have enough. Enough air, enough rain, grass, oceans, food, music, buildings, factories, machines, books, clothes, history. You are rich, you own. We are poor, we lack. You have, we do not have. Everything is beautiful here. Only not the faces. On Anarres nothing is beautiful, nothing but the faces. The other faces, the men and women. We have nothing but that, nothing but each other. Here you see the jewels, there you see the eyes. And in the eyes you see the splendor, the splendor of the human spirit. Because our men and women are free—possessing nothing, they are free. And you the possessors are possessed. You are all in jail. Each alone, solitary, with a heap of what he owns. You live in prison, die in prison. It is all I can see in your eyes—the wall, the wall!”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 7 (pp. 228-229)

Life, Women, Men, People

“The subject of a science is never well circumscribed and there is little use sharpening its definition. However, nobody will deny that physics deals with nature and sociology with human society in some of their aspects. With logic, it is another matter. Logic is usually understood nowadays as a study of certain formal systems, though in former times there were philosophers who held that the subject matter of logic was the formal rules of human thought. In the latter sense it would be an empirical rather than a formal science, though its empirical subject matter would still be fundamentally different from that of psychology of thinking. One interpretation of logic does not exclude the other. Formal approaches are often easier than empirical ones, and for this reason one can understand why logic as a study of formal systems has till now made more progress than logic as a study of the formal rules of thought, even if restricted to scientific thought.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: Realistic models in probability (1968), p. 1

Understanding, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“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

“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).

War, World, Thinking, Loneliness

“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

Way, Painting

“Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that "people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything." Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others. The rule of law means that individuals are governed by generally applicable and spontaneously developed legal rules, not by arbitrary commands; and that those rules should protect the freedom of individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways, not aim at any particular result or outcome.”

David Boaz (1953) libertarian, author and editor

"Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999)

Happiness, People, Law, Way

“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)

“I thought that young people had more problems than old people, and I hoped I could last until I was older so I wouldn't have all those problems. Then I looked around and saw that everybody who looked young had young problems and that everybody who looked old had old problems. The "old" problems to me looked easier to take than the "young" problems. So I decided to go gray so nobody would know now old I was and I would look younger to them than how old they thought I was. I would gain a lot by going gray: (1) I would have old problems, which were easier to take than young problems, (2) everyone would be impressed by how young I looked, and (3) I would be relieved of the responsibility of acting young—I could occasionally lapse into eccentricity or senility and no one would think anything of it because of my gray hair. When you've got gray hair, every move you make seems "young" and "spry," instead of just being normally active. It's like you're getting a new talent. So I dyed my hair gray when I was about twenty-three or twenty-four.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work

People, Hope, Problem, Thinking

“For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. He's so alone in the world, that he doesn't even have a street to lay in for a truck to run him over.”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Spoken on the live Recording titled "Arlo"

World, Guy, Thinking

“I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?”

Neil Gaiman book Coraline

Coraline (2002)

“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

War, People, Support, Change

“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

“There were no storks in Shora. Lina had written this story about storks of her own accord-the teacher hadn't asked her to write it. In fact, until Lina read it out loud to the five boys and the teacher, nobody in school had even thought about storks.”

Meindert DeJong book The Wheel on the School

The Wheel on the School (1954)

School, Boy, Teachers, Reading

“Nobody seeks my help with a petition or offers an excuse that is more pressing than he, reminding me of a favor I did him so that it would be followed by its sister (i. e, one like it) and so good would be done to its asker because withholding of later things removes gratitude for earlier ones.”

Al-Mahdi (744–785) the third Abbasid Caliph

History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 29, p. 257/258

Sister, Help, Gratitude

“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)

Education, School, Travel, History

“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)

Money, People, Way, Business

“Because he (Elton John) is pushing his face in all the time, and telling us about his private life. Nobody's interested, he's incredibly rich, he should just go away, and he's just hoisting his problems onto everybody and working them out publicly and…I've said enough.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From an radio interview with Janice Long (2002)
In interviews etc., About other artists

Life, Problem, Time

“The idea that a game is anything more than a game… You know, there are people who are basically unbalanced who are going to misuse a game and have bad results. If a golfer who insists on playing during a lightning storm gets hit by a stroke of lightning and is killed nobody says, 'There's golfers dying by the droves being hit by lightning!' You can overdo what you really like, and if you're unbalanced you go overboard.”

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

GameSpy interview, Pt. 1 (15 August 2004)

People, Game, Idea

“Nobody can tell you that you are content until you feel it in your own heart. When a heart is okay, then it’s a heartfelt feeling and you know it. Not by the virtue of somebody having to tell you this, somebody having to explain you this, but it comes from the feeling of the inside. Knowledge works from the inside out, not from the outside in. Your own experience is the only thing that’ll satisfy that thirst.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Rome, Italy August 22, 1985
1980s

Feeling, Knowledge, Heart

“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.”

Philip Pullman book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010)

Books, Reading

“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

Women, Fear, School, Feeling

“Nobody likes to see a body, but it's better than seeing a ghost. Bodies just make you doubt the world and the people in it. Ghosts make you doubt everything, and to doubt it in a part of the mind that has no words to answer the question, where the comforting promises you make yourself are neither believed nor even really understood.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Prologue - Yakima
The Lonely Dead (2004)

People, World, Question, Parting

“This is an age of scientific wonders. You miss somebody so you pick up the phone to say hello. Three minutes for sixty-five cents. Nobody goes broke.”

Mordecai Richler book The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959)

Age

“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.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

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)

Strong

“Almost nobody in the peace camp will stand up and say that Saddam Hussein is not a fundamental problem for the world. Almost nobody in that camp is willing even to describe what the world will look like if the peace camp's advice is taken and Saddam is permitted to remain in power in Baghdad, working away on his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs… They are playing culture war, and they are disguising their eruptions as position-taking on Iraq, a country about which they haven't even taken the trouble to inform themselves. … For most in the peace camp, there is only the fog. The debate is dominated by people who don't seem to know about Iraq and don't care. Their positions are not influenced by the facts of world affairs.”

David Brooks (1961) American journalist, commentator and editor

[David, Brooks, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/837uvzrs.asp?pg=2, Saddam's Brain, Weekly Standard, November 11, 2002, May 24, 2011]
2000s

War, People, World, Peace

“Nobody can overthrow the fascist dictator by being nicer than him. The reason for this is: by definition everybody is always already nicer than the fascist dictator.”

Adam Roberts book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 3, Chapter 8, “The Wrath of Diana” (p. 337).
Jack Glass (2012)

“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.

Life

“Nothing is more certain than that war promotes science and increases comforts. Utopia may mean no more wars, but universal peace and plenty will never reign until at least one more war raises mankind to a plane of such comfort and ease that nobody on either side of a frontier can even imagine the possibility of resorting to arms. Comfort creates wars and comfort may someday end them.”

Malcolm de Chazal (1902–1981) Mauritian artist

Sens-plastique

War, Peace, Imagination, Universe

“Any extreme political creed brought only darkness in the long run; it lit up nothing. The best politics were those of caution, tolerance and moderation, Angus maintained, but such politics were, alas, also very dull, and certainly moved nobody to poetry.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 30.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“What has age go to do with acting? (What has) it do with the roles you play? There are just a handful of people who say this. Surely, I must be my own judge. None of them were around when I was deciding to work in my movies. Nobody told me I should work in an Anand or a Saat Hindustani. Or that I should work in Deewar. It is very easy to criticize the food once you have got it ready-made in front of you. But no one wants to be there when you're packing up the pyaaz and the bhindi and the mooli. So really, I should be my own judge.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

People, Age, Food

“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

Home

“We stood there and talked while Elizabeth sipped her milk daintily and she told me all about Tomorrow. The Woman had told her that Tomorrow never comes, but Elizabeth knows better. It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen... wonderful things. She may even have a day to do exactly as she likes in, with nobody watching her... though I think Elizabeth feels that is too good to happen even in Tomorrow. Or she may find out what is at the end of the harbor road... that wandering, twisting road like a nice red snake, that leads, so Elizabeth thinks, to the end of the world. Perhaps the Island of Happiness is there. Elizabeth feels sure there is an Island of Happiness somewhere where all the ships that never come back are anchored, and she will find it when Tomorrow comes.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery book Anne of Windy Poplars

Part 1, Ch. 2
Anne of Windy Poplars (1936)

Happiness, World, Beauty, Feeling

“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)

Love

“Even old New York was once New Amsterdam.
Why they changed it I can't say;
People just liked it better that way.
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks!”

Jimmy Kennedy (1902–1984) Irish songwriter

Song Istanbul Not Constantinople
Song lyrics

People, Way, Business, Change

“America is a country with a First Amendment, and you're allowed to publish just about anything you want, as long as it's not real secret information. Of course, nobody really does that except for, you know, you guys in the media.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

Secret, Guy, Country

“What is unbelievable is that I am in a position where people reproach me for making a profit. The people who lose money – nobody says a word. Reproach the people who lose money. I do business by managing in a safe way in a healthy way and on top of that you reproach me for making money. It looks like we are in a business where the quality is to lose money.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

(2010) http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/wenger-hopes-record-profits-prove-his-wisdom-2089020.html Arsenal (1996–present)

Money, People, Way, Business

“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

Sister

“The truth is, Homo sapiens sapiens is pretty much the same the world over, regardless of skin color or technological development. Racists and provincial types have problems with this fact, but it is a fact. All mortals have the same potential, and only chance determines who’s playing a spinet or who’s clubbing dinner to death with a big rock. And, you know what? Mortals adapt to the environment in which they’re placed. Switch babies between savages and technologicals, and nobody notices! I know, because I’ve seen it done. I’ve seen the son of a club-carrying cave dweller fuming because his accounting software wasn’t quite adequate for his needs. All humans have the same brain package.”

Kage Baker book Sky Coyote

Source: Sky Coyote (1999), Chapter 11 (p. 72)

Death, Truth, World, Color

“Nature is just a dictionary, you hunt in it for words.... you find in it the elements which make a phrase or a story; but nobody would regard a dictionary as a composition in the poetic sense of the term. Besides, nature is far from being always interesting from the point of view of the effect of the whole... If each detail is perfect in some way, the union of these details seldom gives an effect equivalent to that which arises, in the work of a great artist, from the total composition.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Delacroix, quoted by Paul Signac: in D'Eugene Delacroix au Neo-impressionnisme, Chap. I.; as quoted by John Rewald, in Georges Seurat', a monograph https://ia800607.us.archive.org/23/items/georges00rewa/georges00rewa.pdf; Wittenborn and Compagny, New York, 1943. p.10 + note 15 Quotes, undated

Way, Nature, Sense, Perfection

“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)

“…nobody has told the coelancath, a fish that lives off Madagascar and looks exactly like its ancestors of 300 million years ago, that it has broken some law by not evolving.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 2. The Enigma

Law, Fish

“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

People, Family, Business, Fight

“I think,” Chad grunted, “that if he [Shalmaneser, the computer] really is intelligent nobody will recognise the fact. Because we aren’t.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (13) “Multiply by a Million”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

Intelligence, Thinking

“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

Women, Men, Secret, Chance

“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

God, People, Drawing

“Once a man next to me found the handle of a radiator in his mashed potato; he said nothing, merely moving it to the side of his plate after sucking the mashed potato off it first. Nobody else said anything either. If the truth was known several of us were probably jealous.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Describing army food.

Truth

“I don't think the whole World Cup can rely on Theo Walcott but he can certainly come on and make a difference - and why not start him in a game or two? He is an interesting weapon because he can play wide and centrally. Then, once he is in front of the defender, nobody can catch him. He is a fantastic prospect.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal FC, 2006 ( Source http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/11052006/3/walcott-start-england-wenger.html) About

World, Game, Thinking

“In Europe, with its centuries of struggle against Christian hegemony, nobody minds that the ruling party in Germany is called Christlich-Demokratische Union…. But in India, any hint of a "Hindu" party upholding "Hindu values" (even if explained as a "common Indian heritage shared by the minorities as well") is declared intolerable by judges and journalists,-- and by the leaders of the very party concerned.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, BJP vis-à-vis Hindu Resurgence (1997)

“Today there are no trees at the South Pole. 70% of the earth today is underwater. Do you know that only 3% of this earth is habitable for mankind! A lot of it is under desert, ice caps, tundra, mountain ranges nobody can live on. Three percent is habitable. What we're seeing today is not what Adam and Eve saw. The Bible says that He formed it to be inhabited. That's why He did it! Probably the pre-Flood world was (I would be just picking a number) and say probably 80% land, and only 20% water. The oceans weren't there! The water was in the crust of the earth or in the canopy overhead. But there were trees from pole to pole before the Flood came. This layer of water above the earth would act as a barrier that would block out UV light and X-rays and other harmful things that come from the sun. You see, the sun produces a lot of stuff besides light. It produces X-rays and gamma rays and beta rays; and all them "ray-boys" come down here! And they're pretty hard on your carcass.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

World, Mountain, Boy, Tree

“I had to wear an oxygen mask both in the water and on land because of the carbon monoxide. I fainted four times during the first day of filming. We were shooting the scene in which Godzilla emerges from the water as he approaches Hong Kong. I wasn't warned about the carbon monoxide, so I wasn't wearing an oxygen mask. We were shooting in water, so nobody could just run up to me when they saw me acting strangely. We were filming a long shot, so nobody was very close to me. The members of the staff didn't realize I'd fainted that first time until they started opening up the costume so I could get out.”

Kenpachiro Satsuma (1947) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Kenpachiro Satsuma Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/satsum3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Water, Time

“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

God, Food

“Doctors, lawyers and even accountants have always understood that they would have to stand firm, functioning as a solid group protecting its own expertise and hence its earning capacity, from the tendency of all merchants to buy cheap and sell dear. They made of their special knowledge a rare and valuable commodity, insisted on a mystique and protected each other by an immovable professional code. They were cynical enough to know that if they were once cast in the role of public martyrs, working harder and more generously than most other groups of workers, they would be left with nothing but masochism, exhaustion and despair to show for it. Like successful trade unions, who have always worked on the principle that the job is worth whatever you can force the employer to pay for it and not a penny more or less, they understood that nobody was going to pay them their fees out of gratitude, that if they left it to the man whose life they had saved to pay them what he thought fit, they would wind up with half an old penny.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

"'Unhelpful to the workers' cause'" [undated], p. 175
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)

Life, Knowledge, Success, Despair

“I'm nobody's child.
You're mine now. Not my child, but mine, to miss you when you go, to look out for you, to hope you'll be careful.”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

Hope

“Rebuild the country's infrastructure. Nobody can do that like me. Believe me. It will be done on time, on budget, way below cost, way below what anyone ever thought. I look at the roads being built all over the country, and I say I can build those things for one-third. What they do is unbelievable, how bad.”

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

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

Way, Time, Country

“Nobody deserves this. “Please,” she prayed, and wasn’t sure what she asked.
Whatever it was, it was not granted.”

Connie Willis book Doomsday Book

Source: Doomsday Book (1992), Chapter 31 (p. 498)

“Werner, nobody will read this book if I don't write bad stuff about you. If I wrote that we get along well together, nobody would buy it. The scum only wants to hear about the dirt, all the time.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

As quoted by Werner Herzog, in My Best Fiend, (1999)

Books, Time, Reading

“This, by the way, was a demand for the greatest increase of federal power prior to the New Deal, maybe even since the New Deal. The greatest demand for an increase in federal power was made by the Southern states in 1860. And the majority in the convention refused to adopt this, and they refused to adopt it because nobody could be elected dogcatcher in a free state who supported a federal police power over slavery in the territories.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

Way, Support

“Giti: Nobody ever came for my hand.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“I tend to be that guy, you know? When me and four friends walk into a restaurant and nobody else talks to the host, I say, “Yeah, it’s a table for five.” I don’t want to be that guy; I wish someone else would say something. But it always ends up being me, and I hate what comes with that. There’s a lot of baggage—ego and narcissism—that comes with leadership. It’s difficult to cope with at times.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

On being the drummer (not the frontman) of the band w:Dead Weather "This is not a Spinal Tap" http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_10157. GQ magazine. (accessed 2009-07-15) 2010

Hate, Guy, Time

“It is the rare person who can stand aside and observe that our minds and identities are largely constructs of our social order, that we are abstract and arbitrary collections of ideas that resemble dusty archives in the galleries of a museum, visited by nobody, and maintained by a series of those insensible robots that are our habits.”

Justina Robson book Natural History

Source: Natural History (2003), Chapter 25 “Tom Who Built the Aeroplane” (pp. 254-255)

Idea, Personality

“On the whole, I do not like the French as well as the Germans; the French are extremely reserved toward strangers… Everybody works for himself without concern for others. All want to instruct, and nobody wants to learn. The most absolute egotism reigns everywhere. The only thing the French look for in strangers is the practical; no one can think except himself, he is the only one who can produce anything theoretical. This is the way he thinks and so you can understand it is really difficult to be noticed, particularly for a beginner.”

Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) Norwegian mathematician

Letter to Bernt Michael Holmboe (ca. 1826) as quoted by Øystein Ore, Niels Henrik Abel: Mathematician Extraordinary (1957)

Way, Understanding, Thinking, Learning

“For me, I've derived from religion … what… I enjoy … and it's to go to church, but usually … when there's nobody else there. I just love that moment, ah, to just sit there. It's very peaceful, very calm, and very therapeutic, and it's … wonderful.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

KSCA interview (1996)

Love, Peace, Religion

“The roulette table pays nobody except him that keeps it. Nevertheless a passion for gaming is common, though a passion for keeping roulette tables is unknown.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#149
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Game, Passion

“I should've died a hundred thousand times,Teetering stoned off the side of a building.Nobody loved me and nobody even triedYou can't hang on to something that won't stop moving.Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs.”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

29
29 (2005)

Love, Time, Dance

“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

God, Hostility, World, Hope

“I would have nobody to control me; I would be absolute: and who but I? Now, he that is absolute can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure can be content; and he that can be content has no more to desire. So the matter 's over; and come what will come, I am satisfied.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 23.

Pleasure

“now I lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine) something which nobody may keep.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

44
73 poems (1963)

Dreams, Imagination

“In each and every one of us lies a message. It is inscribed in an ancient code, its beginnings lost in the mists of time. Decrypted, the message contains instructions on how to make a human being. Nobody wrote the message; nobody invented the code. They came into existence spontaneously. Their designer was Mother Nature herself, working only within the scope of her immutable laws and capitalizing on the vagaries of chance. The message isn't written in ink or type, but in atoms, strung together in an elaborately arranged sequence to form DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid. It is the most extraordinary molecule on Earth.”

Paul Davies (1946) British physicist

Source: The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life (1999), Ch. 1: 'The Meaning of Life', p. 41

Law, Nature, Chance, Time

“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

Money, Health, Idea, Thinking

“We live in a world in which the only utopian visions arrive in commercial breaks: magical visions of an impossibly hospitable world, peopled by bright-eyed attractive men, women, children… Where nobody dies… In my worlds people died. And I thought that was honest. I thought I was being honest.”

Neil Gaiman book Signal to Noise

Signal to Noise (1992)

Women, Men, Children, People

“If you were an artist or novelist, or a poet or somebody like that, nobody would think it odd if you worked in your own home. In science there's none of this at all. I'm almost the only independent scientist in Britain. Everybody else works in large institutions, universities, or industrial labs. Why should one expect scientists to work that way?”

James E. Lovelock (1919) independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist

"The Man Who Named the World" (1990)

Way, Home, Thinking, Universe

“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)

Life, Death, People, World

“[Hip-hop dancers] are stunning in what they can do. What's happening is they're starting to go to class; they're actually starting to get some professional lessons. And that, for me, is very exciting because we've always discussed fusing the different styles. And to see them take it on board now and to do different things, even ballroom, is terrific, because nobody can do what they can do. So, if they then start doing what other people can do, wow. They're going to be very dangerous contestants.”

Nigel Lythgoe (1949) Executive producer and television director

People

“People seem to find it hard to believe, but I'm a very serious person. It wasn't luck that I became a ballplayer. I never wanted to be anything else and I never considered anything else and I worked my tail off for it. To say that I don't have any worries or nerves is the opposite of the truth. I worry about not being able to get around on the fast ball any more, I worry about getting hurt and having to quit playing before my time. I worry about the bowling alley I own with Phil Rizzuto making money. I worry about keeping Carm happy so she won't be sorry she married me, about the kids growing up good, and about keeping out of trouble with God. I worry a lot. I'm nobody's mascot, either. Sure, I like to get along with people and I hope I've made friends, but that's different.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

From Yogi: The Autobiography of a Professional Baseball Player; reproduced in "Berra Dispels Li'l Abner Myth."

Money, God, Happiness, People

“Thank you Joe Nobody for giving me your expert opinion on what missile sounds like, because gas station superintendents are usually the best people to ask about the sonic signature of ballistic missile thrust.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

People

“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)

“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]

“We live today in a world in which nobody believes choices should have consequences. But may I tell you the great secret that our culture seeks to deny? You cannot escape the consequences of your choices. Time runs in only one direction.”

Stephen L. Carter book The Emperor of Ocean Park

Jack Ziegler, Ch. 44, Stormy Weather, III
The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002)

Secret, World, Time

“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)

People, Mountain

“Boat Trip arrives preceded by publicity saying many homosexuals have been outraged by the film. Now that it's in theaters, everybody else has a chance to join them. Not that the film is outrageous. That would be asking too much. It is dim-witted, unfunny, too shallow to be offensive, and way too conventional to use all of those people standing around in the background wearing leather and chains and waiting hopefully for their cues. This is a movie made for nobody, about nothing.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/boat-trip-2003 of Boat Trip (21 March 2003) Reviews, Half-star reviews

People, Way, Chance, Waiting

“I reacted to Cézanne almost the same way as you [= Rosalyn Drexler ], the first time I saw him when I was 14... Then I saw my first Cezanne and it jolted me. It was a 'Bathers' [Cézanne painted several of them]. I didn't think he drew well at all. I thought the figures looked stiff and wooden, but I was enthralled by it. I knew there was something there that was going to take me a lifetime to understand. What I took to be the crudity of his technique — that opened a door for me. I began to look at everything differently. That was the year [1932] I discovered Matisse, Picasso, Degas, Soutine — I began to go to the Museum of Modern Art every week. At the same time, I loved New Yorker covers — and El Greco. I didn't mind mixing things up. Nobody was going to tell me what to like or what not to like. Until I was 17 I thought all real artists (I didn't count commercial artists) were dead or foreign with the exceptions of Georgia O'Keeffe and John Marin, whose work I had seen at 'An American Place.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Love, Art, Way, Understanding

“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

Help

“I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

The Perimeter of Ignorance, Natural History Magazine, November 2005, 2010-12-07 http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance, 2000s

World, Travel, Understanding

“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

Love

““Can you really kill the Goddess?” Jane asked.
“You stupid gobbet of flesh! Don’t you understand yet? There is no Goddess.”
“No,” Jane cried. “You said yourself—”
“I lied,” the dragon said with a fearful complacency. “Everyone you have ever met has lied to you. Life exists, and all who live are born to suffer. The best moments are fleeting and bought with the coin of exquisite torment. All attachments end. All loved ones die. All that you value passes away. In such a vexatious existence laughter is madness and joy is folly. Shall we accept that it all happens for no reason, with no cause? That there is nobody to blame but ourselves but that accepting the responsibility is pointless for doing so cannot ease, defer, or deaden the pain? Not likely! It is so much more comforting to erect a straw figure on which to blame it all.
“Some bow down before the Goddess and others curse her every name. There is not a fart’s difference between the two approaches. They cling to the fiction of the Goddess because admitting the alternative is unbearable.””

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 19 (pp. 339-340)

Love, Life, Pain, Stupidity

Quotes about nobody page 11

Quotes about nobody
page 11