Quotes about obsession page 2
“Dear, I can't write, it's all a fantasy: a kind of circling obsession.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian
Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica
“Life is nothing if you're not obsessed.”
John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
“Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art”
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist
Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist
1970 and later
Source: Eric Maisel, Ann Maisel (2010) Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions. p. 95
Jeremy Bernstein (1929) American physicist
Quantum Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bell: Quantum Engineer
Jack Burnham (1931) American art historian
Source: Beyond Modern Sculpture, 1968, p. 369-70
Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar
Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 62.
Peter Tatchell (1952) British gay rights activist
Democratic Defence. London: GMP Publishers. p. 36. ISBN 0-946097-16-X.
Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady
Town Hall speech http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/counterprogramming-clinton-in-new-hampshire/, Berlin, NH, as reported in The New York Times (10 February 2007) <br class="br">Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)
Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian
Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 29
Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist
Truthdig, Life Is Sacred, Sep 3, 2012 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/life_is_sacred_20120903/
Tim Parks (1954) British writer
"In Search of Authenticity," The New York Review of Books (4 February 2015).
Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) Swiss sculptor and painter (1901-1966)
Alberto Giacometti (1945), as cited in: Joel Shatzky, Michael Taub (1999), Contemporary Jewish-American Dramatists and Poets. p. 302
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter
Vol. 1: 'My beautiful One, My Unique!', pp. 130-140
1895 - 1905, Lettres à un Inconnu, 1901 – 1905; Museo Communale, Ascona
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter
"Russ Meyer busts sleazy stereotype" Chicago Sun-Times (15 November 1985) http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/russ-meyer-busts-sleazy-stereotype
Philip Rosedale (1968) American businessman, founder of Second Life
Source: Peter Diamandis. " Second Life: How a Virtual World Became a Reality http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-diamandis/second-life-how-a-virtual_b_2831270.html," at huffingtonpost.com, 03/07/2013.
Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician
About interviews <br class="br"> Ben Harper Interview http://music.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=90631, MusicFix (February 14, 2006).
Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress
Aperture Magazine 1999 http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-interviews-articles/aperture-magazine-summer-1999
“In our culture, security has become an obsession.”
Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon
Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 7
Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia
In Question Time, c. March 2012 <br class="br"> "Labor cleans up after aftermath" http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2012/s3445116.htm, in Insiders (ABC), 4 March 2012
Natalia Villaveces (1979) Colombian television host
"Natalia Villaveces' Exclusive PETA Interview", video on PETA's YouTube channel (12 July 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX2alBCT70s.
Richard Freed (1928) music critic, editor, and broadcaster
"The Tech Industry’s War on Kids" Medium March 11, 2018 https://medium.com/@richardnfreed/the-tech-industrys-psychological-war-on-kids-c452870464ce
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician
Speech to Greater London Young Conservatives (Iain Macleod Memorial Lecture - "Dimensions of Conservatism") (4 July 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103411 <br class="br">Leader of the Opposition
Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker
On Fellini and Fernando Pessoa
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 37
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer
As quoted in "Lady with a Switchblade" in LIFE magazine (20 September 1963) http://books.google.com/books?id=e1IEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Europeans+used+to+say+Americans+were+puritanical+Then+they+discovered+that+we+were+not+puritans+So+now+they+say+that+we+are+obsessed+with+sex%22&pg=PA62#v=onepage
Colin Wilson book The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders
Source: The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988), pp. 45-46
Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist
The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 393
Glenn Greenwald (1967) American journalist, lawyer and writer
CCC 2013 keynote, December 2013 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/27/greenwald_30c3/
Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer
1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)
“Obsession with self is the motif of our time.”
Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist
1990s, 1999, Nixon on the Couch (1999)
Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter
“The Brilliant Epoch” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/epoch1.htm <br class="br">His father, Living things
Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer
Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)
Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist
"Cornel West: Democracy Matters" in The Globalist (24 January 2005) https://web.archive.org/web/20101203073821/http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4262
Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars
Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 14 (p. 377)
Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 7 : Chopin: From the Miniature Genre to the Sublime Style
H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian
Source: Christ and Culture (1951), p. 68
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter
Review of http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/high-fidelity-2000 High Fidelity (31 March 2000) <br class="br">Reviews, Four star reviews
Xun Zi (-313–-238 BC) Ancient Chinese philosopher
Quoted in: Joan Klostermann-Ketels (2011) HumaniTrees, p. 96.
Mark Kac (1914–1984) Polish-American mathematician
Prologue, How I Became a Mathematician, p. 1.
Enigmas Of Chance (1985)
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet
Je ne conçois guère (mon cerveau serait-il un miroir ensorcelé?) un type de Beauté où il n'y ait du Malheur. Appuyé sur — d'autres diraient: obsédé par — ces idées, on conçoit qu'il me serait difficile de en pas conclure que le plus parfait type de Beauté virile est Satan, — à la manière de Milton. <br class="br"> XVI http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Fus%C3%A9es#XVI <br class="br">Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Fusées (1867)
Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian
Source: The End of Utopia (1999), p. 27
Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa
Addressing the Canada Club in Ottawa on 29 June 1945, after the United Nations Charter was finalized, as quoted by Louise W. Holborn (ed., 1948) in War and Peace Aims of the United Nations, p. 719
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate
Interview with Divina Infusino in American Way (15 June 1995)
Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet
Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Mountolive (1958), X
Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist
Source: 1960s, The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, 1966, p. 9-10 as cited in: Mark W. W. McElroy, J.M.L. M. L. van van Engelen (2012) Corporate Sustainability Management.
Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter
Quote of Jawlensky from a letter to his brother Dimitri, c. 1917/18; as cited in Alexej von Jawlensky, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam; exhibition catalog 25/9 – 27/11-1994, p. 150
1900 - 1935
Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet
Tiger and the Rose, 1971
“I am very driven when it comes to poetry, a complete obsessive of the truth be told.”
Dennis O'Driscoll (1954–2012) Irish poet, critic
Poetry Quotes
J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher
Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 130.
“All things – great, small, good, bad, friend, enemy—should be a lesson, not an obsession.”
Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist
Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978
Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/mar/17/overseas-development in the House of Commons (17 March 1989). <br class="br">1980s
“My personal obsessions are much more interesting to me than other people's.”
Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director
In an interview in Film Comment, May/June 1990
Interviews
Tim Curry (1946) English actor, voice artist, comedian and singer
Tim Curry Has Another Outlandish Role In 'Shadow' http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1994-07-01/entertainment/9406300178_1_tim-curry-shiwan-khan-shadow (July 1, 1994)
Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist
Source: The Apophenion (2008), p. 107-108
Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher
Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 138
“I am obsessed with the idea of leaving. I must travel, for that would probably relax me.”
Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) French painter
Quote from Boudin's Journal, c. 1890; as cited in G. Jean-Aubry & Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin, Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1968, p. 21
1880s - 1890s
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 96
Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England
The Guardian 16 August 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/16/charlie-brooker-writing-deadlines <br class="br">Guardian columns
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 653
John Cleese (1939) actor from England
On Fresh Air with Terry Gross, promoting Fierce Creatures, which Cleese says is a satire about Rupert Murdoch's greed. (1997)
Paul Krugman (1953) American economist
Pop Internationalism (1996), Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession (1994)
Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher
Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 61-62
Sorley MacLean (1911–1996) Scottish poet
Sorley MacLean, 1982, quoted in Krause, Corinna. Eadar Dà Chànan: Self-Translation, the Bilingual Edition and Modern Scottish Gaelic Poetry https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/3453/Krause2007.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y <br class="br">Letters and interviews
Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director
Source: The Romantic Rebellion (1973), Ch. 6: Blake
Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher
Journal entry (10 November 1959) published in No Souvenirs (1977) , 74-5. Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989).
Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
'The Weld This Week'
Essays and reviews, The Crystal Bucket (1982)
Muhammad Qutb (1919–2014) Egyptian Islamist writer and scholar
Source: Islam: the Misunderstood Religion, Chapter 11, Islam and Sexual Repression, p. 207.
Tia Blanco (1997)
"Why Surfer Tia Blanco Is Vegan" https://web.archive.org/web/20170315222610/http://www.mensjournal.com:80/health-fitness/articles/why-surfer-tia-blanco-is-vegan-w471552, interview with Men's Journal (March 2017).
William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter
a poetry line on his painting, in: 'Tiger's Eye', Baziotes, Vol. I, no. 5, Westport, Connecticut, October 1948, p. 35
1940s