Quotes about play
page 34

“Experienced object designers explore the design space from many different angles. They refine ideas of how their system should respond while they are in the middle of building and discarding ideas about how their design should work. Getting a design to gel involves making assumptions, seeing how they play out, changing one’s mind or perspective slightly and re-iterating. Design is a difficult, involved task. It inherently is a non-linear process. Yet, we are asked to trace our design results back to system requirements. And, if we uncover some implications during design, we’d like to tune our system requirements to reflect necessary design compromises.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

Abstract
Designing scenarios: Making the case for a use case framework (1993)

Idea, Change

“And then he remembered that the other function of sex is punishment – men use it to humiliate women. And since turnabout is fair play, women often use it to humiliate men”

Alice Borchardt book The Dragon Queen

The Dragon Queen

Women, Men, Sex

“Through fasting, concentration and prayer, mystics shut out the shifting world of the senses in order to reach a timeless reality. Quite often they find what they seek - but it is only a shadow play, an arabesque of their own anxieties, projected onto an inner screen. They end as they began, stuck fast in the personal time of memory and regret.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

As It Is: Turning Back (p. 198)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

World, Reality, Sense, Memory

“With words as valueless as poker chips, we play games whose object it is to keep us from seeing each other’s cards.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

The Alphabet of Grace (1970)

Game

“The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 68
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

World, Chance, Parting

“As a performer I've played for 50,000 people and I've played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly. Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried.”

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

Nobel Banquet Speech

People, World, Personality

“To philosophize man must put his whole soul into play, in much the same manner that to run he must use his heart and lungs.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

An Essay on Christian Philosophy (1955), p. 17.

Soul, Heart

“With respect to the present expedition, it is defensible on the ground that the enormous power of France enables her to coerce the weaker state to become the enemy of England…the law of nature is stronger than even the law of nations. It is to the law of self-preservation that England appeals for justification of her proceedings. It is admitted…that if Denmark had evidenced any hostility towards this country, then we should have been justified in measures of retaliation. How then is the case altered, when we find Denmark acting under the coercion of a power notoriously hostile to us? Knowing, as we do, that Denmark is under the influence of France, can there be the shadow of a doubt that the object of our enemy would have been accomplished? Denmark coerced into hostility stands in the same position as Denmark voluntarily hostile, when the law of self-preservation comes into play…England, according to that law of self-preservation which is a fundamental principle of the law of nations, is justified in securing, and therefore enforcing, from Denmark a neutrality which France would by compulsion have converted into an active hostility.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (3 February 1808) on the British bombardment of Copenhagen, quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 1-3.
1800s

Hostility, Law, Nature, Country

“In playing Beethoven the violinist should be a medium. There is little that is personal or that can be reduced to ingratiating sounds, pleasing slides and so on. Everything is dictated by the significance, the weight, structure and direction of the notes and passages themselves.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

In p. 78
Life class: thoughts, exercises, reflections of an itinerant violinist

Personality

“If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it.”

Jonathan Aitken (1942) Conservative Member of Parliament, former British government Cabinet minister

Criticising press reports that he had violated the ministerial code of conduct; he later started a libel trial, which ended in his conviction for perjury.
Statement of (10 April 1995); as quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, 3rd ed., (2007), p. 6.

Truth, Fight, Country

“This is Harvey Milk speaking from the camera store on the evening of Friday, November 18. This is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination. I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes a target or the potential target for somebody who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed themselves. Knowing that I could be assassinated at any moment, any time, I feel it's important that some people know my thoughts. And so the following are my thoughts, my wishes, and my desires, whatever, and I'd like to pass them on and have them played for the appropriate people.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

From a tape recording (1977-11-18) to be played in the event of his assassination, quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982, ISBN 0-31256-085-0), p. 275

Death, People, Feeling, Time

“Staying away from Hollywood didn't take much of an effort, there is a whole world in Los Angeles that's based on maneuvering. You say the right thing in interviews, you say yes to the right events and charities, and if you do it correctly you become someone they talk about. You become a player in the system and you're looked at as a professional, or dedicated, or whatever. You become a part of their thing, and they become part of yours… It's a wild web that can be weaved and there are people who love, love, love to play that game. And I'm not putting it down. But for me, it's just like pulling teeth. I just could never do it.”

Kurt Russell (1951) American actor

Kurt Russell on 'Deepwater Horizon,' Hollywood and more http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/09/kurt_russell_on_deepwater_horizon_hollywood_and_mo.html (September 23, 2016)

Love, People, World, Angels

“When the streets are paved with brilliants and the skies made of rainbows I suppose you'll be contented and satisfied with red, blue and yellow.... how to satisfy your tawdry friends while you steal back into the mild evening gleam and quiet middle term[? ]. I'll tell you, my sprightly genius, how this is to be done. Maintain all your lights, but spare the poor abused colours till the eye rests and recovers. Keep up your music by supplying the place of noise by more sound, more harmony and more tune, and split that cursed fife and drum.... he [Mr. Garrick] must feel the truth of what I am now saying, that neither our plays, paintings or music are any longer real works of invention, but the abuse of Nature's lights and what has been already invented in former times.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in a letter of Gainbourough, 1772; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 88 1770 - 1788

Truth, Music, Feeling, Nature

“England is the country of the English… England is the stage on which the drama of English history was played and the setting within which the English became conscious of themselves as a people … when politicians and preachers attempt to frighten and cajole the English into pretending away the distinction between themselves and people of other nations and other origins, they are engaged in undermining the foundation upon which democratic government by consent and peaceable civilised society in this country are supported … those who at the end of the twentieth century wish to keep alive that consciousness of being English, which seemed so effortless and uncontroversial to our forefathers, will discover that they are called upon, if they take their purpose seriously, to confront the most arrogant and imposing prejudices of their time.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Speech to The Royal Society of St George (23 April 1988), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), p. 918-19

People, History, Support, Time

“His musical inspiration operates in a world uncluttered by conventional bar lines, conventional chord changes, and conventional ways of blowing or fingering a saxophone. Such practical 'limitations' did not even have to be overcome in his music; they somehow never existed for him. Despite this--or more accurately, because of this--his playing has a deep inner logic. Not an obvious surface logic, it is based on subtleties of reaction, subtleties of timing and color that are, I think, quite new to jazz--at least they have never appeared in so pure and direct a form.”

Ornette Coleman (1930–2015) American jazz musician

Gunther Schuller, quoted in [All American Music: Composition in the Late Twentieth Century, 1983, Rockwell, John, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0394511638].
About

World, Music, Color, Way

“I would love to do that. They (Kohli and Root) have been playing brilliantly. I love both. Outstanding cricketers and they have been fantastic for a long period of time. Watching these two bat and perform in the way they have been performing, you can learn a lot.”

Kane Williamson (1990) New Zealand cricketer

New Zealand captain and top batsman Kane Williamson, quoted on Indian Express, "England vs New Zealand: There’s plenty to learn from Virat Kohli and Joe Root, says Kane Williamson" http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/england-vs-new-zealand-theres-plenty-to-learn-from-virat-kohli-joe-root-says-kane-williamson/, March 31, 2016.

Love, Way, Learning, Time

“And for a sucker play a man gets sucker pay; for the paymaster is on the job and never losses the pay envelope that is coming to you.”

Edwin Lefèvre book Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Source: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923), Chapter IX, p. 103

Loss

“Holmes is the hardest part I have ever played - harder than Hamlet or Macbeth. Holmes has become the dark side of the moon for me. He is moody and solitary and underneath I am really sociable and gregarious. It has all got too dangerous.”

Jeremy Brett (1933–1995) English actor

Terry Manners, The Man Who Became Sherlock Holmes - The Tortured Mind of Jeremy Brett, p. 212. Virgin Publishing Ltd., London, 2001, ISBN 0 7535 0536 3

Parting

“On the beryl-rimmed rebecs of Ruby
Brought fresh from the hyaline streams,
She played on the banks of the Yuba
Such songs as she heard in her dreams.”

Thomas Holley Chivers Lily Adair

Lily Adair.

Dreams

“When we first started, they basically went John and Paul's way because they were the writers and they would say, "This is the song," and I would play as creatively as I could. Sometimes I would have three people telling me how to do it. They were saying play it this like on that track. I'm saying, "For Christ's sake, there are two drummers there." They could never hear that, you know. You'd have to have four arms to do half the stuff they wanted me to do.”

Ringo Starr (1940) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Interview in Viva magazine (1978)

People, Way, Christ

“Gandhi has sound economic and cultural reasons for encouraging the revival of cottage industries, but he does not counsel a fanatical repudiation of all modern progress. Machinery, trains, automobiles, the telegraph have played important parts in his own colossal life! Fifty years of public service, in prison and out, wrestling daily with practical details and harsh realities in the political world, have only increased his balance, open-mindedness, sanity, and humorous appreciation of the quaint human spectacle.”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 44 - "With Mahatma Gandhi At Wardha

Life, World, Reality, Parting

“I am much obliged to you for your last letter, and the lessons reed, before. I think I now begin to see a little into the nature of modulation and the introduction of flats and sharps; and when we meet you shall hear me play extempore.. [his friend William Jackson of Exeter was composer and organist]”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

1755 - 1769

Nature, Thinking

“Then we went down to his work room, in the horrible beautiful Merz grotto [the 'Merz-Haus', built by Kurt Schwitters, where broken wheels paired with matchboxes, wire lattices with brushes without bristles, rusted wheels with curious Merz cucumbers… How often did we 'p-lay' in this room! Schwitters called playing, considering the sweat, working. There we glued together our paper pictures, and as I tossed away one of my glued-together works one morning, Schwitters asked, 'You don't like it? Can I have it?' – 'What do you want with this failed piece of toast?' Schwitters took a good look at it and said, 'I'll put what's on top on the bottom, I'll stick a little Merz nose in this corner and I'll sign the bottom Kurt Schwitters.' And, yes indeed, this collage became a wonderful picture by Kurt Schwitters. Schwitters was a wizard, just as Hokusai was a wizard.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

In 'Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling – Memories of Kurt Schwitters Hans Arp 1956; as quoted in I is Style, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken - commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam - NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, pp. 140-141
1950s

Beauty

“We actually aren't able to play other people's songs. The one Stones song we tried to play was "Jumpin' Jack Flash." It was really bad. So we started writing our own — it was easier.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Rolling Stone interview (2005)

People

“It is vain to recount further the catalogue of miseries. In earlier ages such horrors remain unknown because unrecorded. Just enough flickering light plays upon this infernal scene to give us the sense of its utter desolation and hopeless wretchedness and cruelty.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

On a series of Viking raids; Vol I; The Birth of Britain.
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

Age, Sense, Light

“That little monkey. The theorem was that he was too small to play in the NFL.”

Howard Cosell (1918–1995) American sportscaster

citation needed
Referring to Mike Adamle during an Exhibition Hall of Fame Game, Kansas City Chiefs vs. New York Giants, Fawcett Stadium, Canton Ohio, July 29, 1972.

“In my opinion, in order to reach a just solution [in Syria] that is accepted by all parties, Iran can play the role of mediator between the Syrian government and the opposition that is working hard to achieve democracy and good governance.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

Presidential campaign, 2013

Democracy

“I always felt that Uncle Remus should be played by a living person, as should also the young boy to whom Harris' old Negro philosopher relates his vivid stories of the Briar Patch. Several tests in previous pictures, especially in The Three Caballeros, were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed. Finally, months ago, we 'took our foot in hand,' in the words of Uncle Remus, and jumped into our most venturesome but also more pleasurable undertaking.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

As quoted in "The Movie: Background". Song of the South.net. Retrieved 2007-01-18.

Pleasure, Way, Boy, Animals

“This use of soldiers to make a play popular seems too much like taking an unfair advantage of the uniform—hitting below the Sam Browne belt, as it were. p. 93”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 2: 1919

“It seems that a lot of people, who haven’t known of me as a pianist, think I’ve just started off as a comedian. And so for them the piano was something extra. But, of course, playing the piano was something that came before all of what’s happened now.”

Dudley Moore (1935–2002) English actor, comedian, composer and musician

Interview, Jazz Professional, 1966 http://www.jazzprofessional.com/interviews/DudleyMoore.htm

People, Thinking

“Imagine immortality, where even a marriage of fifty years would feel like a one-night stand. Imagine seeing trends and fashions blur past you. Imagine the world more crowded and desperate every century. Imagine changing religions, homes, diets, careers, until none of them have any real value. Imagine traveling the world until you're bored with every square inch. Imagine your emotions, your loves and hates and rivalries and victories, played out again and again until life is nothing more than a melo-dramatic soap opera. Until you regard the birth and death of other people with no more emotion than the wilted cut flowers you throw away.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Lullaby (2002)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“As for some countries’ concerns about Russia's possible aggressive actions, I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid. Therefore, it is pointless to support this idea; it is absolutely groundless. But some may be interested in fostering such fears. I can only make a conjecture.

For example, the Americans do not want Russia's rapprochement with Europe. I am not asserting this, it is just a hypothesis. Let’s suppose that the United States would like to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. It needs an external threat, an external enemy to ensure this leadership. Iran is clearly not enough – this threat is not very scary or big enough. Who can be frightening? And then suddenly this crisis unfolds in Ukraine. Russia is forced to respond. Perhaps, it was engineered on purpose, I don’t know. But it was not our doing.

Let me tell you something – there is no need to fear Russia. The world has changed so drastically that people with some common sense cannot even imagine such a large-scale military conflict today. We have other things to think about, I assure you.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2015-06-06, Interview to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/49629 2011 - 2015

People, World, Fear, Dreams

“Play with joy, with a smile. If you aren't enjoying it—stop. Never practice—that's just the brain. Always play, even if the audience is afar. That's the heart as well. Don't judge your playing—for then it is not play, but hard work. Just aim to refine your intention.”

John Diamond (doctor) (1934) Australian doctor

Source: The Way of the Pulse: Drumming with Spirit (1999), pp. 89-90

Smile, Heart, Joy

“More than the atrocities committed or the condemnations that followed, perhaps the most important and also inspirational element of the events of last Friday was the demonstrations themselves. Tens of thousands of Palestinians congregated in disciplined, organized demonstrations at various points along the fence of the besieged Gaza Strip. People of all ages joined, songs were sung, meals were cooked, pick-up volleyball games were played. All of this, importantly, was done as a unified Palestinian front. Despite Israel’s efforts to slap a Hamas label on it, the only visible flags were Palestinian, not factional. For Palestinians, this was a vision that brought us together with great hope.”

Yousef Munayyer American writer

In Gaza, Israel Aims To Massacre Hope (2018)

People, Age, Hope, Game

“…so go on and play, and if you make a mistake, make it loud so you won't make it next time.”

Art Blakey (1919–1990) American jazz drummer and bandleader

Source "A Night in Tunisia".

Time

“I wanted to explore the new Wall Street. When I was writing Scarface in Miami, there was so much coke around and so many lunatics, and I met so many kids from Wall Street who were millionaires. I thought older men were rich, but here were these kids, 25 or 28 or 35 years old, with millions of dollars playing the markets all over the world around the clock. My father would have been shocked by the new electronics that allowed it…. Dad was a stockbroker on Wall Street when there was more integrity and class.”

Oliver Stone (1946) American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Wall Street DVD Director’s Commentary (2000)

Men, World

“For a long time we had talked of the hill as we might have talked of the sea or the woods. I used to go back there in the evening from the city when it grew dusk, and for me it was not just another place but a point of view, a way of life. For instance, I saw no difference between those hills and these ancient ones where I played as a child and where I live now: the same broken, straggling country, cultivated and wild, the same roads, farmhouses, and ravines. I used to climb up there in the evening as if I too were fleeing the nightly shock of the air-raid alarms.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Incipit
The house on the hill (1949)

Life, Way, Time, Sea

““Neither of us is very trustworthy, eh?”
“Pfutz!” Reich said emphatically. “We don’t play girl’s rules. We play for keeps, both of us. It’s the cowards and weaklings and sore-losers who hide behind rules and fair play.”
“What about honor and ethics?”
“We’ve got honor in us, but it’s our own code… not the make-believe rules some frightened little man wrote for the rest of the frightened little men. Every man’s got his own honor and ethics, and so long as he sticks to ’em, who’s anybody else to point the finger? You may not like his ethics, but you've no right to call him unethical.””

Alfred Bester book The Demolished Man

Source: The Demolished Man (1953), Chapter 6 (p. 84).

Men, Girl

“We welcome folks in Cactus Center if they've got an honest lay;
If their game ain't too durn crooked, we never stop the play;
But a get-rich-quicker blew in, with a game we did n't like,
So we did n't waste the minutes in invitin' him to hike.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

Discipline in Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#Discipline, st. 1. Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#ccbk (1921)

Game

“Most local imams in Dagestan shun radical views, but they have found it hard to counter the appeal of radical ideas promoted by the Islamic State. Some imams who spoke against radical Islam have been killed.” Why have they “found it hard to counter the appeal of radical ideas promoted by the Islamic State”? To Western leaders such as David Cameron, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Pope Francis, the U. S. Catholic bishops, and a host of others, it is patently obvious that the Qur’an teaches peace and that Islam is a religion of peace. So it ought to be child’s play for these imams in Dagestan to refute the twisted, hijacked version of Islam presented by the Islamic State. Here’s an idea: why doesn’t Barack Obama send Kerry to Dagestan to explain to young Muslims how the Islamic State is misunderstanding and misrepresenting Islam? Or maybe Pope Francis could go there, or he could send some Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic bishop — say, one who knows that Islam is at its core a peaceful religion and who moves actively to silence and ostracize those who say otherwise — to the Islamic State, straight to Raqqa, to explain to the caliph how he is misunderstanding Islam. That would clear up this problem in a hurry. I volunteer to pay the bishop’s airfare.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Jihad Watch - Islamic State on recruitment spree in Russia, “moderate” imams can’t counter the jihadis’ appeal http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/10/islamic-state-on-recruitment-spree-in-russia-moderate-imams-cant-counter-the-jihadis-appeal (29 October 2015)

Peace, Religion, Idea, Problem

“To harken back to the pre-Crisis days is to play to exactly what I find most wrong with DC these days—their idea of “innovation” is to press “rewind”. And that is most definitely catering to the “old” crowd.”

John Byrne (1950) American author and artist of comic books

2007
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18603&PN=2&totPosts=19
On taking comics back to the basics; ‘rewinding’ or ‘resetting’ to the status quo

Idea

“We used to play in places so tough that you had to show your gun and puke twice before they'd let you in the door.”

Ronnie Hawkins (1935) American musician

"Putting Ontario into music" http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fzM_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=WFEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5627,4380746. The Windsor Star (21 November, 1969)

“Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley's, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not he. He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all going to the play, or coming home from it.”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 40

Home, Night

“Memory for playing a musical piece… involves a process very much like that for music listening… through establishing standard schemas and expectation. In addition, musicians use chunking… tying information together into groups, and remembering the group as a whole rather than individual pieces.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

Music, Memory

“I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it.”

Gustave Moreau (1826–1898) French painter

As quoted in "The Many Faces of Gustave Moreau" by Bennett Schiff in Smithsonian magazine (August 1999) http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/1999/august/moreau.php

Dreams, Imagination, Reality

“I personally object to episodic games where you play one screen of Space Invaders and one screen of Breakout and one screen of Galaxians and one screen of this and one of that. To me, that's not a game. It's just taking five bad games, putting them together, and calling them one good game. I'm philosophically against that.”

Eugene Jarvis (1955) American game designer and game programmer

Joystik, September 1982

Game, Personality

“It would seem to follow that the ‘invisible hand’ is not much help when it comes to practical legislation. There are too many areas of life where we cannot be relied upon to advance our collective interests merely by doing what we think is best for each of us. Today, when the market and the free play of private interests so obviously do not come together to collective advantage, we need to know when to intervene.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Ch. 6 : The Shape of Things to Come

Life, Thinking, Help

“It's just unreal, I'm shocked myself. I've played good matches here, but never really almost destroyed somebody.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

After defeating Andy Roddick in the Australian Open 2007 semi-final. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/6297737.stm

“It’s true that to play the part, to become real swing kids, men must become hypermasculine (“cats”) and the ladies ultrafeminine “dames”). Whereas every development in popular culture for five decades has been an attack on sexual differentiation, and, for that matter, on life and virtue and goodness, the return of swing represents an embrace of the old sexual roles and thereby the beginnings of the old cultural values.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Saved by Swing" by Jeff Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, August 1998, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1998aug-00004,

Life, Men, Cats, Parting

“[Speaking about her dedication to advocating for LGBT rights] I think after playing Bette Porter on The L Word for six years I felt like an honorary member of the community. They are not just gay issues. They affect everybody because they affect the fabric of our community. I am in a position to be helpful…people are indoctrinated and they have their point of view but hopefully slowly but surely we can help change the paradigm. That's what I hope for and it's happening little by little. It's not easy.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview in Windy City Times (2 February 2011) http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=30410/.

People, Hope, Communication, Thinking

“Games run primarily on music loops. Each piece is composed to cycle during gameplay so it’s important to create music that doesn’t get monotonous or annoying and has very exact pacing. The use of themes, signature motifs and rhythmic passages needs to be arranged so they remain effective when played over and over. In a film, it’s a one-time-through experience. Tracks are scored tightly to picture and each track is crafted to exactly match what’s going on on-screen. Scoring in such a precise manner wouldn’t be practical in games because of the dynamic environment of gameplay. It can be different each time you revisit a level or area of a game, whereas a film is intended to play one way every time.”

Michael Wandmacher (1967) composer

Exclusive Interview: Composer Michael Wandmacher discusses his Voice from the Stone score and more https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2017/09/interview-composer-michael-wandmacher-discusses-his-voice-from-the-stone-score-more/ (September 16, 2017)

Music, Way, Game, Time

“By the winding stream we shall lie and dream
We'll make dreams come true if we want them to
Yes all will come play the pipes and drum
Sing a happy song and we'll sing along.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Everyone
Song lyrics, Moondance (1970)

Happiness, Lie, Dreams, Singing

“Color will play no part in the art of future.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 20

Art, Color, Future, Parting

“I've never liked Welles as an actor, because he's not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the drain, you see, that's when he's croaks. In my eyes he's an infinitely overrated filmmaker.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

On Orson Welles
Jan Aghed interview (2002)

Personality

“What I have learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 217

Learning, Chance, Success

“When I put on my uniform, I feel I am the proudest man on earth. The players should pay the people to come and see us play.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

From his 1971 World Series MVP acceptance speech, as quoted in "Pittsburgh's Clemente Honored"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

People, Feeling

“I never realised the passing hours of evening showers.
A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams,
I'm strangled by your haunted social scene.
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen.
It's four o'clock in the morning,
Damn it listen to me good.
I'm sleeping with myself tonight,
Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Song lyrics, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)

God, Dreams, Music, Sleep

“We have been friends together
In sunshine and in shade.
Since first beneath the chestnut-tree
In fancy we played
But coldness dwells within thine heart
A cloud is on thy brow.
We have been friends together,—
Shall a light word part us now?”

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808–1877) English feminist, social reformer, and author

We have been Friends.

Tree, Light, Heart, Parting

“Playing bass for Metallica is like having free speech in Cuba.”

Robert Trujillo (1964) American bassist known for his role as the current bassist of Metallica

Unsourced

“I've been playing the CNN Drinking Game, have you ever played that? Where you do a shot every time George Bush says the word "evil"? Oh, I'm a wreck! You gotta do a double shot every time he says "evildoers". Chug the bottle for "axis of evil."”

Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author

Are you a president or an exorcist?!
Word of Mouth (2002)

Game, Drink, Evil, Time

“It's a great day for a ball game; let's play two!”

Ernie Banks (1931–2015) American baseball player and coach

George Bush Presidential Library and Museum :: Born to Play Ball &ndash; Shortstops, George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, 2008-12-09 http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/exhibits/2008-born_to_play_ball/shortstops.php,

Game

“The uniforms are my other memory. In the beginning, they looked odd. In the cricket world, we were used to playing in whites. Back then, the world was changing, television was changing and you needed people to see more colour. So, I think they did a great thing.”

Kapil Dev (1959) Indian cricketer

Beating Pakistan, Kapil Dev's fondest 1992 World Cup memory

People, World, Thinking, Memory

“It’s not important how we play. If you have a Ferrari and I have a small car, to beat you in a race I have to break your wheel or put sugar in your tank.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ead01cae-4f03-11df-b8f4-00144feab49a.html#axzz35BKDKkBS 2010

Cars

“They say baseball is popular because everyone thinks they can play it. Similar reasoning may explain the popularity of the Olsen twins: Teenage girls love them because they believe they could be them. What, after all, do Mary-Kate and Ashley do in New York Minute that could not be done by any reasonably presentable female adolescent? Their careers are founded not on what they do, but on the vicarious identification of their fans, who enjoy seeing two girls making millions for doing what just about anybody could do.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/new-york-minute-2004 of New York Minute (7 May 2004) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Love, Girl, Thinking

“Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Pain, Suffering

“If young people don’t like reading, let’s not blame television or the modern world or school. Or rather, blame them all, but only after asking what we have done to that ideal reader since the days when we played at being both storyteller and book.”

Daniel Pennac (1944) French author

The Rights of the Reader (2008 translation by Sarah Adams)

People, Books, World, School

“Historically, it may be useful to fancy playfulness and piety as being the respective residues of the aristocratic and priestly backgrounds of the intellectual function. The element of play seems to be rooted in the ethos of the leisure class, which has always been central in the history of creative imagination and humanistic learning. The element of piety is reminiscent of the priestly inheritance of the intellectuals: the quest for and the possession of truth was a holy office. As their legatee, the modern intellectual inherits the vulnerability of the aristocrat to the animus of Puritanism and egalitarianism and the vulnerability of the priest to anticlericalism and popular assaults upon hierarchy. We need not be surprised, then, if the intellectual’s position has rarely been comfortable in a country which is, above all others, the home of the democrat and the antinomian.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), pp. 32-33

Truth, Home, Imagination, History

“It is always the psychic and social grounds, brought into play by each medium or technology, that readjust the balance of the hemispheres and of human sensibilities into equilibrium with those grounds.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 82

“Play your part creatively in all the struggles
Of men of your time, thereby
Helping, with the seriousness of study and the cheerfulness of knowledge
To turn the struggle into common experience and
Justice into a passion.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"Speech to Danish working-class actors on the art of observation" [Rede an dänische Arbeiterschauspieler über die Kunst der Beobachtung] (1934), from The Messingkauf Poems, published in Versuche 14 (1955); trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 238
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Men, Justice, Knowledge, Study

“In systems such as contemporary society, evolution is always a promise and devolution is always a threat. No system comes with a guarantee of ongoing evolution. The challenge is real. To ignore it is to play dice with all we have. To accept it is not to play God—it is to become an instrument of whatever divine purpose infuses the universe.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: The systems view of the world (1996), p. 139 as cited in: Sherryl Stalinski (2005, p. 17).

God, Universe

“William Shakespeare has probably done more to damage the cultural worth of Britain than anyone else in the whole of human history. After endlessly having to study his plays on the school curriculum, generations of children have ventured into adulthood convinced that all literature is coma-inducingly dreary. I don't blame them. Portia's speech about the 'gentle rain' is in no way as stimulating as 10 minutes of Grand Theft Auto. I believe that Shakespeare, along with Milton, Donne and Chaucer, has a place in modern Britain. And that place is deep in the bowels of the British Library, where he can be studied by hardcore language students.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Source: For Crying Out Loud! The World According to Clarkson Volume Three (2008), p. 21

Children, School, Way, History

“Our swords shall play the orators for us.”

Christopher Marlowe Tamburlaine

Techelles, Act I, scene ii, line 132
Tamburlaine (c. 1588)

“It's just rock and roll. A lot of times we get criticized for it. A lot of music papers come out with: 'When are they going to stop playing these three chords?' If you believe you shouldn't play just three chords it's pretty silly on their part. To us, the simpler a song is, the better, 'cause it's more in line with what the person on the street is.”

Angus Young (1955) Scottish Australian guitarist

Interview with the Atlanta Gazette in May 1979

Music, Time, Parting, Personality

“We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of our government as an ally. We are playing again with national and global security matters.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

Canadian Press Newswire, April 11, 2003: On the Iraq war.
2003

“I always loved the original Oliver! film, especially the songs, so to be playing the role alongside Ron Moody, who played Fagin in the original version, feels like a dream. But every day of the past year has felt so fantastic, so brilliant, it seems unreal.”

Joseph McManners (1992) British singer, actor

After singing at his family reunion:

Love, Dreams, Feeling, Past

“I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport.”

Jack Kemp (1935–2009) American football player, quarterback, U.S. Congressman

In a 1988 speech to the United States Congress, quoted by himself at Townhall.com http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JackKemp/2006/06/19/what_i_really_think_about_soccer

Hope, Thinking, Sport, Football

“When a reviewer says that Malamud is second only to Bellow, it means he really isn't thinking about either of them. When he's reading Malamud he's thinking about Bellow, and when he's reading Bellow he's thinking about Roth. This is the essence of the ratings game: distraction. Children play it all the time. "Is this the biggest bridge in the world?" "No, it's the third biggest." "Oh."”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

They lose all interest in the bridge.
"The Art of Reviewing" (1973), p. 10
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

Children, World, Game, Thinking

“My dad played in different clubs and open mic nights. But he mostly walked dogs. A lot of dogs.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Rachel's story of how her father, Jason, started out performing.
Off & On Broadway documentary (2006)

Dogs, Night

“Music starts playing like the end of a sad movie.
It's the kind of ending you don't really wanna see.
'Cause it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down.
Now I don't know what to be without you around.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Breathe, written by Taylor Swift and Colbie Caillat
Song lyrics, Fearless (2008)

Sadness, Music

“The idea of having an ambient space-time of some specific dimension seems to play less of a role of string theory than in conventional physics, and certainly less than the kind of role that I would myself feel comfortable with. It is particularly difficult to assess the functional freedom that is involved in a physical theory unless one has a clear idea of its actual space-time dimensionality.”

Roger Penrose book Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe

Ch. 1, Mathematical Elegance as a Driving Force, p. 62 https://books.google.com/books?id=T09kCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA62. Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe (2016)

Feeling, Idea, Freedom, Time

“Bill Clinton is like a lot of white politicians. They eat soul food, they party with black women, they play the saxophone, but when it comes to domestic and foreign policy, they make the same decisions that are destructive to African people in this country and throughout the world.”

Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer

The Today show (16 June 1992)

Women, People, World, Food

“There isn't one role I'd like to play. There are many and there are none. I've always admitted to being a prostitute. I sell myself for money. I don't have to see myelf up on the screen as Napoleon to feel satisfied about a movie. If you pay me a lot of money, I'll be in your film.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Fangoria interview

Money, Feeling

“Either all things proceed from one intelligent source and come together as in one body, and the part ought not to find fault with what is done for the benefit of the whole; or there are only atoms, and nothing else than a mixture and dispersion. Why, then, art thou disturbed? Say to this ruling faculty, Art thou dead, art thou corrupted, art thou playing the hypocrite, art thou become a beast, dost thou herd and feed with the rest?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IX, 39
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

Art, Intelligence, Parting, Dead

“The absolutely inaudible is rejected from music during the period of Viennese Classicism in which every musical line is potentially or imaginatively audible, but it makes a dramatic reappearance in the music of Schumann. The most striking of many examples is one of the episodes in the Humoresk, the last of the great piano works of Schumann's early years. … There are three staves: the uppermost for the right hand; the lowest for the left; the middle, which contains the melody, is not to be played. Note that the melody is no more to be imagined as a specific sound than it is to be played: nothing tells us that the melody is to be heard as vocal or instrumental. This melody, however, is embodied in the upper and lower parts as a kind of after-resonance-out of phase, delicate, and shadowy.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 1 : Music and Sound

Music, Imagination, Parting

“You know, in my experience,” said Kareem, caging his fingers and drawing out his words, “the jokers…who talk the most about ‘playing the race card’…are the people who own all the diamonds…who’ve picked up the clubs…to beat down the spades…because they’ve got no heart.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 1 “Operation: Cooperation!” (p. 14)

People, Heart, Drawing

“There can be no doubt that Tsai's phenomena (whether they be works of art in the strict sense, or whether they be fantastic artifices) are extremely important. They show what promises and dangers may be in here in a "play," if it is proposed by a great artist. Because, even if Tsai's phenomena be considered artifices, there can be no doubt that Tsai is a great artist. Not because what he does is pleasant, or because he proposes a play, or because he represents the spirit of our times, but because he reveals to us, through artifice or works of art, the concrete experience of a future full of promise or abysmal danger.”

Vilém Flusser (1920–1991) Czech philosopher and photographer

Vilem Flusser, Aspects and Prospects of Tsai's Work, Art International, March 1974

Art, Sense, Time, Future

“The whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder. Most Russian music, indeed, consists in ringing changes on this device, skilfully disguised though the fact may be.”

Constant Lambert (1905–1951) British composer and conductor

"The Conflict Between Nationalism and Form", p. 146.
Music, Ho! (1934)

Music, Change

“Paradoxically, it would seem that where the Vedas are upheld as a valid means of knowledge, reason has a more positive role to play in clarifying, explaining and defending its propositions. Where the attempt is made, on the other hand, to supersede the necessity for faith in the scripture in the interest of being more rational, reason becomes almost insignificant.”

Anantanand Rambachan (1951) Hindu studies scholar

Source: The Nature and Authority of Scripture (1995), p. 25

Faith, Knowledge

“A person may have no relatives anywhere, but Mahamaya may make him keep a cat and thus make him worldly. This is how She plays!”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Nikhilananda, Holy Mother, 218]

Cats, Personality

““If any glory at all attaches to the awful tragedy of the sea about which the world is still talking, it circles round the heads of these heroic bandsmen who played the mighty vessel to its doom”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 173

World, Sea

“It'll sometimes hit me in the middle of a song, like, who do I think I am standing up here…playing.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

On having a calling to stand on stage and perform to people—as a priest or as a musician Marc Maron (June 8, 2012). " Jack White http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_289_-_jack_white". WTF With Marc Maron. Season 2. Episode 289. 21:48 minutes in. 2010

Thinking

“As Duke Ellington once said, "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton." […] About that Wellington guy, I wouldn't know. Ellington, yes. As for that Eton business — well, I married my first wife in Elkton, and I always hated the place. It musta stuck.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Failed attempt—during a partially scripted radio interview, broadcast live on August 13, 1930—to deliver a familiar but apparently apocryphal quote, followed by his explanation for that failure; as quoted in The Tumult and the Shouting; My Life in Sport (1954) by Grantland Rice; reprinted in "The World I Loved — Part 1: My Baseball Hall of Fame" by Rice, in The New York Herald Tribune (October 3, 1954), pp. 8-9

Hate, Guy, Business

“In religion, [we find] the pursuit of an ultimate aim, such as salvation or enlightenment, from which all other good things flow. How like the unlimited aim of money! I wonder what the effect would be on our spirituality if we gave up on the pursuit of a unitary abstract goal that we believe to be the key to everything else. How would it feel to release the endless campaign to improve ourselves, to make progress toward a goal? What would it be like just to play instead, just to be? Like wealth, enlightenment is a goal that knows no limit, and in both cases the pursuit of it can enslave. In both cases, I think the object of the pursuit is a spurious substitute for a diversity of things that people really want.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

Sacred Economics http://sacred-economics.com/ Sacred Economics (2011)

Money, People, Religion, Feeling

“Is a museum
Peace? I asked. Am I the keeper
Of the heart's relics, blowing the dust
In my own eyes? I am a man;
I never wanted the drab role
Life assigned me, an actor playing
To the past's audience upon a stage
Of earth and stone; the absurd label
Of birth, of race hanging askew
About my shoulders. I was in prison
Until you came; your voice was a key
Turning in the enormous lock
Of hopelessness. Did the door open
To let me out or yourselves in?”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"A Welsh Testament"
Tares (1961)

Life, Peace, Birth, Past

“I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder. I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies.”

Anthony Bourdain book A Cook's Tour

A Cook's Tour (2001)

Books, World, Fear, Boy

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, I'm sorry to disappoint you.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2007)

Disappointment, Change

“A few days ago in a Berlin theatre the audience burst into spontaneous applause merely because the orchestra began to play an old military march—not a German march, either, but an Austrian one, the Radetzky march. Do not think that this meant a demonstration in favour of a war of revenge—not a bit of it. But the army and all that goes with it has been in the tradition of the German people for a hundred years and it would betray a very poor knowledge of men to believe that such a tradition could be uprooted when people is bidden by the terms of a treaty to give up compulsory military service.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Remarks to representatives of the foreign press in Berlin (23 November 1923), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 341
1920s

Men, War, People, Revenge