Quotes about someone
page 33

Andrew Vachss photo
Khalil Gibran photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo

“There are not many places to go once you've killed someone like John Lennon.”

Mark Chapman (1955) American assassin

Mark Chapman http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/940986.stm

Richard Feynman photo

“While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis and do things. I took lessons from a Japanese man every day for an hour.
One day he was teaching me the word for "see." "All right," he said. "You want to say, 'May I see your garden?' What do you say?"
I made up a sentence with the word that I had just learned.
"No, no!" he said. "When you say to someone, 'Would you like to see my garden?' you use the first 'see.' But when you want to see someone else's garden, you must use another 'see,' which is more polite."
"Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?" is essentially what you're saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella's garden, you have to say something like, "May I observe your gorgeous garden?" So there's two different words you have to use.
Then he gave me another one: "You go to a temple, and you want to look at the gardens…"
I made up a sentence, this time with the polite "see."
"No, no!" he said. "In the temple, the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be equivalent to 'May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?"
Three or four different words for one idea, because when I'm doing it, it's miserable; when you're doing it, it's elegant.
I was learning Japanese mainly for technical things, so I decided to check if this same problem existed among the scientists.
At the institute the next day, I said to the guys in the office, "How would I say in Japanese, 'I solve the Dirac Equation'?"
They said such-and-so.
"OK. Now I want to say, 'Would you solve the Dirac Equation?'”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

how do I say that?"
"Well, you have to use a different word for 'solve,' " they say.
"Why?" I protested. "When I solve it, I do the same damn thing as when you solve it!"
"Well, yes, but it's a different word — it's more polite."
I gave up. I decided that wasn't the language for me, and stopped learning Japanese.
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "Would <U>You</U> Solve the Dirac Equation?", p. 245-246
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

Leigh Snowden photo

“Don't be yourself-be someone a little nicer.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Kelly Clarkson photo

“I'm restless and wild
I fall, but I try
I need someone to understand.”

Kelly Clarkson (1982) American singer-songwriter, actress

Hear Me
Lyrics, Breakaway (2004)

Bob Dylan photo

“Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him.”

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

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna

Noam Chomsky photo
Mickey Spillane photo
John Goodman photo

“Oops! Sorry! I heard someone say “Roar” so it’s kinda went for it.”

John Goodman (1952) American actor, voice artist, and comedian

As quoted in Monsters University.

“When someone says his conclusions are objective, he means that they are based on prejudices which many other people share.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)

Werner Herzog photo

“I am someone who takes everything very literally. I simply do not understand irony, a defect I have had ever since I was able to think independently.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

“When someone is sure of the returns, then he shows generosity.”

Nahj al-Balagha

Merce Cunningham photo
Shakira photo
Steven Novella photo

“… you don't realize whether or not you completely understand a topic until you are tasked to explain it to someone else. … That really challenges your understanding of a topic.”

Steven Novella (1964) American neurologist, skepticist

SGU, Podcast #170, October 22nd, 2008 http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/170
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, Podcast, 2000s

Sarah Silverman photo
Bill Whittle photo
Ryū Murakami photo
Anna Paquin photo

“I'm sure for some people saying they’re bisexual feels less scary than making a statement that they're gay. For me, it’s not really an issue because I’m someone who believes being bisexual is actually a thing. It’s not made up. It’s not a lack of decision. It’s not being greedy or numerous other ignorant things I’ve heard at this point. For a bisexual, it’s not about gender. That’s not the deciding factor for who they’re attracted to.”

Anna Paquin (1982) Canadian-born New Zealand actress

I still like women': Pregnant Anna Paquin on why she will always be bisexual... despite being married to Stephen Moyer http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2138717/Anna-Paquin-bisexual-Actress-likes-women-despite-married-Stephen-Moyer.html By Daily Mail Reporter - Published: 3-5-2012
Anna Paquin: My Bisexuality 'Is Not Made Up' Despite Being Married To Stephen Moyer http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/anna-paquin-bisexuality-zooey-magazine-_n_1475128.html - Published: 5-3-2012.

Reggie Fils-Aimé photo
Mike Tyson photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Chris Rea photo
Wangari Maathai photo
Johan Cruyff photo
Tomas Kalnoky photo
Richard Rodríguez photo

“His name was William Saroyan. He was the first writer I fell in love with, boyishly in love. I was held by his unaffected voice, his sentimentality, his defiant individualism. I found myself in the stories he told… I learned from Saroyan that you do not have to live in some great city — in New York or Paris — in order to write… When I was a student at Stanford, a generation ago, the name of William Saroyan was never mentioned by any professor in the English Department. William Saroyan apparently was not considered a major American talent. Instead, we undergraduates set about the business of psychoanalyzing Hamlet and deconstructing Lolita. In my mind Saroyan belongs with John Steinbeck, a fellow small town Californian and of the same generation. He belongs with Thornton Wilder, with those writers whose aching love of America was formed by the Depression and the shadow of war. … Saroyan's prose is as plain as it is strong. He talks about the pleasure of drinking water from a hose on a summer afternoon in California's Central Valley, and he holds you with the pure line. My favorite is his novel The Human Comedy… In 1943, The Human Comedy became an MGM movie starring Mickey Rooney, but I always imagined Homer Macaulay as a darker, more soulful boy, someone who looked very much like a young William Saroyan…”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

"Time Of Our Lives" (26 May 1997) http://www.cilicia.com/armo22_william_saroyan_6.html

Rob Thomas photo

“Wrong step, you got off track, you need someone to help us back, now.”

Rob Thomas (1972) American singer

"I Am An Illusion" (From Something to Be)

Malala Yousafzai photo

“On my way from school to home I heard a man saying “I will kill you.” I hastened my pace and after a while I looked back if the man was still coming behind me. But to my utter relief he was talking on his mobile and must have been threatening someone else over the phone.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Malala. "I am afraid", Saturday 3 January 2009; Cited in: Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm at news.bbc.co.uk. 19 January 2009
Malala's diary, 2009

Lewis Pugh photo
Henry M. Jackson photo
John D. Carmack photo

“The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

On software patents, Quoted in "John Carmack: Knee Deep in the Voodoo" http://web.archive.org/web/20010624154450/http://www.voodooextreme.com/games/interviews/carmack/ Voodoo Extreme(2000-11-11)

Wilt Chamberlain photo
Muhammad photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Marc Randazza photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“Don’t press her,” said Cooper. “If someone decides to leave something unsaid, my experience is that everyone is happier if they don’t insist on his saying it.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 5.

Mitt Romney photo

“I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Campaign appearance in Worcester, Massachusetts, quoted in * 2011-12-13
Corn
David
w:David Corn
Romney in 2002: I'm 'Moderate,' 'Progressive,' and 'Not a Partisan Republican' <nowiki>[Video]</nowiki>
Mother Jones
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/romney-2002-moderate-progressive-not-partisan-Worcester
2011-12-18
2002 gubernatorial campaign

Mauno Koivisto photo

“One must not be provoked when someone provokes him.”

Mauno Koivisto (1923–2017) President of Finland

Koivisto used this phrase for example in 2008 when replying to Toomas Hendrik Ilves who had accused him of having opposed Estonian independence. Presidentti Koivisto: ”Ei pidä provosoitua” https://www.uusisuomi.fi/kotimaa/17302-presidentti-koivisto-%E2%80%9Dei-pida-provosoitua%E2%80%9D Uusi Suomi. 10 March 2008. Retrieved 12 July 2017.

Jim Butcher photo
Omarosa photo
Howard Bloom photo
Lou Reed photo

“You made me forget myself; I thought I was someone else, someone good.”

Lou Reed (1942–2013) American musician

Perfect Day
Lyrics

Han-shan photo
Tina Fey photo
Włodzimierz Ptak photo
Edward Thomas photo

“I built myself a house of glass:
It took me years to make it:
And I was proud. But now, alas!
Would God someone would break it.”

Edward Thomas (1878–1917) Poet and journalist

"I Built Myself a House of Glass", line 1, cited from Collected Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) p. 215.

Gloria Estefan photo
Mike Oldfield photo
John Howard Yoder photo
Robert Cheeke photo
Naomi Watts photo
Daniel Tammet photo

“When someone asks me, "Do you speak Breton or Inuktitut?" I say, "Not yet."”

Daniel Tammet (1979) British writer, essayist and autistic savant

Bookreview by Jim Withers, Canwest News Service, June 8 2009

Penn Jillette photo

“If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

p. 129 http://books.google.com/books?id=KsI3sswEg14C&pg=PA129&dq=%22if+every+trace+of+any+single+religion%22
2010s, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (2011)

James A. Michener photo
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi photo

“We as officers, soldiers and our brothers from the police are responsible for the safety of Egyptians during the vote, before it and after. It's impossible for someone to stop you from voting or harm you in voting stations, or outside.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during a cultural symposium organized by MOD Department of Moral Affairs on 11 January 2014 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w50oWry07E.
2014

Thom Yorke photo
Mukai Kyorai photo

“Yes, yes!' I answered,
But someone still knocked
At the snow-mantled gate”

Mukai Kyorai (1651–1704) poet

Blyth (tr.), in: WKD - Matsuo Basho Archives: Mukai Kyorai https://matsuobasho-wkd.blogspot.com/2012/06/mukai-kyorai.html, matsuobasho-wkd.blogspot.com. Accessed 2018-06-23.

Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“When someone sues a wealthy individual they are often met with layers of legal protection, and often find that the wealthy person actually owns nothing. They control everything, but own nothing.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Jesse Ventura photo
Aron Ra photo

“If someone offers to furnish a sure test, ask what the test was which made the sure test sure.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 120

Joe Satriani photo

“I think it's quite painfully obvious when someone's practicing through an amp, as opposed to someone who's really laying down some stuff that just happens to be fast.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in "Shred on Arrival" by Alan di Perna in Guitar World (November 1993) http://web.archive.org/20090804154917/www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Vine/1829/gw-november1993.htm.

Andrea Dworkin photo
Jim Ross photo

“"Good God, almighty!" (said usually when someone or something unexpected happens during a match)”

Jim Ross (1952) American professional wrestling commentator, professional wrestling referee, and restaurateur

Commentary Quotes

Koenraad Elst photo

“While Hindu activists are always treated like animals in a zoo, never allowed to speak for themselves, always condemned to be judged by what someone else has written on the signboard in front of their cage, Muslim fanatics are invited to serve as zoo guides, competent to inform the ignorant outsider about the meanness of these beasts safely locked up in their cages.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

K. Elst : The Ayodhya Demolition: an Evaluation, in India., & Dasgupta, S. (1995). The Ayodhya reference: The Supreme Court judgement and commentaries.
1990s, The Ayodhya Demolition: an Evaluation (1995)

John Oliver photo

“For the record if someone did that to me I'd hitch a ride to the International Space Station straight away; of course who am I kidding, they would never let me in, I've got spiders for hands! Internet is mean!”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

Last Week Tonight: Online Harassment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNIwYsz7PI Last Week Tonight: Online Harassment (21 June 2015)
Last Week Tonight (2014&ndash;present)

“Maybe because I had been out very late the night before and was not able to put up my usual resistance, but it seemed to me, sitting there with the sound of his voice dying in my ears, that I could fall in love with him.
And then, as unexpected as a hidden step, I felt myself actually stumble and fall. And there it was, I was in love with him! As simple as that.
He was the first real person I’d ever been in love with. I couldn’t get over it. What I was trying to figure out was why I had never been in love with him before. I mean I’d had plenty of chance to. I’d seen him almost daily that summer in Maine two years ago when we were both in a Summer Stock company. … He was always rather nice to me in his insolent way, but there was also, I now remembered with a passing pang, an utterly ravishing girl, a model, the absolute epitome of glamour, called Lila. She used to come up at week ends to see him.
Then I heard from someone that he’d quit college the next winter and gone abroad to become a genius. I’d met him again when I first landed in Paris. He’d been very nice, bought me a drink, taken down my telephone number and never called me.
You’re a dead duck now, I told myself, as I relaxed back into my coma. You’re gone. I looked at him, smiling idly. I tried to imagine what was going on in his mind.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Part One, One
The Dud Avocado (1958)

Neil Gaiman photo
Debbie Reynolds photo
Colm Tóibín photo
Happy Rhodes photo

“Why couldn't someone have patience for me?
Why couldn't someone be wise to my fears?
Tell me why couldn't somebody cry for me
This time? And if I should die, who'll be the first to cry?”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"The First To Cry" - Live performance New Haven, CT (4 April 2003) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjxKnOLRFiA
Rhodes Volume I (1986)

Barrett Brown photo

“I am a tremendous optimist for someone who has grown up amid the twilight of American competence.”

Barrett Brown (1981) American journalist, essayist and satirist

Vanity Fair, "Why the Hacks Hate Michael Hastings" http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/why-the-hacks-hate-michael-hastings, 23 July 2010.

Penn Jillette photo
Chris Cornell photo
Margaret Atwood photo
George Carlin photo

“Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance: a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck. He is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony. If a Kurd, after surviving bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large. Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son, that will be precisely ironic.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Brain Droppings (1997)

“Being someone is being one alone. Being someone is loneliness.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Ser alguien es ser alguien solo. Ser alguien es soledad.
Voces (1943)

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Van Morrison photo
June Vincent photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
André Maurois photo
Ernst Röhm photo

“Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.”

Ernst Röhm (1887–1934) German Nazi and military officer

Cited in "The Nazis: A Warning from History", Disc 1, 10:48. Also quoted in "The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership" - Page 139 by Joachim C. Fest - History - 1999

Brandon Boyd photo

“I'm not an alarmist, but someone should break the glass, and pull that red T-Lever down!”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Light Grenades (2006)

Fritz Sauckel photo