Quotes about stuff
page 3

“Why'd you want to sing about sad things?" Candy had asked him.
"Because any fool can be happy," he'd said to her.
"It takes a man with real heart"
—he'd made a fist and laid it against his chest—
"to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

Happiness, Sadness, Beauty, Fools

“It is necessary, in this world, to be made of harder stuff than one's environment.”

Aleister Crowley book Moonchild

Source: Moonchild

World

“If I gave my mother a knitted scarf she'd be worried I was wasting my time doing stupid stuff like knitting instead of school work. Presenting a homemade knitted object to my parents was actually like handing them a detailed backlog of my idleness.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Stupidity, School, Parent, Time

“I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

“We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Variant: We never sit anything out. We are cups, quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
Source: Zen in the Art of Writing (1990) 
Context: From now on I hope always to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Beauty

“If he had any kind of a clue, he wouldn’t be caught dead with that stuff. See what I did there? I crack myself up.” Eve sipped more coffee she probably, at this point, didn’t need.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

Coffee, Dead

“It's simple, really," Alaric Wulf said. " Lucien Antonescu is the prince of darkness."

Jon nodded. "Yeah," he said. "We know. He's got a castle and stuff.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Insatiable

“From the time we're born until we die, we're kept busy with artificial stuff that isn't important.”

Tom Ford (1961) American fashion designer

Business, Time

“It was futile to attack with reason the stout wall of irrational feelings that, as is known, is the stuff of which the female mind is made.”

Milan Kundera book Laughable Loves

Source: Laughable Loves

Feeling

“Mercy is the stuff you give to people that don't deserve it.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

People

“We spent all those years talking about stuff we had in common, and the last few months noticing all the ways we were different and it broke both of our hearts.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Way, Heart

“Harry Dresden: Dresden Taxidermy. You snuff it, we'll stuff it.”

Jim Butcher book Mean Streets

Source: The Dresden Files, Proven Guilty (2006), Chapter 24
Source: Mean Streets

“Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

Happiness, Beauty, Fools, Heart

“We're supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love, not actually being in love.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Love

“Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic… but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Feeling

“Damn, I miss the internet. You could always find people doing stupid stuff on the internet.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Calamity

People, Stupidity

“(Talon pulled another beignet from the sack and held it up for her to eat.)
That stuff is hazardous to your health. (Sunshine)
Baby, life is hazardous to your health. (Talon)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Life, Health, Baby

“Do we have any chlorine? It seems to be kind of explosive when mixed with other stuff."
"Like what, your socks? No, we don't have chlorine. No swimming pool.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Way, Star, Universe

“I should've blown more stuff up." -Coach Gleeson Hedge”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“Some kids do drugs. Some kids light stuff on fire. Me, I eat oats.”

Jordan Sonnenblick After Ever After

Source: After Ever After

Light

“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

People

“Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

“You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Learning

“The thing I want to know is, if you tell your brain not to do stuff… and it keeps doing it anyway, does that mean your mind has a mind of its own? And if it does, then who's in charge here, anyway?”

Jane Yolen book Armageddon Summer

Source: Armageddon Summer

“I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn't educate America if they started at 6:30.”

Groucho Marx book The Groucho Letters

Source: The Groucho Letters

Education, Reading

“The problem I have with all this religion stuff is that I can't relate to it. I think most people got into 'cos it gave them something to do on a Sunday, but since all the shops are now open it isn't required as much.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Source: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

People, Religion, Problem, Thinking

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world, is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Source: Learn to Expect a Great Deal of Life

World, Success

“Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending. I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Books, World

“The great thing about fiction is that you can start off by telling the truth, then start making stuff up like crazy whenever you feel like it.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Truth, Feeling

“She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, feared at tea-parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

Love, Men, Hate, Fear

“I find that if you just talk, your mouth comes up with stuff.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Fame Souvenir Program Podcast
On Biology

“I was hoping they'd put up flyers like they do for lost cats," he said. "Missing, one stunningly attractive teenage boy. Answers to 'Jace' or 'Hot Stuff.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Hope, Boy, Cats

“I suppose you've always been amazing at this stuff."- Clary
"I was born amazing." - Jace”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“Creative work is more accurately a machine that digs down and finds stuff, emotional stuff that will someday be raw material that can be used to produce more stuff, stuff like itself - clay to be available for future use.”

David Byrne (1952) Scottish alternative rock musician and promoter of world music

Source: Bicycle Diaries

Future

“If it is true that we need a degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: The Meaning of Life

“Something always happens. You still have to promise stuff anyway. If you have to work to make the promises true… it's like a spell. You have to say the words every time you want the results.”

Diane Duane book High Wizardry

Source: High Wizardry

Time

“The bathroom mirror has not budged, the woman who lives there can tell the truth from the stuff they say and looks me in the eye- says do you prefer the easy way? No? Well ok then, dont cry.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Truth, Way, Cry

“1lb beefstak, with
1pt bitter beer
every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don't stuff your head with things you don't understand.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

Beer, Understanding, Night

“The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Education, Thinking

“Don't sweat the small stuff… and it's all small stuff.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and it's all small stuff

“That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.”

Sara Zarr book Story of a Girl

Source: Story of a Girl

Thinking, Time

“But I'm going to try to tell the truth. Except for the parts I'm leaving out, because there's still stuff I'm just not going to tell you. Get used to it.”

Robin McKinley Dragonhaven

Source: Dragonhaven

Truth, Parting

“We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important.”

Eric Carle (1929) American children's illustrator and writer

Beauty, Thinking, Time

“You fish, swim, eat, laze around, and everyone's so friendly. It's such simple stuff, but… If i could stop the world and restart life, put the clock back, i think I'd restart it like this. For everyone.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

Life, World, Thinking, Fish

“It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“I would have remembered the good stuff.
Nobody ever remembers the good stuff.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, World, Way, Thinking

“Just like the breakthroughs, the bad stuff always takes you by surprise. (121)”

Gail Giles (1955) American writer

Source: Right Behind You

“Human nature is pretty shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection.”

Peter de Vries (1910–1993) American editor and novelist

Nature

“It gets so tiring, this strong-picking-on-the-weak stuff. It was the story of my life -literally- and it seemed to be a big part of the outside world too. I was sick of it, sick of guys like these, stupid and bullying.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Life, Stupidity, World, Guy

“The truth is that I hate to think about other people reading my books," Miranda said. "It's like watching someone go through the box of private stuff that I keep under my bed.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Hate, People, Truth, Books

“I hate that stuff. It tastes like feet."
At that he smiled. "How would you know what feet taste like?"
"I just know.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Hate, Smile

“I've read a lot of books, so I know bunches of stuff that sounds like it could be true.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Books, Reading

“I brought you some coffee.” he held out the cup but she waved it away.
“I hate that stuff. It tastes like feet.”
At that he smiled. “How would you know what feet taste like?”
“I just know.”
-Luke and Clary, pg.209-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Hate, Smile, Coffee

“You are freakishly tall, aren’t you? (Tory)
For a woman wanting my help you are ever determined to insult me. Should I make this as painless as possible and leave now before the die-painfully-you-asshole-prick stuff starts again? (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Help

“I get sentimental over the music of the ’90s. Deplorable, really. But I love it all. As far as I’m concerned the ’90s was the best era for music ever, even the stuff that I loathed at the time, even the stuff that gave me stomach cramps.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

Love, Music, Time

“When I look back on the stuff I used to wear, I wonder why somebody didn't try to stop me. Just a friendly warning, "You may regret this," would have been fine.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: The Funny Thing Is...

“The thing about grown ups is that they're always wanting you to be this Great Hero and Leader. What's wrong with being NORMAL, for Thor's sake? What's wrong with just being SO-SO at stuff? They're just totally unrealistic…”

Cressida Cowell book How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

Source: How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“So once you're dead there's just nothing?
Mari: Basically…
Korogi: I get so scared when I start thinking about this stuff. I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. It's so much easier to just believe in reincarnation.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

Thinking, Dead

“Well, yeah. You said you wanted Italian. See. Chef Boyardee. He makes one the best stuff. (Tabitha)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

“Quiet Pride:
There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said to my daughter, though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Daughters

“So for Magic Problem-Solving 101, we headed to the training room and blew stuff up.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Problem, Training

“You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.
That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

Thinking

“Isn't life strange? There are people who have so many leftover clothes they can't stuff them all in their wardrobe. And then there are people like me, whose socks never match.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Life, People, Clothes

“The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Friendship, Missing You, For Friend, For Bestfriend

“We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

“The future could go this way, that way. The future's futures have never looked so rocky. Don't put money on it. Take my advice and stick to the present. It's the real stuff, the only stuff, it's all there is, the present, the panting present.”

Martin Amis book Money

Source: Money

Money, Way, Future

“Do stupid stuff and even stupider suff will happen to you.”

Dan Gutman (1954) American children's writer

Stupidity

“Learning to stop sweating the small stuff involves deciding what things to engage in and what things to ignore. From a certain perspective, life can be described as a series of mistakes, one right after another with a little space in between.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Life, Learning

“I was of the “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, then wonder why life didn’t give you freaking sugar so you could drink the stuff” school of thought.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Eternally Yours

Life, School, Drink

“Sometimes words just don't get you there… don't let you say all the stuff from deep in your heart, stuff that no dictionary has a name for.”

Bill Condon (1955) American film director

Source: A Straight Line to My Heart

Heart

“Chocolate fends off all kinds of nasty stuff. And if you get hungry while warding off evil, you have a snack. It's multipurpose equipment.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

Evil

“Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker."
"What are you going to motivate people to do?"
Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational… stuff.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

People, Smile, Imagination, Motivation

“Partners:
Tied together by stuff too difficult to explain to someone new”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

“I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Hunger

“Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Children

“The stuff adults tell you not to do is the easiest.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“No!" Leo yelled.
"Uhhh," Nico groaned from the floor.
"Piper!" Jason cried.
"Monkey!" Frank yelled.
"Not monkeys," Hazel grumbled. "I think those are dwarfs."
"Stealing my stuff!" Leo yelled, and ran for the stairs.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Thinking

“What's Wal-mart? Do they sell Walls and stuff?”

Paris Hilton (1981) American socialite

The Simple Life

“I suppose you've always been amazing at this stuff?"
"I was born amazing" Jace stroked her cheek with the tips of his fingertips, lightly but enough to make her shiver.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Star

“Do you have any coffee? (Talon)
Ew! No, that stuff will kill you. I have herbal teas, though. (Sunshine)
Herbal teas? That’s mulch, not a beverage. (Talon)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Coffee, Tea

“They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it marking you down if you did the same thing.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

School

“Were it not for Occam's Razor, which always demands simplicity, I'd be tempted to believe that human beings are more influenced by distant causes than immediate ones. This would especially be true of overeducated people, who are capable of thinking past the immediate, of becoming obsessed by the remote. It's the old stuff, the conflicts we've never come to terms with, that sneaks up on us, half forgotten, insisting upon action.”

Richard Russo book Straight Man

Source: Straight Man (1997), Ch. 2.

People, Thinking, Distant, Past

“My work has a strong negative element. I have my own inner demons to deal with. Drawing is a way for me to articulate things inside myself that I can't otherwise grasp. What I don't want to do, what I dread more than anything, is to leave a legacy of crap. I don't want my work to be tossed in the dustbin of history, and become more of the second rate, mediocre junk that future connoisseurs will have to move out of the way so they can get at the good stuff.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 394

Way, History, Strong, Future

“Nonsense. I think that the problem isn't with them downloading the song, the problem is when they buy the record and when they burn a million discs off their computer for all their friends. That's the reason why every single band, no matter who you are, your sales are chopped by fifty to sixty percent after your first week out. It's a huge problem, but instead of giving people more reasons to buy the product, they don't worry about that. I think you have to enhance the value of the product. Like when KISS was putting out records, their 'Alive' record sold so well because it made you feel like you were part of the concert experience. There was also an actual program in the thing, all these pictures, the KISS Army stuff… There's so much stuff that added to the value of that package. There wasn't a KISS fan out there who didn't want the whole thing, because everything that came along with the music was so worthwhile to them. It's not rocket-science, this stuff.”

David Draiman (1973) American singer and songwriter

Disturbed's David Draiman Offers 'Solution' To Illegal Music Downloading http://www.webcitation.org/64oENbO3B, Blabbermouth.net, 11 July 2003)

People, Music, Feeling, Kiss

“I think every man would be better off if he didn’t take any intoxicatin’ drink at all, but as men will drink, they ought to have good stuff without impoverishin’ themselves by goin’ to fancy places and without riskin’ death by goin’ to poor places. p. 86”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 21, Concerning Excise

Death, Men, Drink, Thinking

“This guy, he just taught me chords and stuff. And after a year, I thought, I can't be bothered having lessons. So I just decided to figure out my own stuff. I never wanted to play all those fast solos. I just thought, I'll be like Pete Townshend of The Who. I'll do what he does and play powerful chords and stuff.”

Daniel Johns (1979) Australian musician

On how he learnt Guitar, Guitar School magazine, "Rock n' Roll high school" February 1996.
Interviews

Guy

“I've had enough of this place where they stuff you full of bull and then hunt you down and kill you every day.”

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

Crewman Humphrey on Valhal, Ch. 2
Space Chantey (1968)

“The water we hold sacred is not some abstract image or fantasy of Water, but the real stuff that we need to drink and bathe and grow our gardens, that provides the crucial habitat for fish and plants and thousands of other creatures, that is the Earth's literal life blood.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

Life, Drink, Fish, Water

“Wally George: Tell me what is your band all about? I mean what is The Mentors all about?
El Duce: Well, I'll tell you son. It's like this, boy. We're heterosexuals. We wanna create more heterosexual music for the rest of the world. We're tired of sissie groups like Mötley Crüe and all this sissy stuff. We want rape rock!”

Eldon Hoke (1958–1997) Singer, musician

The Mentors on Hot seat, 1992.

World, Music, Boy

“If you walk somebody, you just have to get the next hitter out. You can't be frustrated about walks or who is on base. If you've got good stuff that night, you're good enough to get the next hitter out.”

Carlos Zambrano (1981) Venezuelan baseball pitcher

Duncan, Chris, Chi Cubs 3, Houston 0 http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap?gid=260814118, Yahoo! Sports, Retrieved on June 16, 2007 <br class="br">2006

Night

“So, these were the four components of my upbringing -- the academic stuff where I was left to myself, Mahendrabhai, my father's passion for creating Reliance and the last piece was his deep links with the family.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Always invest in businesses of the future and in talent

Family, Passion

“"Fine. Your oatmeal spread in the fridge would go too, but it's already been opened. That stuff was disgusting."
"Jay, thats my facial scrub."”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 17, p. 141

“You got to control your own destiny. You got to keep writin' different stuff. Keep switchin' up and never do the same thing too many times.”

Chris Tucker (1971) American comedian

Quoted in: Joseph Fried (2008). Democrats and Republicans--rhetoric and Reality. p. 247

Time

“The free creativeness of mind is possible because, […] the world ultimately exists, not of material stuff, but of patterns, of organization, the evolution of which involves no absolute creation of an alien world of material from nothing. The purely structural character of reality thus helps to render possible and intelligible the free creativeness of life and mind, … The energy which is being dissipated by the decay of physical structure is being partly taken up and organized into life structures … Life and mind thus appear as products of the cosmic decline, … Our origin is thus accidental, our position is exceptional and our fate is sealed, with the inevitable running down of the solar system. Life and mind, […] are thus reduced to a very casual and inferior status in the cosmic order […] – a transient and embarrassed phantom in an alien, if not hostile universe. […] The human spirit is not a pathetic, wandering phantom of the universe, […] but meets with spiritual hospitality and response everywhere. Our deepest thoughts and emotions are but responses to stimuli which come to us not from an alien, but from an essentially friendly and kindred universe.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

Smuts expounding a confrontation of opposites in his presidential address to the British Association in September 1931, as cited by W. K. Hancock in SMUTS 2: The Fields of Force 1919-1950, p. 232-234

Life, Hostility, Fate, World

“What surprised me, which Google was part of, is that superficial search techniques over large bodies of stuff could get you what you wanted. I grew up in the AI tradition, where you have a complete conceptual model, and the information retrieval tradition, where you have complex vectors of key terms and Boolean queries. The idea that you can index billions of pages and look for a word and get what you want is quite a trick. To put it in more abstract terms, it's the power of using simple techniques over very large numbers versus doing carefully constructed systematic analysis.”

Terry Winograd (1946) American computer scientist

"Talking with Terry Winograd" http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/t_winograd_1.html, Ubiquity 3 (23), 29 July 2002.

Search, Idea, Parting

Quotes about stuff page 3

Quotes about stuff
page 3