Quotes about try (6735 quotes, page 63)

“A play is like a free-flowing poem in some ways. The play, as you write, will tell you what the structure will be. But, sometimes you forget to ask those questions as you write and you end up spending a lot of time trying to find the essence of the play…”

Mando Alvarado actor

On how playwriting differs from television writing in “SIN MUROS: INTERVIEW WITH “LIVING SCULPTURE” PLAYWRIGHT MANDO ALVARADO” https://thetheatretimes.com/sin-muros-interview-living-sculpture-playwright-mando-alvarado/ in The Theatre Times

Way , Forgetting , Time , Question

“Another problem with our media, intellectuals, elites and posh class is that they are always negative. Desperate. Insecure. All signs of a weak institution. They are scared that if the hungry masses get empowered, they will destroy their empires built on the blood and sweat of the same people. That’s why they constantly try to keep the masses deprived, and their very existence in fear. They never let the masses forget who is Superior and who is Inferior.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Forgetting , Fear , People , Problem

“The intellectual hierarchy has been demolished. It’s a sad commentary that in the world’s largest democracy, writers’ protest has become a subject of jokes. The power-hungry artists, writers, academics, and media-persons in India waste a huge amount of time making political statements to hide behind their lack of intellectual stands. Michel Houellebecq wrote Submission, a strong political statement; he didn’t get press coverage for returning some award. The lustre is gone from our intellectual discourse. Secularism has lost its ideological currency. Artists, writers, activists are all suspect. Media czars have lost their access to the corridors of power and to people’s hearts. It’s the overclass’ space that has been taken over by the underclass. Their discomfort is with the new order where the others are also heard. Hence, the feeling of shrinking space. They are intolerant of this new phenomenon – the emergence of the underclass. They try to devalue this new, empowered underclass by associating it with Modi and, therefore, Hindutva, and that’s a grave mistake. The universe that was full of their voice has expanded to accommodate this new voice. This is what they call an attack on FoE and growing intolerance.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Democracy , Time , Strong , Personality

“Religion ~The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into god’s workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 26

God , Faith , Religion , Law

“We keep acting without thinking and you think the solution is to do it one more time. You have allied yourself with stupid, violent men, and you are trying to convince yourself that being stupid and violent will work. That makes you stupid too. I will never help you. I’ll fight you now.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 39 (p. 404)

Time , Help , Thinking , Stupidity

“During a lecture the Oxford linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin made the claim that although a double negative in English implies a positive meaning, there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative. To which he decided to just go ahead and keep striving to figure it out HE MY FRIENDS WAS A DETERMINED HONEST SUPERIOR WEALTHY TRY HARDISH SWEATY PERSON WHO NEEDS TO DO I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT!”

Sidney Morgenbesser (1921–2004) American philosopher

Personality

“Expectations on the performance of race and gender are simultaneously high and low, depending on who is looking or asking. I prefer to keep all the options in the air, to try and better understand the conundrum that inequality creates---not just in culture, but internally.”

Kara Walker (1969) African American artist

On the expectations for an African American artist in “Art Talk with Kara Walker” https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2012/art-talk-kara-walker (National Endowment of the Arts; 2012 Feb 1)

Understanding , Dependency

“Hindu society is guilty of trying to manage its own affairs at its own sacred site, so it deserves to be punished with administrative restrictions on its access to the Rama-Janmabhoomi, and perhaps with further judicial restrictions later. The judges simply confirm what is explicitly laid down in article 30 of the Constitution: minorities enjoy privileges which are denied to Hindus, including the non-interference by the government in the affairs of their places of worship. Hindus have no right to complain when the government takes over Hindu temples, nor when it works hand-in-glove with Islamic activists trying to take over a Hindu sacred site. They should be satisfied with the status of second-class citizens, to which they have been so well accustomed by centuries of colonial rule, Islamic as well as Christian.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

“I was encouraged to look around me and to paint what I saw. I painted my story, and it had a lot of angles to it. I was trying to explain how I saw life as a black person living in America, and I put things together that were not acceptable. A lot of people did not want these kind of paintings representing America in any sense, but I wanted to tell my story and what I saw…”

Faith Ringgold (1930) American artist

On the Civil Rights Movement puncturing the image of the American Dream in https://www.theartnewspaper.com/interview/faith-ringgold-discusses-civil-rights-and-children-s-books-ahead-of-solo-serpentine-gallery-show in The Art Newspaper (2019 Jun 5)

Painting , Personality , People , Sense

“Nature is interested in only two things—to survive and to reproduce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that, all the cultural input, is responsible for the boredom of man. So we have varieties of religious experience. You are not satisfied with your own religious teachings or games; so you bring in others from India, Asia or China. They become interesting because they are something new. You pick up a new language and try to speak it and use it to feel more important. But basically, it is the same thing.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from U.G Krishnamurti
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Game , Feeling , Nature

“We are a part of this take-down culture where people are trying to twist your words.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

2019
Source: https://twitter.com/steinhauserNH1/status/1096852721800544256

People , Parting

“Looking back on the history of these 30 years, one can well ask whether Hindu-Muslim unity has been realized? Whether efforts have not been made for its realization? And whether any efforts remain to be made? The history of the last 30 years shows that Hindu-Muslim unity has not been realized. On the contrary, there now exists the greatest disunity between them: that efforts—sincere and persistent—have been made to achieve it, and that nothing now remains to be done to achieve it except surrender by one party to the other. If anyone who is not in the habit of cultivating optimism where there is no justification for it, said that the pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity is like a mirage and that the idea must now be given up, no one can have the courage to call him a pessimist or an impatient idealist. It is for the Hindus to say whether they will engage themselves in this vain pursuit in spite of the tragic end of all their past endeavours, or give up the pursuit of unity and try for a settlement on another basis.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

Courage , Optimism , History , Past

“I always felt that, as a musician, we show up for one day for a cause and we really believe in what we’re talking about, but then the next day we have our own concerns. I want to try to have a more long-term relationship between artists and people who are really trying to affect change in the world.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

On his job as the curator of Global Citizen Festival. source http://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chris-martin-will-curate-global-citizen-festival-for-next-15-years-164240/

World , People , Change

“Stop giving a s— what other people think of you. We make decisions too often based on that…When we start to live for ourselves, and be a little bit more selfish, I think we’ll lead more fulfilling lives. So I think what we need to do, is stare at ourselves in the mirror a little bit longer, and really own who we are and not try to be what we think others want us to be.”

Lena Waithe (1984) American actress, producer, and screenwriter

On how women should embrace their true selves in “Lena Waithe's Message to Women: 'Stop Giving a S--- What Other People Think'” https://variety.com/video/lena-waithe-message-to-women-variety-cover-shoot/ in Variety Magazine

Selfishness , People , Thinking , Decision

“The basic contradiction the great proletarian Cultural Revolution is trying to resolve is the one between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the proletarian and bourgeois roads. The main point of the movement is to struggle against the capitalist roaders in authority in the party.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)

“Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Beloved (1987)

Sleep , Question , Water , Way

“Despite his caricature as being indecisive, he was one of the most decisive leaders this nation has seen. On all crucial issues, he took decisions that have continued to shape India’s rise over the last two decades. Manmohan Singh may be touted as the father of Indian economic reforms; but as Singh has himself acknowledged, it was Rao who fathered the process. Singh was an economic technocrat with little understanding of political constraints. It was Rao who shielded Singh from the left wing of his own party, a flank that had left no stone unturned in opposing the economic liberalization programme. Rao made economic reforms politically tenable at a time when his own party was out to scuttle his most ambitious undertaking. How ironical, then, that today the same Congress-wallahs try to take credit for India’s economic success without acknowledging Rao’s role.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

Harsh V. Pant in: "Give Narasimha Rao his due".

Time , Understanding , Success , Decision

“The threat to public schools arises from their defects, not their accomplishments. In small, closely knit communities where public schools, particularly elementary schools, are now reasonably satisfactory, not even the most comprehensive voucher plan would have much effect. The public schools would remain dominant, perhaps somewhat improved by the threat of potential competition. But elsewhere, and particularly in the urban slums where the public schools are doing such a poor job, most parents would undoubtedly try to send their children to nonpublic schools.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 6 “What’s Wrong with Our Schools”, p. 170

School , Children , Parent , Communication

“The essence of the problem is that once we begin to allow exceptions for special interests, we move from a system of private arrangements to a political system where everyone’s freedom is limited and government becomes a matter of trying to balance those interests. Nobody really wins under these terms.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

Problem , Freedom

“The basic honor code of the savage -bravery for men, chastity for women- is still recognizable beneath the surfaces of the popular culture that has done so much to efface it. If you doubt it, try calling a man a wimp or a woman a slut.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

pg 74
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Women , Men

“After the elections, Dr Singh did try to be more assertive, taking a view on who would be in his Cabinet and who would not, and resisting the induction of the DMK’s A. Raja and T. R. Baalu, for their unsavoury reputations. Watching from the sidelines, I had hoped he would not buckle under pressure. Dr Singh stood his ground for a day, managed to keep Baalu out, but had to yield ground on Raja under pressure from his own party. To me, it was a reiteration of the message that the victory was not his but the Family’s.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

The Accidental Prime Minister (2014)

Family , Victory , Hope

“The idea was to have the accident and whatever explosion and fire was involved occur someplace isolated enough that no one else would see it, so that there would be as little an aspect of performance to the thing as I could manage and no temptation to spend my last few seconds trying to imagine what impressions the sight and sound of the impact might make on someone watching. I was partly concerned that it might be spectacular and dramatic and might look as if the driver was trying to go out in as dramatic a way as possible. This is the sort of shit we waste our lives thinking about.”

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

"Good Old Neon", Oblivion: Stories
Short stories

Imagination , Thinking , Way , Idea

“This life takes a lot more courage than I ever gave it credit for. When I was growing up around here I was always fantasizing heroic shit without realizing that what was shaping up was going to be the greatest heroic adventure of them all: trying to live and be a decent human being. That shit takes more courage than I ever had.”

Junot Díaz (1968) Dominican-American writer

Profile in Playboy magazine (August 2013) http://www.playboy.com/articles/junot-diaz-brief-history

Courage , Life

“Whenever you work on something and try to solve one problem, and you end up helping or solving many other problems, it is a sign that what you are doing is good.”

Nathan Seiberg (1956) American physicist

as quoted by Sandhya Ramesh in: [Interview: 'There's No Conflict Between Lack of Evidence of String Theory and Work Being Done on It', The Wire, Bengaluru, 7 January 2018, https://thewire.in/science/theres-no-conflict-lack-evidence-string-theory-work-done]

Problem , Help

“We go in and try to be completely transparent with them: I am not a journalist, I’m a playwright, and I’m developing a piece that is creative and not going to be solely based on their lives but inspired by conversations that we have.”

Lynn Nottage (1964) American playwright

On how the interview process is different when writing a work of fiction in “An Interview with Lynn Nottage” https://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2015/10/an-interview-with-lynn-nottage/ in The Interval (2015 Oct 14)

“In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106223
Second term as Prime Minister

Personality , Thinking , People

“To me there is only one way to judge a person, whatever his background, whatever his colour, whatever his religion, and that is what that person is, and not by his race or creed. That is what I believe in, that is what I will tell everyone and that is what I try to achieve everything.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Young Conservative Conference in Eastbourne (13 February 1977), quoted in The Times (14 February 1977), p. 3
Leader of the Opposition

Way , Personality , Religion

“There is less trouble and trauma involved in writing a new piece than in trying to salvage an unsatisfactory old one.”

Isaac Asimov book In Memory Yet Green

In Memory Yet Green (1979), p. 200
General sources

“About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)

Home , Peace , Faith , Religion