Quotes about watch
page 13

“I had a very lonely New Year's this year. I had to watch my own balls drop.”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

One-liners

“To learn about oneself, a living thing, you have to watch, learn anew each minute.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

4th Public Talk, Bombay (Mumbai), India (17 February 1971)
1970s

Learning

“See, my parents didn't go to college, but they were determined to give us that opportunity. My dad was a pump operator at the city water plant, diagnosed with MS in his early thirties. And every morning I watched him struggle to get out of bed and inch his way to his walker, and painstakingly button his uniform, but never once did I hear him complain. Not once. He just kept getting up, day after day, year after year, to do whatever he could to give our family a better shot at life.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Remarks at Bowie State University ceremony (17 May 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/17/remarks-first-lady-bowie-state-university-commencement-ceremony 2010s

Life, Family, Way, Parent

“She watches Marvy's face as he pays Monika, watches him in this primal American act, paying, more deeply himself than when coming, or asleep, or maybe even dying.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

“I began to reconcile myself to my forlorn condition, but still I was not what I wished to be: the worst of all was, I had no friend; not a human being that understood me. I wrote daily to my friend Leisewitz; he resided in Hanover, and was just as unhappy as myself, except that he had some friends, and plenty of money. In this respect I was differently situated, and although in want of money to buy books, I was determined not to be any expense to my father. Some watches, snuff-boxes, and rings, presents I had received in Gottingen, soon found their way to the hands of Jews at half price. I was even, against my will, driven to the necessity of accepting small fees from mechanics and peasants. This cut me to the heart; but I could not help myself. The following circumstance, however, overcame me more than all: My father was a man of great knowledge and experience, but, like all old men, he remained faithful to the old method of practice. I visited many of his patients, and without telling me exactly what mode of treatment I was to pursue, he only observed, "You will act so and sohowever, I saw the patients had confidence in my father only, and not in me; they wished me to be his tool, and I therefore followed his mode of practice, and thus lost several of his patients, who could have been saved had I followed my own method.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Men, Money, Books, Faith

“Let us not just bear witness to cases of involuntary and forced disappearances. These have caused our country big black eyes and have placed us under tight watch of both local and international rights groups and even foreign governments. We need to put this measure in place.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2011/0518_escudero1.asp 2011

Country

“It's fascinating to watch a show develop from a script to a 22-minute comedy. I try to learn as much, and ask as many questions, as I can without being annoying.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981) American actor, director, producer, and writer

The Hollywood Reporter November 7, 1995.

Question, Learning

“Now watch me go retarded, yellow short bus.”

Lil Wayne (1982) American rapper, singer, record executive and businessman

Intro
2010s, Tha Carter IV (2011)

“I became aware of Louise Bourgeois in my first or second year at Brighton Art College. One of my teachers, Stuart Morgan, curated a small retrospective of her work at the Serpentine, and both he and another teacher, Edward Allington, saw something in her, and me, and thought I should be aware of her. I thought the work was wonderful. It was her very early pieces, The Blind Leading the Blind, the wooden pieces and some of the later bronze works. Biographically, I don't really think she has influenced me, but I think there are similarities in our work. We have both used the home as a kind of kick-off point, as the space that starts the thoughts of a body of work. I eventually got to meet Louise in New York, soon after I made House. She asked to see me because she had seen a picture of House in the New York Times while she was ironing it one morning, so she said. She was wonderful and slightly kind of nutty; very interested and eccentric. She drew the whole time; it was very much a salon with me there as her audience, watching her. I remember her remarking that I was shorter than she was. I don't know if this was true but she was commenting on the physicality of making such big work and us being relatively small women. When you meet her you don't know what's true, because she makes things up. She has spun her web and drawn people in, and eaten a few people along the way.”

Rachel Whiteread (1963) British sculptor

Rachel Whiteread, " Kisses for Spiderwoman http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art2," The Guardian, 14 Oct. 2007: on Louise Bourgeois

Women, People, Art, Way

“Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.”

Paul Williams (songwriter) (1940) American composer, singer, songwriter and actor

"We've Only Just Begun" (1970).

Way

“They say the average bank robber lives within say about 20 miles of the bank that he robs
There's this little bank not so far from here I've been watching now for a while
Seems like lately alls I can think about is how bad I wanna go out in style”

Todd Snider (1966) American singer

Statistician's Blues.
Near Truths and Hotel Rooms (2003)

Thinking

“The beast is always doomed. It’s better to face the fact honestly and not pretty it up with a lot of lies about blowing off steam and reducing tensions and getting rid of this and that, acting out anxieties, moment of truth. Piddle. There’s an ancient word, I don’t know what language it is. Bazazz. All those arguments are a lot of bazazz. Unless you’re wiping out vermin or hunting for meat to eat, the man who kills animals does so because he likes to kill. And people who like to watch do so because they like to see things being killed.”

Avram Davidson (1923–1993) novelist

Source: Rogue Dragon (1965), Chapter XI (p. 137)

People, Truth, Animals

“Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk.”

Richard Koch (1950) German medical historian and internist

Source: The 80/20 principle: the secret of achieving more with less (1999), p. 28

Wisdom

“People who suffer beyond the formulas of expression,— who are crushed into silence, and beyond pain,— want no display of emotion,— no bleeding heart,— no weeping at the foot of the Cross,— no hysterics,— no phrases! They want to see God, and to know that he is watching over his own.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

God, Pain, People, Silence

“She watched the lights upon the shore. The glare that was Plymouth in the distance. She thought, the dance is over. The girls are going out of the overheated hall into the cold air. They shiver; their young men hurry after them. Some have got home and find their dresses stained or torn; yet they've enjoyed themselves. Which is the more important? Wallflowers think of the young men who haven't danced with them; probably each has a dream-day hero. Remember the lieutenant to whom I never spoke a word; yet I married him and had children and grandchildren, though he never knew it. And there are others, madly happy, look in their mirrors and smile and wonder. Even the latest home has a warm bed to go to.”

Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist and biographer

Calder-Marshall, Arthur. At Sea. London: Jonathan Cape. 1934.

Men, Happiness, Children, Smile

“You just watch. There is going to be a Columbine-times-10 incident, and everyone will finally get it. Either that, or some video gamer is going to go Columbine at some video game exec's expense or at E3, and then the industry will begin to realize that there is no place to hide, that it has trained a nation of Manchurian Children.”

Jack Thompson (attorney) (1951) American activist and disbarred attorney

[2005-02-25, GameSpeak: Jack Thompson, William Vitka, CBS News, https://web.archive.org/web/20050301103652/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/tech/gamecore/main676446.shtml, 2005-02-24, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/tech/gamecore/man676446.shtml]

Children, Game, Time, Training

“There is nothing there. What you see is not what you see. What you see is nothing. Nothing but shapes, lines, colors. What you see is whats in your mind. What you see is something somebody told you to look for. Look out for anything you see! Watch it! Watch out! Take care! Don’t leap before you look out.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

1956 - 1967
Source: the 'Ad Reinhardts Papers', Archives of American Art, microfilm no. N/69-103, frame no. 268

Color

“Watching the painter painting
And all the time, the light is changing
And he keeps painting
That bit there, it was an accident
But he's so pleased
It's the best mistake, he could make
And it's my favourite piece.
It's just great.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Light, Change, Time, Painting

“If you watch animals objectively for any length of time, you're driven to the conclusion that their main aim in life is to pass on their genes to the next generation. Most do so directly, by breeding. In the few examples that don't do so by design, they do it indirectly, by helping a relative with whom they share a great number of their genes. And in as much as the legacy that human beings pass on to the next generation is not only genetic but to a unique degree cultural, we do the same. So animals and ourselves, to continue the line, will endure all kinds of hardship, overcome all kinds of difficulties, and eventually the next generation appears. This albatross is over 30 years old, she's already a grandmother, and this year once again she has produced a chick. She will devote the next 10 months of her life looking after it. She has faced the trials of life and triumphed, for her little 2 day old chick the trials are just beginning.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines
The Trials of Life (1990)

Life, Appearance, Time, Help

“I also do not recommend shopping with Cordelia Naismith—but I would watch that reality show.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

"Six Characters with Whom You Should Never Ever Go Camping" https://www.tor.com/2018/08/20/six-characters-with-whom-you-should-never-ever-go-camping/ on Tor.com, August 20, 2018 2010s

Reality

“Mother:
Children and sorrow come together. First
Are sleepless nights, and cradle watchings — next
Your age is vexed with maiden fantasies,
And your girl's lover costeth you more care
Than ever did your own. It is not well!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette (7th February 1835)
Translations, From the German

Children, Age, Girl, Lovers

“Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch — yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

War

“We are watching the Germans closely; we are not forgetting what they did to us during the war.”

Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman

As quoted in "Soviet Foreign Policy Toward Western Europe" (1978) by George Ginsburgs and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, p. 105

War, Forgetting

“I always have been [a fan of the Universal horror movies]. Nowadays you tell someone to watch one of the movies and they haven't seen them, or haven't since they were a kid. To me, it's like, most of the acting if great, given the crazy situations. Frankenstein's in a block of ice and the Wolf Man is in another country and he's alive and it's Lon Chaney. I mean, it gets crazy, but I still love it because I'm a sucker for it.”

Kevin J. O'Connor (actor) (1963) American actor

The Van Helsing Interviews: Igor https://web.archive.org/web/20040409181916/horror.com/php/article-434-1.html (March 28, 2004)

Love, Universe, Wolf, Country

“She had a need to feel the thunder,
To chase the lightning from the sky,
To watch a storm with all its wonder
Written in her lover's eyes.
She had to ride the heat of passion
Like a comet burning bright,
Rushing headlong in the wind
Now where only dreams have been,
Burning both ends of the night.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

That Summer, written by Pat Alger, Sandy Mahl-Brooks, and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, The Chase (1992)

Dreams, Feeling, Lovers, Passion

“I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,—
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,—
Each tree a natural harp,— each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanks-giving.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Ancestress (Spoken by Jaromir)
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Music, Nature, Tree

“A “discerning person” (anthropos diakritikos), according to the Orthodox Greeks, is someone perpetually mindful or watchful of God working in all things and at all times. Ever conscious of God’s Love, which is God’s Will, a vigilant Christian is never taken unawares by circumstances. In the eschatological discourses of the Gospels, Jesus advises us to read the cosmic signs that announce God’s recurrent visitations and thus remain watchful and awake every hour of the day and night, that is to say, remain perpetually mindful. Hence there is no better description of biblical spirituality than ceaseless vigilance or perpetual mindfulness.”

Aloysius Pieris (1934) Sri Lankan Jesuit priest

Source: "Spirituality as Mindfulness: Biblical and Buddhist Approaches", p. 39

Love, God, Time, Reading

“Reflexion is careful and laborious thought, and watchful attention directed to the agreeable effect of one's plan. Invention, on the other hand, is the solving of intricate problems and the discovery of new principles by means of brilliancy and versatility.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter II, Sec. 2

Problem

“What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique ("a great task that occurs once in two thousand years"), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did. The troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted from the Armed S. S., a military unit with hardly more crimes in its record than any ordinary unit of the German Army, and their commanders had been chosen by Heydrich from the S. S. élite with academic degrees. Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering. The trick used by Himmler — who apparently was rather strongly afflicted by these instinctive reactions himself — was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!”

Hannah Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem

Source: Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Ch. VI.

Men, People, Pleasure, Nature

“The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say.
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away.Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain.”

Dan Fogelberg (1951–2007) singer-songwriter, musician

Same Old Lang Syne.
Song lyrics, The Innocent Age (1981)

Pain, School, Way, Home

“I'm fortunate to know many of the trustees. Well, for example I'm good friends with the Chairman, Mike Boone. And there’s one trustee I know really well, a proud graduate of the SMU Class of 1968 who went on to become our nation’s greatest First Lady. Do me a favor and don’t tell Mother. I know how much the trustees love and care for this great university. I see it firsthand when I attend the Bring-Your-Spouse-Night Dinners. I also get to drop by classes on occasion. I am really impressed by the intelligence and energy of the SMU faculty. I want to thank you for your dedication and thank you for sharing your knowledge with your students. To reach this day, the graduates have had the support of loving families. Some of them love you so much they are watching from overflow sites across campus. I congratulate the parents who have sacrificed to make this moment possible. It is a glorious day when your child graduates from college — and a really great day for your bank account. I know the members of the Class of 2015 will join me in thanking you for your love and your support. Most of all, I congratulate the members of the Class of 2015. You worked hard to reach this milestone. You leave with lifelong friends and fond memories. You will always remember how much you enjoyed the right to buy a required campus meal plan. You'll remember your frequent battles with the Park ‘N’ Pony Office. And you may or may not remember those productive nights at the Barley House.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Love, Family, Intelligence, Support

“Modern 3D cinema technology works by ensuring your left eye sees one image while your right sees another. But they could, presumably, issue one pair of specs comprising two left-eye lenses (for children to wear), and another with two right-eye lenses (for adults). This would make it possible for parents to take their offspring to the cinema and watch two entirely different films at the same time. So while the kiddywinks are being placated by an animated CGI doodle about rabbits entering the Winter Olympics or something, their parents will be bearing witness to some apocalyptically degrading pornography. The tricky thing would be making the soundtracks match. Those cartoon rabbits would have to spend a lot of time slapping their bellies and moaning.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian 15 February 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/15/charlie-brooker-ebook-convert Guardian columns

Children, Parent, Winter, Time

“And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of military government in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries. Now let me tell you the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Do you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945, after a combined French and Japanese occupation. And incidentally, this was before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. And this is a little known fact, these people declared themselves independent in 1945, they quoted our Declaration of Independence in their document of freedom. And yet our government refused to recognize, President Truman said they were not ready for independence. So we failed victim as a nation at that time of the same deadly arrogance that has poisoned the international situation for all of these years. France then set out to reconquer its former colony. And they fought eight long, hard, brutal years, trying to reconquer Vietnam. You know who helped France? It was the United States of America, it came to the point that we were meeting more than 80% of the war cost. And even when France started despairing of its reckless action, we did not. And in 1954, a conference was called at Geneva, and an agreement was reached, because France had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. But even after that and even after the Geneva Accord, we did not stop. We must face the sad fact that our government sought in a real sense to sabotage the Geneva Accord. Well, after the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come through the Geneva agreement. But instead the United States came and started supporting a man named Diem, who turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world. He set out to silence all opposition, people were brutally murdered merely because they raised their voices against the brutal policies of Diem. And the peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence, and then by increasing numbers of United States troops, who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. And who are we supporting in Vietnam today? It's a man by the name of General Ky, who fought with the French against his own people, and who said on one occasion that the greatest hero of his life is Hitler. This is who we're supporting in Vietnam today. Oh, our government, and the press generally, won't tell us these things, but God told me to tell you this morning. The truth must be told.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Life, God, War, Happiness

“The Dyer backed away from him another step and stood watching him, the exaltation in his face clouding slowly over until it was replaced by a strange, heavy look; it was as if reasoning thought were laboring to break through the storm of words and feelings and visions that confused him. Finally he turned around without a word and began to run back down the road, into the haze of dust that had not yet settled on his tracks.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 6, "Lorbanery"

Feeling

“It's the unreal, sustained glitch in naturalism that makes this genre of TV disturbing to either watch or be on. The Lynchian subjugation of our humanity; warmth and humour, usurped by a sterile, pastel-coloured steel blade benignly thrust again and again into a grey brain.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

Nature

“My young friend who was taught that she was so sinful the only way an angry God could be persuaded to forgive her was by Jesus dying for her, was also taught that part of the joy of the blessed in heaven is watching the torture of the damned in hell. A strange idea of joy. But it is a belief limited not only to the more rigid sects. I know a number of highly sensitive and intelligent people in my own communion who consider as a heresy my faith that God's loving concern for his creation will outlast all our willfulness and pride. No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love… Origen held this belief and was ultimately pronounced a heretic. Gregory of Nyssa, affirming the same loving God, was made a saint. Some people feel it to be heresy because it appears to deny man his freedom to refuse to love God. But this, it seems to me, denies God his freedom to go on loving us beyond all our willfulness and pride. If the Word of God is the light of the world, and this light cannot be put out, ultimately it will brighten all the dark corners of our hearts and we will be able to see, and seeing, will be given the grace to respond with love — and of our own free will.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Love, God, People, World

“If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed.”

Jane Wagner (1935) Playwright, actress

Other material for Lily Tomlin

Books, Reading

“You may think you are a good person hanging out with the wrong crowd, but to someone watching, the difference is not noticeable.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 127

Thinking, Personality

“Every time I watch it, I still see something new, and I’ve seen it a lot as you can imagine. When fans only talk about the scares, they’re not really learning anything, which is a shame because Billy really put a lot of thematic elements in this movie that are supposed to make you think. It wasn’t just about scaring people; it was a family drama that had horrific elements.”

Linda Blair (1959) actress, producer, animal rights activist

Exclusive: Linda Blair Reflects on 40 Years with The Exorcist for FEARnet’s February 17th Five-Film Marathon http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/41504/exclusive-linda-blair-reflects-on-40-years-with-the-exorcist-for-fearnet-s-february-17th-five-film-marathon/ (February 16, 2013)

People, Family, Imagination, Thinking

“I stay focused on details
It keeps me from feeling the big things
But watch the microscope long enough
Things that seem still are still changing”

Ben Folds (1966) American musician

"Still", Supersunnyspeedgraphic (2006).
Song lyrics, Solo

Feeling, Change

“I'd never show up a pitcher by standing in the batters box and watching how far the ball goes like a lot of players do now. But it made me feel good to know I could hit a ball longer than anyone else. It tickled the hell out of me. It was like playing in a golf tournament and hearing all the ohhs and ahhs when you hit a good drive. I mean, every time I swung at it I was trying to hit it longer than the time before. I'm sure that was why I struck out so much, but I'd get a kick out of it. Poor Casey would get so mad. He'd say, "Hey butcher boy, just make contact."”

Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) Professional baseball player

But he couldn't get me to change. In fact, Whitey told me just last year that I'd shut my eyes just before I lunged. As quoted in "IT'S OUTTA HEEERRE!!!: A New Generation of Sluggers Invites Tape-Measure Comparisons" http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-21/sports/sp-26487_1_home-run.

Feeling, Boy, Hell, Change

“Every single Muslim watching this… on 7/7 you got away with killing and maiming British citizens… you had better understand that we have built a network from one end of the country to the other end… and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed, maimed, or hurt on British soil ever again.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Speech in 2011, at a demo in London ( Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j7IX_5a_9M&feature=youtu.be) 2011

Feeling, Communication, Understanding, Hurt

“It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire, with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. … Many have defended Britain against her foes. None can defend her against herself.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/mar/06/india-government-policy#column_678 in the House of Commons (6 March 1947) on Indian independence Post-war years (1945–1955)

“Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called "the beauty of the flames"; then put on his tragedian's costume and sang The Sack of Ilium from beginning to end.”
Hoc incendium e turre Maecenatiana prospectans laetusque "flammae," ut aiebat, "pulchritudine" Halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit.

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Nero, Ch. 38

Beauty

“I think it is a great day for freedom. I watched the scenes on television last night and again this morning because I felt one ought not only hear about them but see them because you see the joy on people's faces and you see what freedom means to them; it makes you realise that you cannot stifle or suppress people's desire for liberty and so I watched with the same joy as everyone else and I hope that they will be a prelude to the Berlin Wall coming down.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Remarks on the Berlin Wall (10 November 1989) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107819 Third term as Prime Minister

People, Hope, Thinking, Freedom

“The enemy may land on this island soon. Once they do, we must follow the fate of those on Attu and Saipan. Our officers and men know about “Death” very well. I am sorry to end my life here, fighting the United States of America, but I want to defend this island as long as possible and to delay the enemy air raids on Tokyo. Ah! You have worked well for a long time as my wife and the mother of my three children. Your life will become harder and more precarious. Watch out for your health and live long. The future of our children will not be easy either. Please take care of them after my death.”

Tadamichi Kuribayashi (1891–1945) Japanese general

Letter to his wife shortly before the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Life, Death, Men, Fate

“It occurred to me how very tired I sometimes feel as an outspoken feminist. … Trolls are trying to silence women, and I've installed a fiery declaration within myself to never give in, but it's incredibly hard, and gets harder as my platform as a writer grows. What didn’t occur to me initially is that West has spent years in the trenches fighting this endless, thankless fight, and maybe she needs a goddamn break. I had this revelation again, much more profoundly and emotionally, about my own mother while watching Greta Gerwig’s new film, Lady Bird. … Often, my mother and I clashed when she denied me freedom, but only because she had been harmed by the dangers she knew lay ahead for her daughter. I did so many risky, awful things, and then lied to her about them, because I never felt I could be honest with her. I should have known she wasn’t judging me. I should have known that she had done it all before, that even though she wouldn’t have used the word "feminist" to describe herself at the time, mostly she just didn’t want me to have to be so very tired. … Walking home from Lady Bird on the kind of night that New York fall fantasies are made of, I resisted the urge to call my mother, because I thought I might cry until the universe ripped apart at the seams. But then I called her anyway. I sobbed as I told her I had no idea how impossibly hard she had been trying.”

Lauren Duca (1991) American journalist

Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017)

Women, Feeling, Home, Idea

“Gnawing upon our resentment, we stretch out in an iron cage,
Watching the slow passage of days and months.
How we despise the insolent crowd outside,
Standing there foolishy, with tiny eyes bulging,
As they mock the stately spirit of the deep jungle.
Here by misfortune, shamefully caged,
We are no more than a novel sight to amuse them, some plaything…
O stately soul, heroic land,
Vast domain where yesteryear we freely roamed,
We see you no more.
But do you know that during our days of frustration
We follow a great dream, letting our souls race to be near you,
O formidable jungle of ours!”

Thế Lữ (1907–1989)

"Remembering the Jungle: The Words of the Tiger in the Zoo", in Understanding Vietnam by Neil L. Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), ISBN 978-0520916586, pp. 159–160

Dreams, Soul

“[Scripture], by which, “as in a glass, we may survey ourselves, and know what manner of persons we are,” (James 1. 23) discovers ourselves to us; pierces into the inmost recesses of the mind; strips off every disguise; lays open the inward part; makes a strict scrutiny into the very soul and spirit; and critically judges of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Heb. iv. 12) It shows us with what exactness and care we are to search and try our spirits, examine ourselves, and watch our ways, and keep our hearts, in order to acquire this important self-science; which it often calls us to do. “Examine yourselves; prove your own selves; know you not yourselves? Let a man examine himself.” (1 Cor. xi. 28) Our Saviour upbraids his disciples with their self-ignorance, in not “knowing what manner of spirits they were of.” (Luke ix. 55) And, saith the apostle, “If a man (through self-ignorance) thinketh himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself, and not another.” (Gal. vi. 3, 4) Here we are commanded, instead of judging others, to judge ourselves; and to avoid the. inexcusable rashness of condemning others for the very crimes we ourselves are guilty of, (Rom. ii. 1, 21, 22) which a self-ignorant man is very apt to do; nay, to be more offended at a small blemish in another's character, than at a greater in his own; which folly, self-ignorance, and hypocrisy, our Saviour, with just severity, animadverts upon. (Mat. vii. 3-5) And what stress was laid upon this under the Old Testament dispensation appears sufficiently from those expressions. "Keep thy heart with all diligence." (Prov. iv. 23) "Commune with your own heart." (Psal. iv. 4) "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts." (Psal. cxxxix. 23) "Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart." (Psal. xxvi. 2) "Let us search and try our ways." (Lam. iii. 4) "Recollect, recollect yourselves, O "nation not desired."”

John Mason (1706–1763) English Independent minister and author

Zeph. ii. 1
A Treatise on Self-Knowledge (1745)

God, Way, Soul, Search

“Meanwhile Medea, though she was singing and dancing with her maids, could think of one thing only. There was no melody, however gay, that did not quickly cease to please. Time and again she faltered and came to a halt. To keep her eyes fixed on her choir was more than she could do. She was for ever turning them aside to search the distant paths, and more than once she well-nigh fainted when she mistook the noise of the wind for the footfall of a passer-by. But it was not so very long before the sight of Jason rewarded her impatient watch. Like Sirius rising from Ocean, brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks, he sprang into view, splendid to look at but fraught with trouble for the lovesick girl. Her heart stood still, a mist descended on her eyes, and a warm flush spread across her cheeks. She could neither move towards him nor retreat; her feet were rooted to the ground. And now her servants disappeared, and the pair of them stood face to face without a word or sound, like oaks or tall pines that stand in the mountains side by side in silence when the air is still, but when the wind has stirred them chatter without end. So these two, stirred by the breath of Love, were soon to pour out all their tale.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 948–972

Love, Beauty, Search, Girl

“I noticed that my problems occur when I try to dominate the text, when I try to ask it to be something, or to ask it to fit into some sort of structure, or when I ask it to compliment my ego, or all of these things. That's really where all my problems start from. Where it's going very well, is where I have sort of surrendered to it, you know, where I am behind the text, and I am watching, like a dancer who's following another dancer, and just watching where it might go next. All I want to be is, I want to be as ready and as available as possible for it. That seems to me all I really need to do.”

Hisham Matar (1970) American writer

at 42:00.
Blue Metropolis Festival (2013)

Problem

“If you're watching everybody, you're watching nobody.”

John Gilmore (1955) Internet activist, software programmer and contributor to the GNU project

As quoted in Subject: <nowiki>[IP http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200303/msg00427.html</nowiki> John Gilmore on government trustworthiness and spy gear]

“I watched the living soldiers pass by the dead at the roadside without a glance, and the dead scarcely looked human. They resembled wax mannequins thrown from a show window, lying about in grotesque, inhuman postures, arms pointing toward the sky, legs frozen as though they were running. Their faces were bloodless, waxy white.”

Larry LeSueur (1909–2003) American journalist

Twelve Months That Changed the World ( Google Books link http://books.google.com/books?id=Emc1AQAAIAAJ&q), A.A. Knopf, 1943. Twelve Months That Changed the World (1943)

Lying, Dead

“I had looked forward
to old age as a time
of quietness, a time to draw
my horizons about me,
to watch memories ripening
in the sunlight of a walled garden.
But there is the void
over my head and the distance
within that the tireless signals
come from. And astronaut
on impossible journeys
to the far side of the self
I return with messages
I cannot decipher.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"The New Mariner", p. 99
Between Here and Now (1981)

Age, Memory, Time, Drawing

“There are three [Apple Watch] lineups that range in price from "just" $350 for an Apple Sport stripper model with low-end materials to an astonishing $17,000 for an 18 karat gold silly version. As I noted on Twitter, this isn't consumer electronics anymore. It's consumerism run amok.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Apple Event Recap: Apple Watch, MacBook, and Apple TV http://thurrott.com/mobile/1927/apple-event-recap-apple-watch-macbook-and-apple-tv in Thurrott - News & Analysis for Tech Enthusiasts (9 March 2015)

Sport

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. … I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain”, p. 130-132.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Arizona and New Mexico: On Top," & "Arizona and New Mexico: Thinking Like a Mountain"

Death, God, Fear, Exercises

“The Kiss scene was attempted three times. The first was in a peculiar spot of the fort on the ground level. It felt forced to me, and I knew right away that, in spite of what others were saying, it was dead wrong. The next day at work, I went straight to Daniel and told him so, saying something to the effect that "It was my fault". We told Michael my opinion (and this was unusual), he thought it over, watched dailies (which we were not allowed to see) and came back and said "You're right".”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Mohican Press interview (2005)

Kiss, Time, Dead

“I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

The Perimeter of Ignorance, Natural History Magazine, November 2005, 2010-12-07 http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance, 2000s

World, Travel, Understanding

“Double, treble, quadruple bubble, watch the stock market get into trouble…”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Grim Tuesday (2004), p. 75.

“Lionel: Mrs. Simpson, don't you worry. I watched Matlock in a bar last night; the sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it.”

Phil Hartman (1948–1998) Canadian American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist

On the Simpsons, Lionel Hutz

Thinking, Night

“So I was watching this one show where - there's a guy on stage and he pretends he has contact with the dead and spirits talk to him…[Some people in the audience give suggestions, one of which is Crossing Over. ] Crossing–…no, no, no, no, no, it was, uh, church. It was church.”

David Cross (1964) American comedian, writer and actor

It's Not Funny

People, Guy, Dead

“How could I stand by and watch my house on fire? (This quote, and the one following, were part of his defence for joining Sitiveni Rabuka's military government in 1987).”

Kamisese Mara (1920–2004) President of Fiji

concerning the 1987 coups and their aftermath The Fiji Sun http://www.sun.com.fj/.

Quotes, Parting, Housing

““You’ve behaved very highhandedly, Captain Mallory. Is that the custom out here?”
“The custom is, sir, that those who know a situation handle it and those who don’t watch and learn, or get out of the way.””

C. J. Cherryh book Downbelow Station

Book 1, Chapter 4 (p. 34)
Downbelow Station (1981)

Way, Learning

“He (Khizr M. Khan) was, you know, very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. But plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet. And it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that. And personally, I watched him. I wish him the best of luck.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)

People, Guy, Personality

“Whoever is in charge of my Wikipedia, all right, whoever you are - the major, most egregious thing in there isn't that, you know, apparently I'm bisexual and have like, twenty kids and that I learned everything I know from a sixteen-year-old who probably wrote that in himself, but the most egregious of all the errors is that it says I am a massive David Bowie fan, which is true, but it is a gross omission to leave out my obsession with Prince. Absolutely. So whoever you are, throw that in there. Go for it. You know what? Make me eighty feet tall. And, you know, make me a transsexual. But put in Prince. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwCmFH3Xz68 "Patrick's Tour of L. A. from FoE]"”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

YouTube.com

Error, Learning

“[It's a] really smart, faithful adaptation of the book. The book is such a tight page-turner… The character I play is an extreme guy… He's a killer. He wants to be Jesse James. He grew up watching cowboy and Indian movies and wants to be that. Then he meets Mickey Rourke's character, who's named The Black Bird and he wants to partner up with him and be a criminal and kill people. He's a psychotic and very bad guy… The thing about him is, he's not the bad killer, the kind of guy that sits and stews and then has these rageful outbursts. He is this extreme extrovert who never shuts up and tells you ridiculously tall tales about himself and mythologizes everything… Hyperactive, hyper, hyper guy wearing cowboy boots.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981) American actor, director, producer, and writer

IGN, March 30, 2006 - about his role in Killshot

People, Books, Faith, Guy

“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, 'cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. – I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

Religion, Mood, Science

“[Her birth] was the best moment of my life, by far, and it didn't do it justice watching it on Skype…When I saw my child for the first time it just switched the switch, you know. That's when you realise you love something more than you love yourself.”

Sonny Bill Williams (1985) New Zealand rugby player and heavyweight boxer

Williams on birth of his first child. Noble name for SBW's baby http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11369071, by Rachel Glucina, NZ Herald, dated 5 December 2014.

Love, Life, Justice, Birth

“An independent nation cannot function without its own national language. That English should be replaced by our own language as a patriotic necessity. But so far as University education is concerned at any rate, it appears prudent to delay the change-over until our linguistic consolidation has proceeded further and our own languages have become more adequately equipped with the machinery of modern learning,- encyclopedias, dictionaries, reference books, treatises, text books, and a widely intelligible vocabulary of technical terms of modern science … the most elaborate code of ethical conduct that anyone could draw up cannot go much beyond the simple exhortation of The Upanishad’s Satyam vada, Dharmam cara [speak the truth, act nobly]. These should be the watch-words of our public and private life.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

In his convocation address at the Sri Venkateshwara University, at Tirupathi, quoted in "Jayachamaraja Wodeyar – A Princely scholar".

Life, Truth, Books, Education

“I still have no desire to own [an Apple Watch], or even any desire to go to the Apple store and look at one or hold one in my hand. … The only question, it seems to me, is this: At what point can Apple Watch be declared a swing and a miss?”

Daniel Lyons (1960) American writer

I can’t get excited about the Apple Watch http://goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/8481697-i-can-t-get-excited-about-the-apple-watch in Goodreads (3 June 2015)

Question

“Love has made me a fool;
It set me on fire and watched as I floundered,
Unable to speak
Except to cry out and wait for your answer.
But you come around in your time,
Speaking of fabulous places.
Create an oasis;
Dries up as soon as you're gone.
You leave me here burning
In this desert without you.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Stupid
Song lyrics, Afterglow (2003)

Love, Fools, Time, Waiting

“I like Monty, I'd like to sit with my arm round him on the sofa all night watching documentaries on BBC Four.”

Ben Dirs journalist

England v West Indies 1st Test, 2007-17-05, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/6672179.stm,

Night

“And after tea, we play Junior Scrabble. We are the ideal nuclear family. We eat together, we play improving board games instead of watching television, we smile alot. I fear that at any moment I may kill somebody.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

How to Be Good (2001)

Fear, Family, Smile, Game

“In using the terms play and playfulness, I do not intend to suggest any lack of seriousness; quite the contrary. Anyone who has watched children, or adults, at play will recognize that there is no contradiction between play and seriousness, and that some forms of play induce a measure of grave concentration not so readily called forth by work.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 30

Children

“If the kind of controversy which so often springs up between modernism and traditionalism in religion were applied to more commonplace affairs of life we might see some strange results. …It arises, let us say, from a passage in an obituary notice which mentions that the deceased had loved to watch the sunsets from his peaceful country home.. …it is forgotten that what the deceased man looked out for each evening was an experience and not a creed.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Love, Life, Peace, Religion

“If you and I shall, like the believing shepherds, watch and long for His appearing, one day we, too, shall hear a music grander and sweeter even than the song of angels, when the great Composer shall transpose all the strains of earth from the minor into the major, when the wail of nature shall give way to the glad harmony of the everlasting jubilee.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 555.

Music, Angels, Way, Nature

“I am concerned about information and technical processes that affect the change in human behavior, the changing forms of interaction between people. Mankind is in a hectic state, and the concentration of people’s attention exclusively on their internal thinking processes is transformed into a permanent meditative state in which people remain even when they go out and appear in public. I’ve watched it many times. These changes will ultimately change humans, and such people as me or you, most probably, will cease to exist. There will be others, and we will most likely be the last of Homo sapiens.”

Nicholas Ovcharov (1988) Ukrainian writer and film director

"The Interaction: modern media art in Ukraine" in EMPR (19 March 2018) https://empr.media/culture/movie/the-inetraction-modern-media-art-in-ukraine/

People, Behavior, Thinking, Appearance

“I made the mistake of watching "A. I." on cable the week they showed it about 792 times, and I ended up watching it every time it was on.”

Joe Bob Briggs (1953) American film critic, writer, and actor; alter ego of John Bloom

A.I. review http://www.joebobbriggs.com/drivein/2003/AI.html

Time

“Last week, i… i extended a hand to the WWE Universe in a much needed intervention. You know, i don't know if you people know this or not, but i'm not the only one who knows that pills and cigarettes and alcohol are harmful. Medical science has proven this, so there's a surgeon general put in place to put warning labels on all of these products. I guess he's just there to warn the smart people that already know, huh? This is my crusade, and i will continue my crusade for as long as there are people who need help, as long as there are people out there who need change in their lives. One person in particular i've been helping for quite some time now, i'd like to introduce him to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you… Luke Gallows. (Gallows raises his fist) That's right, some of you may recognize him as "Festus", but that was a lifetime ago. And it's a lifetime that he'd just as soon regret. It's a lifetime of torturous drug abuse and neglect, you see, it started just like it started for all of you people, one, one little pill. Just one little pill to take the edge off, one painkiller. And then one turns to two, two turns to four, four turns to eight, so on and so forth. And sure, his friends, his family were there, but they enabled him. They didn't help him, they thought they were but they were slowly rotting him from the inside out. But then i helped him, just like i could help all of you. Trust me, this is just the start, this doesn't end here, it begins here and now. I will continue to reach out and help those who can't help themselves. Holds up brown paper bag On December 1st, this is scary, people, pay attention. On December 1st, a very dangerous addictive new drug hits the streets. Now this scares me because it's a socially accepted over-the-counter drug and it's gonna be widely available all over the world. And it's scary because it's more dangerous than any prescribed medication, it's more harmful than chain smoking an entire carton of unfiltered cigarettes, it is more dangerous than corroding your liver with a fifth of gin or vodka and then chasing it with your Daddy's favorite beer. (Punk pulls a Jeff Hardy DVD out of the bag) "Jeff Hardy, My Life, My Rules" And what an appropriate title, for a loser who destroyed his life and his career living by his rules. And what makes me sick to my stomach is Jeff didn't just ruin his life, he didn't just end his career. (Crowd chants Hardy) He ruined the lives of all his fans because he's planted seeds of destruction in all of the people, all of the drug addicts like yourself who actually looked up to the Charismatic Enabler like he was some sort of a prophet. Well, if you people have any brain-cells left, if there's anything left of your memory that's not burnt out, all you need to know is that the last chapter of this DVD is the most important one you need to watch because it tells the whole story. It's a cage match between myself and Jeff Hardy, where i ended Jeff's career in the WWE… FOREVER! I'm the reason he's not here! And I know how hard it is to deprogram your weak little brains from all the lies you've been fed all over the years, but you owe it to yourselves. Look yourself in the mirror, search inside yourself for that shred of self-respect that might be left, and when it comes to this, when it comes to this garbage, (Holds up DVD) just say no.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

November 27, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Alcohol, World

“It began with one pig at a British slaughterhouse. Somewhere along the production line it was observed that the animal had blisters in his mouth and was salivating. The worst suspicions were confirmed, and within days borders had been sealed and a course of action determined. Soon all of England and the world watched as hundreds, and then hundreds of thousands, of pigs, cows, and sheep and their newborn lambs were taken outdoors, shot, thrown into burning pyres, and bulldozed into muddy graves. Reports described terrified cattle being chased by sharpshooters, clambering over one another to escape. Some were still stirring and blinking a day after being shot.”

Matthew Scully (1959) American political writer and speechwriter

Dominion (2002)

World, Animals

“Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen. You know something has gone wrong when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wild-wild-west-1999 of Wild Wild West (30 June 1999) Reviews, One-star reviews

Money, Dead

“You're going to watch a person suffer in agony while somebody's debating?”

Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist

Quoted in "Physician-assisted death"‎ - Page 100 - by James M. Humber, Robert F. Almeder, Gregg A. Kasting - 1994
1990s, 1994

Suffering, Personality

“Since what unnumbered year
Hast thou kept watch and ward
And o’er the buried Land of Fear
So grimly held thy guard?”

Henry Howard Brownell (1820–1872) American writer and historian

The Sphynx (published 1864).

Fear

“I can't actually play any instrument properly. I can't read music. And here's the New York Times calling me the new George Gershwin. It was so ridiculous, really embarrassing. It was embarrassing to watch these people fall into the trap of their own critical conceits.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Musician (March 1986)

People, Music, Time, Reading

“Up until I came here this week, and I met so many women and young girls who feel, to use their word - and I'm a bit embarrassed, but it's a good word - empowered, by watching. I realized this isn't a burden, this is an honor.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

Christy Slewinski, New York Daily News (September 29, 1996) "Lucy Lawless is a Star on the Strength of 'Xena'", The Seattle Times, p. 21.

Women, Feeling, Girl

“[People] always tell me, “Weiwei, leave the nation, please.” Or “Live longer and watch them die.” Either leave, or be patient and watch how they die. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, The City: Beijing, 2011

People

“Leisure is permissible, we understand, because it costs money; idleness is not, because it doesn’t. Leisure is focused; whatever thinking it requires is absorbed by a certain task: sinking that putt, making that cast, watching that flat-screen TV. Idleness is unconstrained, anarchic. Leisure—particularly if it involves some kind of high-priced technology—is as American as a Fourth of July barbecue. Idleness, on the other hand, has a bad attitude. It doesn’t shave; it’s not a member of the team; it doesn’t play well with others. It thinks too much, as my high school coach used to say. So it has to be ostracized.”

Mark Slouka (1958) author

Quitting the paint factory: On the virtues of idleness

Money, School, Understanding, Thinking

“Trey Spruance didn't want to tour for ages. And Dean Menta has always been our guitar-roadie during Angel Dust, and I remember him playing fantastically during soundchecks. During each gig, he was watching from the side of the stage, seeing Big Jim play stuff that he could play better.”

Mike Patton (1968) American singer

"Dangerous Jokers" - (Nieuwe Revu, 17-24 May 1995)

Age, Angels

“I'm looking forward to the game because I think it will be a great spectacle. […] He's the type of guy that can pull a rabbit out of the hat every so often and I'll be watching out for that.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

28-Feb-2009
Sam Allardyce will occasionally liven games up with the odd magic trick.

Guy, Game, Thinking

“I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The "dazzling royals" have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press. It is lethal to witness. As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters. Meanwhile the British media present 24-hour coverage of the "dazzling royals", laughing as they lavishly spend, as if such coverage is certain to make British society feel fully whole. In 2012, the British public is evidently assumed to be undersized pigmies, scarcely able to formulate thought.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from a statement on the website 'True To You' 2012
In interviews etc., About politics and society

Feeling, Nature, Wealth

“We are worth more when someone looks at us. And, because of this, an eye is always watching us.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Elder Zossima, speaking to Mrs. Khoklakov
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Falseness

“My mother, whom I loved very much, had trouble with me. I had very good school certificates. But I tormented her with horribly stinky collections. It was not enough for me at home to have a dog, a cat, a canary, a fish, and even a white mouse, which loved to walk around the apartment, although it lived in a cage. I added the protozoa to this menagerie. Traditional definitions regarded these small organisms – such as, for example, amoebae, flagellates, sponges, algae – as single-celled. What in these asexually reproducing animals or plants could intrigue the little boy so much that he permanently endured this abomination (as the mother would say) home?! After all, neither the request nor the threat of this exceptionally tolerant woman, who carried out her home diligently on a daily basis, did not help. A trip to the ponds, or actually to the stagnant at Bonarka – where today is Mateczny Roundabout – were exciting for the little boy. And even more he enjoyed moments when he could watch for hours what was happening in aquariums, jars or cages.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Love, School, Dogs, Home