Quite Quotations

The choices we make lead up to actual experiences. It is one thing to decide to climb a mountain. It is quite another to be on top of it.

If you're trying to write something that you don't understand and embrace at the very core of you, it's not going to turn out with quite the authenticity and passion it should have.

When I was in high school, my uncle, who went to the races quite a bit, got me interested. Then when I went to college at Southern Illinois University, just a few hours from Louisville, we used to go to the Kentucky Derby, and I got to see Secretariat and Riva Ridge win.

I'm involved in quite a few ministries as a bridge builder, trying to match generous givers and donors to other ministries. Based on my past, I'm also involved in mainly the prison ministry. I go to jails and prisons and share my story, trying to give them some hope.

Quite casually I wander into my plot, poke around with my characters for a while, then amble off, leaving no moral proved and no reader improved.

I've wanted to be an actor for such a long time that I haven't had anything else in my thoughts. I think my family would have quite liked me to be a lawyer.

Anytime you're going to take your Marines into harm's way, they are looking for leadership that is calm, assertive, sure of themselves. And quite honestly, I don't think that some of these young Marines care if it's a male or a female. They just want to be properly led.

I struggle with reading a bit. I'm slightly dyslexic, so reading takes me quite a while, and in general, I'm not a big book reader at all. And something like 'Game of Thrones' seems very daunting to me!

It is not cowardly, quite the contrary, to seek to meet the adversary and know his intentions. However, it is cowardly, shameful and treasonable to lay down arms.

Puberty was not kind to me. I had acne, eczema and had a stye in my eye, so it was quite hard to go in to somewhere where the majority were boys. At that age, they were quite vocal about what they thought of your looks.

As a kid, I was growing up in an era of celebration of the Civil War centennial, with a lot of 'Lost Cause' emphasis on the Confederacy. I used to play Civil War soldiers with my brothers as a child, and my older brother always insisted that he got to be Lee, and I got be Grant. I never knew that Grant won until quite some time had passed.

Once you're in the military, she means a lot more to you than just a grandmother. She is the queen. And then you suddenly, it's like start realizing, you know, wow, this is quite a big deal. And then you get goose bumps and then the rest of it.

I am only satisfied insofar as I feel 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' is a definite progress, but even about this picture I am not quite satisfied. There is still too much of the old in it.

I write about people who are usually damaged or neglected by society finding each other and forming relationships that are quite extraordinary and in some cases life-saving. I've had a few of those relationships, which I value highly.

Character robotics could plant the seed for robots that actually have empathy. So, if they achieve human level intelligence or, quite possibly, greater than human levels of intelligence, this could be the seeds of hope for our future.

It's been quite a ride. I loved every minute of it.

Parliament must not be told a direct untruth, but it's quite possible to allow them to mislead themselves.

The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.

I got introduced to Maps by my label, and I liked his sound. I had been living with the original version of 'Younger' for quite a long time when I heard the result of his remix, and I loved it. It actually made me find a new love for the track.

I see Vostok-6 quite often in the centre for cosmonaut training. And every time I pass it by, I stroke it and say, 'My lovely one, my best and most beautiful friend, my best and most beautiful man.'

I'm quite a rational person, but I'm drawn to the irrational. I love coincidences, and I like to question that in fiction: 'Is this random, or is there something working underneath?'

I've been quite lucky in that I've managed to tick off a few of my dream roles, really. Beyond that, you wait for the next script to come in that will have the dream role that you don't know exists yet, I suppose.

I definitely want to be a mum. Lots of my friends are having babies, but I don't know quite when to do it. My mum says, 'There's never a right time; you've just got to get on with it'.

Although I didn't set out to run my own label, I found it made sense quite quickly. I can say what I want and dance to my own tune, even if sometimes it's like nobody is listening. The trade-off is you stay 'cult' and resign yourself to a very modest level of what most people would call success.

When I went back and watched a couple of the older 'Doctor Who' episodes, I could see why some people felt the show had been quite sexist.

Sunrise offered a very beautiful spectacle; the water was quite unruffled, but the motion communicated by the tides was so great that, although there was not a breath of air stirring, the sea heaved slowly with a grand and majestic motion.

I tried singing. I tried playing a musical instrument. I really wanted to be a musician, but I never could quite pull that off. I liked entertaining, but I was always drawn to some kind of technical work - some kind of honest labor.

The supermarket chain Whole Foods has quite a radical employee empowerment program, where employees get to decide whether another employee can work in their team or not. If they think this person's a slacker, doesn't have good ideas, they can vote and say, no, we don't want this person to be working with us on the vegetable aisle.

Foreign languages was the only thing that interested me when I was at school, so playing in another language... it is quite demanding because if it is not your mother tongue, you are missing some connotations and some emotional depth of certain things.

We write in ways that, we generally hope, reflect real life, or at least look familiar to humans. And in life, recurring themes are a recurring theme. We never quite conquer a pet vice or a relationship pattern or a communication habit. We're haunted by our particular demons.

More attention and thought goes into naming a character in 'Call Of Duty' than all the work that can go into certain movies. Blood and sweat and tears go into figuring out the names because they are so important. The call signs say a lot about you. The brotherhood that's evoked by the name is quite profound.

The world changes, but I want that change to be necessary or respectful of what has happened before. Everything changes, and that's quite right.

But he did say that the character would be on the sidelines in movies One and Two, and move into the middle with number Three, but I didn't realize he would move in with quite such a bang.

In masks outrageous and austere, The years go by in single file; But none has merited my fear, And none has quite escaped my smile.

This job certainly doesn't win you a huge amount of friends, I accept that, but it is very enjoyable, and deep down I think it's probably quite a worthwhile job.

I don't know... I think I'm quite extreme... When I act, I have to immerse myself into the character... otherwise I can't act... In my private life it's the same... I think.

I do my work and do the best I can. I'm quite happy with my anonymity. All I can ever hope for is that I continue to do great work that will be remembered, and I leave my imprint so that my son can say proudly, 'That's my dad!'

I've actually got quite a good memory. I've good recall. It's often things which other people might not notice.

Rugby gave me a confidence. I was quite shy and relatively timid, but it gave me the confidence to be a little bit more out-going and back myself a bit more.

To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.

Not everything that happens in an in-person classroom is currently replicated with an online course, and perhaps the experience will never be the quite the same. But there are new opportunities that online learning opens up that would have never been possible without this technology.

Nervousness was never something I would ever associate with the Beatles ever. A Hard Day's Night was relatively unscathed by marijuana, but even then they were quite relaxed about it.

I feel more and more like 'myself' these days. Before becoming a father, I can remember a low-level feeling of somehow not quite being myself.

This new thing about liking yourself, I find that absolutely appalling. Anyone who likes themselves, I just can't go too close to them. To me it's pure stupidity. But having some peace with yourself, that's quite a relief.

In Britain, there's kids who grew up in London and then kids who didn't. You become quite street wise. It's such a big city, and everyone is moving and trying to get on with their lives. You don't have the everyday village quality like, 'Hello, how are you? Would you like your tea?' It's more like, 'Get out my way.' But I'm very proud of London.

Listening back to your speaking voice for the first time, unless you're James Earl Jones, it's a quite distressing process for most people.

I'm quite proud of growing up in New Zealand where, from quite early on in primary school, you're learning to count in Maori, Maori mythology and dances and colours and history, and I think that gives a child a really good grounding.

I was quite convinced that I didn't want to be a lawyer. But I felt that law school would be a useful way to understand public policy and to understand business in this environment.

'Ender's Game' is fantastic, and I've gotten to see quite a few bits, and I love the way it's turned out.

Older generations of Wi-Fi weren't quite robust enough to deliver video in the home without breaking up and losing packets and so forth. 5G Wi-Fi gives you extended reach, extended data rates, and more robust coverage.

It was quite difficult to find a place to do what we wanted, namely to study the neurological basis of behaviour and especially learning and memory, which we were particularly interested in.

Education never really interested me, to be fair. I mean, education does interest me, but academic school study is a different thing. I can't quite grasp that.

I think in terms of the parents that I had, I sort of drew a bad hand, or bad karma; who knows? And I did have a family that was complicated, with some quite eccentric members. So there was a lot of grist there.

The reason I always loved 'The Omen' so much, and what has always been scariest to me, is anything to do with God. Anything to do with God is quite frightening because fear is something that's very much expressed in a church environment, and I grew up in one. And the fear of God was very much instilled me at a very young age.

We in Scotland need fiscal responsibility. Quite simply, we need to be responsible for what we raise in tax and what we spend in tax.

Quite often you hear people say, 'What about separation of church and state?' There is no such thing.

The contents of the massive banks behind these successive revetments makes it quite clear that the material was derived from the incorporation of earlier occupation levels.

It's quite amazing what 3D is doing to movies. Just simple things like a paper plane flying at you or flower petals fluttering about are wonderful.

My character in 'Fresh Meat' is quite prim and tidy, and then I basically had no make-up for the whole shoot of 'Kidnap and Ransom' - apart from a bit of Vaseline to make me look even sweatier!

It's quite fashionable to say that the educational system is broken. It's not broken. It's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore.

There's no one quite like William - I bet he's really kind. You can just tell by looking at him.

Also, from a technical point of view, as you're standing in front of a microphone all day, it's quite a good idea that I should play a laid back sort of character because if he was too frenetic, I'd be exhausted by lunch!

That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It's the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think, total involvement and identity and empathy, stopping short of being autobiographical - in my case, anyway - but also quite detached.

I tend to prioritize emotional realism above the known laws of time and space, and when you do that, it's inevitable that strange things happen. Which can be quite enjoyable, I think.

Our all-volunteer force continues to prove itself with a great level of professionalism, personal commitment and a technical competence that is quite remarkable.

I joined the after-school club, School of Comedy, which progressed wildly, and in quite a Hollywood way. It sounds like 'School of Rock', right up to trying to raise money to pay for a venue in Edinburgh.

It's jarring to go from one amazing experience to another that feels ordinary. I don't quite know how to explain it. You see the uniqueness of what you've been doing, and disassociating yourself from it and going back to the 'normal' life is tough.

I think we're probably only about halfway through the number of revelations. I'm pretty certain there will be quite detailed stuff on other uses of covert surveillance. I suspect that emails will be the next scandal. And devices that track people moving around. That's just starting to come out.

Every business I don't know, if I spend enough time - a couple of months - I will know a lot. I know quite a lot about football now. I know the value of players, and we won't do stupid things.

I'd say I'm quite powerful so I'm not afraid of jumps or acrobatic elements. The hardest part is... get on the beam and stay there on top of it!

I would have loved to have been a footballer like my great uncle Matt Busby, but I knew quite early on that I wasn't going to make the grade. Luckily I was told by the age of 13 that I wasn't good enough. That's not a bad thing. You see this 'X Factor' generation of kids now who don't accept that they're not good enough.

That taught me one lesson which is that you're naive to believe that bands can change the world. Bands are very naive to think that just if their audience thinks that they can change the world, that they can. That was quite a lesson for my career, really.

I grew up in Muenchen where my father has been a professor for pharmaceutic chemistry at the university. He had studied chemistry and medicine, having been a research student in Leipzig with Wilhelm Ostwald, the Nobel Laureate 1909. So I became familiar with the life of a scientist in a chemical laboratory quite early.

Without siblings you get quite a skewed vision of yourself and of the world. I always felt I didn't understand how it worked. I remember feeling quite lonely.

I always wanted to be an actor, so part of me is split between the artistic side and the physical side, but then physically I was just born as quite a healthy specimen!

When we made that album with Gary Moore, I was still kind of searching for the right direction for myself. Although the music is quite good the direction was like a box of fireworks that caught light all at the same time.

I grew up in East Germany, so we had to learn Russian in school... everybody hated it. I never thought it would come in handy... And being an actor, I've been able to use it quite a bit.

Parenting girls makes you quite gender-conscious - it's almost impossible to fight the power of pink. It's not such a terrible thing to want to be a princess when you're five, but it would be nice if there were some other options.

It's funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. They're usually quite nice comparisons; I will accept those gladly. But I am always sort of appalled at the idea of being lumped with other, more chick-y female writers. And the truth is probably that neither comparison is accurate.

I knew from an early age that people didn't see the different sides of me. I formulated a kind of bi-cultural identity quite early, and I was always very comfortable with it, but I knew people didn't quite see that.

I find the presence of the sea quite inspiring, and sometimes I do just get out and walk around and take in the sea breeze to try and clear my mind.

For ten years, I went to piano lessons. I don't think I'm a very musical person, and the theory quite defeated me, but I had a freak aptitude for Debussy and Ravel.

I wasn't, you know, Mr. Popular. I was somewhere in the middle ground. I was quite alternative, the things I liked to do. Skateboarding, at the time. Playing in a band as opposed to playing in the rugby team. You know, that kind of thing.

I don't like to be too submissive in the way I dress. I like quite boyish things, so I hardly ever wear high heels.

I'm tired of being in a band, but I do want to continue making records and performing, at least a little bit. Making the records isn't always fun. It's fun to be finished with them. Making beautiful things can be quite painful.

I find running life quite hard, and I like sharing that. Obviously, the companionship, being loved and loving, is fantastic. But I don't feel that I couldn't live without a boyfriend or lover or husband.

Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. I might define God quite differently from the way some people in the Christian faith would do so, but I do not doubt the reality of that experience.

In medical school, it's quite possible to get taught that you can diagnose everybody and treat everything. But then you get out in the real world and find that for most patients walking through your door, you have no idea what's causing their symptoms.

There is actually quite a lot of crossover between the quacks and drug companies. They use the same tricks and tactics to bamboozle people into buying their pills, but drug firms can afford to use slightly more sophisticated versions.

I was black and blue for about two years, but it's paid off tremendously. You know, if you get enough whacks, your reflexes pick up, and I've become quite good - if somebody throws keys or something, I can catch them.

Asylum was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.

I am quite convinced now... that the actual training of drawing cartoons - which is, of course, my style - led to my producing Spot. Cartoons must be very simple and have as few words as possible, and so, too, must the 'Spot' books.

I do love doing stunts; I was in a film called 'The Quiet Ones,' which was quite a spooky film, and I had to be hung upside down, which was good.

I've reread 'The Secret Garden' every year as an adult. I have a battered copy on my bookshelf - it's really quite a mess! The experience of reading the novel keeps deepening for me.

The feather was a thing, when I was a kid, we used to find feathers around the house, and whenever we found them, my mum used to say it was my nan leaving them around for us to find, so that was quite sweet.

As a teenager, rather than setting myself on a course to pursue fame (quite common growing up in L.A., the entertainment capital of the world), happiness, fulfillment, and spiritual enlightenment (also quite common), I skipped right on to trying to be successful. 'Let's just get on with it,' I felt. 'Onward' became my motto.

While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.

Sometimes when you film, you can be in a bit of a bubble, and then suddenly when you finish filming, it's taken out of your hands - it's not yours anymore, and we all love it so much that we feel quite protective of it.

I was married to an Italian, and my son was born there. I've got lots of connections there, and I lived in the north, in the country about an hour outside of Milan, for quite a few years. I speak fluent Italian.

I should tell you that many people think that authors just cut and paste from real life into books. It doesn't work quite that way.