Thinking famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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I think maybe the English don't want to try something and look stupid, because they are a bit reserved.
-- Alain Prost -
When you win a race like this the feeling is very, very good. There have been times when I have been flat-out to finish sixth, but you can't see that from the outside. In 1980 I finished three or four times in seventh place. I pushed like mad, yet everyone was gathered around the winner and they were thinking that I was just trundling around. But that's motor racing. So in fact the only thing you can judge in this sport is the long term. You can judge a career or a season, but not one race.
-- Alain Prost -
I have no problem with the people who work hard to get success. But I think people are very jealous about success. I work very hard and they don't appreciate that.
-- Alain Prost -
Sometimes I think I could have got some better results if I had a different mentality; if I could have pushed hard and attacked. But then I would have had a good chance of making a mistake.
-- Alain Prost -
I can't see any reason why a film shouldn't be stylized and visually beautiful. I don't think a beautiful set is pretentious.
-- Alain Resnais -
When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me-I still watch silent films. I don't think that there is any such thing as an old film; you don't say, 'I read an old book by Flaubert,' or 'I saw an old play by Moliere.'
-- Alain Resnais -
Authorities arrest me, release me, and then invite me back to host public events. I think it's interesting.
-- Alain Robert -
The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.
-- Alan Alda -
When I studied how to think in school, I was taught that the first rule of logic was that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. That last note, “in the same respect,†says a lot. As soon as you change the frame of reference, you’ve changed the truthiness of a once immutable fact.
-- Alan Alda -
And I think belief is one of those things that comes to people in their own way. And just because I believe in something doesn't mean I think that you should.
-- Alan Alda -
When does she do all this thinking? We're together all the time but she thinks deeply about things and with feeling and she can remember the facts. We've been married 48 years.
-- Alan Alda -
After a while I started to think of that as an image of something that went a lot deeper than the dead dog, which is you can't bring back anything to life.
-- Alan Alda -
What then are doing if not creating a better place together? I think, for me the key has to be, what do I want to create? What is it I want to leave behind?
-- Alan Alda -
I was a child, and my mother was psychotic. She loved me, but I didn't really feel I had a mother. And when you live with somebody who is paranoid and thinks you're trying to kill them all the time, you tend to feel a little betrayed.
-- Alan Alda -
Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.
-- Alan Arkin -
I don't think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare. It keeps it more of a surprise. I don't feel like it has to be a mystery.
-- Alan Arkin -
Two-thirds of American movies are extensions of commercials -- they tell you how to feel and they tell you how to think -- rather than letting you figure it out on your own.
-- Alan Arkin -
TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn't use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not. People think they have to have an answer for everything because the guys on TV have an answer for everything. But it's bullsh**t! Reflection is crucial.
-- Alan Arkin -
A gentleman ... sleeps at his work. That's what work's for. Why do you think they have the SILENCE notices in the library? So as not to disturb me in my little nook behind the biography shelves.
-- Alan Ayckbourn -
I think of a plot, I think of an idea, and then I wonder, How can I get that onto the stage? . . . Whatever devices you use should always be there to serve the theme. If the theme has been overtaken by the device, then something's wrong.
-- Alan Ayckbourn -
I would say try to tell stories that you care about as opposed to stories that you think will sell.
-- Alan Ball -
I think vampires are a timeless powerful archetype that can tap into people's psyches.
-- Alan Ball -
I think the world is a place for oddballs and freaks. I'm only interested in oddballs and freaks as characters.
-- Alan Ball -
I'm used to American actors who have a movie career thinking television acting is beneath them.
-- Alan Ball -
In my own life, I think legends of supernatural, mythic things are really just a manifestation of the collective unconscious. So I don't really get freaked out. I mean certainly, you read about things people did to each other in the pursuit of some mystical or occult goal, and it's horrifying. But that's just human nature.
-- Alan Ball -
I think sexuality is a window into someone's soul.
-- Alan Ball -
If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
-- Alan Bennett -
Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
-- Alan Bennett -
Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life. Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.
-- Alan Bennett -
I dont know whether you've ever looked into a miner's eyes for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you've ever seen. I think perhaps that's why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
-- Alan Bennett -
Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.
-- Alan Bradley -
The spectrum on the list is very broad. It includes leftists who think that whiny liberals should be stuffed in a sack and drowned.
-- Alan Bradley -
I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal. Then when the fugitive word was least expecting it I would suddenly turn the full blaze of my attention back onto it catching the culprit in the beam of my mental torch before it could sneak off again into the darkness.
-- Alan Bradley -
Whenever I'm out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think, I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.
-- Alan Bradley -
TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.
-- Alan Bradley -
When we are young, we think life will be like a supo: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths-bits and pieces, odds and ends-people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps.
-- Alan Brennert -
Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a 'mixed plate'---a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely 'local' cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best---a whole greater than the sum of it's parts.
-- Alan Brennert -
We have all been hypnotized into thinking that we are smaller than we are. Just as an undersized flowerpot keeps a mighty tree root-bound or a little fishbowl keeps goldfish tiny, we have adapted, adjusted, and accommodated to a Lilliputian life. But place the same tree in an open field or the fish in a lake, and they will grow to hundreds of times their size. Unlike the tree or goldfish, you are not dependent on someone else to move you. You have the power to move yourself. You can step into a broader domain and grow to your full potential.
-- Alan Cohen -
Whatever you think and talk about paves the runway for what you will create.
-- Alan Cohen -
A powerful tool in the early stages of developing scenarios is to pretend the interface is magic. If your persona has goals and the product has magical powers to meet them, how simple could the interaction be? This kind of thinking is useful to help designers look outside the box.
-- Alan Cooper -
It's harder than you might think to squander millions of dollars, but a flawed software development process is a tool well suited to the job.
-- Alan Cooper -
Because computers have memories, we imagine that they must be something like our human memories, but that is simply not true. Computer memories work in a manner alien to human memories. My memory lets me recognize the faces of my friends, whereas my own computer never even recognizes me. My computer's memory stores a million phone numbers with perfect accuracy, but I have to stop and think to recall my own.
-- Alan Cooper -
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
-- Alan Coren -
I don't think there's any one definition, but to do effective political work you have to have vision and practicality, and learn how to persuade people that what you feel needs to be done does need to be done.
-- Alan Cranston -
I dont think just scaring people is enough. That worked during the freeze days to a major extent, but we really didnt achieve that much even at that time. You have to have more, you have to give people hope and a vision of a better world.
-- Alan Cranston -
My mum always told me I was precious, while my dad always told me I was worthless. I think that's a good grounding for a balanced life.
-- Alan Cumming -
It's about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message. I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?
-- Alan Cumming -
I think directing in a team is a really good idea because it stops the cult of the director as God straight away, and also you're discussing things on set so it opens it out to everyone and it becomes a totally collaborative thing. And you have someone who supports you when you're feeling a bit insecure.
-- Alan Cumming -
I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
-- Alan Cumming -
Nowadays people don't know how to handle it if all the ends aren't tied up and they're not told what to think in films. And if they're challenged, they think it's something wrong with the film.
-- Alan Cumming -
I don't avoid anyone but I always think some people hate me.
-- Alan Cumming -
So the experts think we could have an AIDS-free generation in Africa by 2015, even if the mothers are positive.
-- Alan Cumming -
For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don't think you're very good at it - which is rubbish. You're missing out here.
-- Alan Cumming -
Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.
-- Alan Cumming -
It is not hard to feel like an outsider. I think we have all felt like that at one time or another.
-- Alan Cumming -
I think people deny themselves by putting themselves into categories.
-- Alan Cumming -
I don't think it's that difficult to administer. I'm sure a sensible solution can be found.
-- Alan Curbishley -
I think that lawyers are terrible at admitting that they're wrong. And not just admitting it; also realizing it. Most lawyers are very successful, and they think that because they're making money and people think well of them, they must be doing everything right.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
I think mistakes are the essence of science and law. It's impossible to conceive of either scientific progress or legal progress without understanding the important role of being wrong and of mistakes.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
I think we have to give religion its due. I think we have to respect those for whom religion is important, but equally respect those who can achieve good morality without religion.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
The worst mistake you can make is underrating your enemy. Assuming that they're evil - I think it's a terrible thing to do.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.
-- Alan Furst -
Good people don't spend their time being good. Good people want to spend their time mowing the lawn and playing with the dog. But bad people spend all their time being bad. It is all they think about.
-- Alan Furst -
... I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of "writer's block". I was more inclined to think of it as "writer's impatience", and to follow Arthur Koestler's dictum: "Soak; and wait.
-- Alan Garner -
Well, you probably will always believe there should be laws against fraud, and I don't think there is any need for a law against fraud.
-- Alan Greenspan -
If you think you understand what I am saying you do not understand what I am saying.
-- Alan Greenspan -
You can't have the capitalist system if an increasing number of people think it is unjust.
-- Alan Greenspan -
Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.
-- Alan Greenspan -
It’s hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse. It’s not impossible, so I think there’s still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously.
-- Alan Guth -
In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend.
-- Alan Guth -
I think if Tottenham are going to be top four side, the fans and the club will need to get away from the philosophy of 'pretty football', that's got to go.
-- Alan Hansen -
I think the reality is that, that money was probably badly spent.
-- Alan Hansen -
Think of mission like the paddles of a defibrillator applied to the chest of a dying church.
-- Alan Hirsch -
I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.
-- Alan Hovhaness -
It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.
-- Alan Hovhaness -
I think if you retire from touring then people think you are retired.
-- Alan Jackson -
I mean, my voice has gotten a little deeper sounding as I've gotten older, I think. I noticed that.
-- Alan Jackson -
I always try to make the music that I like and think my fans will like.
-- Alan Jackson -
I think every album you have, especially if it's done well, you feel like you're competing with yourself.
-- Alan Jackson -
I think I've always approached making albums pretty much the same way. I'm just looking for a mixture of songs and topics that aren't the same thing over and over.
-- Alan Jackson -
The older you are, I think you realize what you enjoy and what you don't need, what wears you out and what's important.
-- Alan Jackson -
You think a lot of people get to be big stars and get a little crazy, but most of the ones I've ever met have always been surprisingly normal, and I've enjoyed that.
-- Alan Jackson -
You have to be tough-skinned and willing to accept criticism, and at the same time, just try to do music that you like and you are proud of and not just whatever you think it's going to take to get you on the radio.
-- Alan Jackson -
I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.
-- Alan Jackson -
An educated man is thoroughly inoculated against humbug, thinks for himself and tries to give his thoughts, in speech or on paper, some style.
-- Alan K. Simpson -
So let us take our fair share of the true refugees and act responsible as a government in providing for their necessary expenses. Let us stop skewing the whole process by taking some folks who are not truly refugees in order simply to meet our foreign policy needs or domestic policy demands. There has to be a better way to meet those needs and demands than we are doing now. I think it is embarrassing to all of us who truly know the mission of the Refugee Act.
-- Alan K. Simpson -
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
-- Alan Kay -
I think the trick with knowledge is to “acquire it, and forget all except the perfume†- because it is noisy and sometimes drowns out one's own “brain voicesâ€. The perfume part is important because it will help find the knowledge again to help get to the destinations the inner urges pick.
-- Alan Kay -
Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.
-- Alan Kay -
Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self-governing people requires?
-- Alan Keyes -
There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship. And I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.
-- Alan Keyes -
Sex itself only exists in relation to procreation. That's one of the reasons why I sometimes object - and it's just a theoretical objection, but it's worth thinking about - to the whole notion that one calls what people of the same sex do "sexual relations." As a matter of fact, they have precisely turned their back on sexual relations, in order to engage in acts of mutual pleasure that have nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality.
-- Alan Keyes -
[Barack] Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.
-- Alan Keyes -
Family life is the normal context in which we can learn that a life filled with thinking about others instead of ourselves is the sure road to the most fulfilling joys and satisfactions.
-- Alan Keyes -
It's like the neighborhood I would have grown up in, I think, if I had have grown up here.
-- Alan Keyes -
I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.
-- Alan King -
If you stop and think about it, nearly all great humor is at the expense of someone or something.
-- Alan King -
I think any movie star who refuses autographs has a hell of a nerve
-- Alan Ladd -
I have three tools at my disposal - my whistle, my body language and my talk. It is a question of how I marry them up to try to get the players around to my way of thinking.
-- Alan Lewis