Philip Johnson Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I realized I made a big mistake and if I could have it over again, I would do it so much differently.
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I think it's always best to be who you are.
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My parents divorced when I was seven. Because divorce is messy, for good or ill, they sent me to boarding school.
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I still remember my first Giacometti exhibition, and going back to the museum every day, whenever I could, to look again and again at these long, thin stick figures, so beautiful, so graceful. That, I think, was the moment I became really obsessed by art.
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When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down and wrote 1,700 pages of sheer psychotherapy drivel. It was first person, and there would be pages about wet socks and cold feet.
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I once went to one of those parties where everyone throws their car keys into the middle of the room. I don't know who got my moped, but I drove that Peugeot for years.
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Like baseball, food will never go out of style; we will always need to eat and we will always find it entertaining. I think of food TV this way - all the fun and none of the calories.
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Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.
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One cannot be too careful in the selection of adjectives for descriptions. Words or compounds which describe precisely, and which convey exactly the right suggestions to the mind of the reader, are essential.
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I find the whole situation of confronting an audience terrifying.
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I love sitcoms, and I grew up on sitcoms. That's my tasty junk food.
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The way deals are done, every idea is looked at 50 different ways. Now, the market continues to change all the time. And we are always looking at everything in evaluating how it fits with our strategy.
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A movie is about human beings, about humanity.
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I think comedy is one of the hardest things to do.
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I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right.
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My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.
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Young people have so many letdowns that people don't realize.
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Not long ago I made a list of Doc Ford books I would like to do, and I came up with 11 pretty easily. I like to let the characters go their own ways and see what happens. I find them fascinating.
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The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
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The product of movement and counter-movement is tension. When tension - working strength - is expressed, it endows the work of art with the living effect of coordinated, though opposing, forces.
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There's always that sense of because we're so racially defined, if you're trying to cross the boundaries you don't fit into any particular space.
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Your grandfather is and will always be your hero, your inspiration. He fought in World War II, came home to Little Rock, Arkansas, and worked for 50 years as a mailman in the segregated south. Not once did he get a job promotion in five decades. But he kept working all the same.
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Architecture is the art of how to waste space.