Bryce Dessner Quotes

There is a reactionary conservative side of classical music, which is not the most exciting side of it. The side that draws me in, there's a real encouragement of risk-taking, going back to masters of that tradition like Beethoven and Bartok and Stravinsky.

Bryce Dessner The National

• Music
• Real
• Risk

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Quotes to Explore

• I guess you'd call me an independent, since I've never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.

  

  Jackie Robinson
  • Me
  • Party
  • Myself

• I took my acting very seriously. I did over 40 films, and naturally, some of them were called B-movies because the woman was at the top of the billing. Women couldn't star in their own movies.

  

  Mamie Van Doren
  • Women
  • Star
  • Woman

• One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.

  

  Idries Shah
  • People
  • Time
  • Believe

• Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

  

  Ralph Ellison
  • Looking
  • Price
  • Blindness

• I am not saying we are categorizing Ellen White in the biblical context of a false prophet.

  

  Walter Martin
  • Prophet
  • Context
  • Biblical

• In Australia, they really want to turn me into a religion. A religion! Can you imagine? The Church of Edna? Oh. I don't want to be over-revered.

  

  Barry Humphries
  • Want
  • Church
  • Religion

• When I do retire, I will miss the trips with the team, the jokes with my teammates, the habits: having breakfast with them, playing with them, all the little things.

  

  Francesco Totti
  • Team
  • Breakfast
  • Habits

• I'm not of the American ilk that, you know, your lover needs to be your best friend and know you inside out. I think he should know you well enough to please you. Otherwise, what secret will there be to tell him when you're ninety?

  

  Padma Lakshmi
  • American
  • Friend
  • Best

• Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?

  

  M. C. Escher
  • Art
  • You
  • Floor

• As the future is never known with certainty, the evaluation of the prospective benefits requires the formation of expectations. An acceptable house, partner or job, then, is one that offers an expected stream of future benefit that has a value in excess of the option to continue to search for an even better alternative.

  

  Dale T. Mortensen
  • Job
  • Future
  • House

• Dave thought he was bigger than Van Halen the band. So there was this catfight going on for 10 years.

  

  Gary Cherone Van Halen
  • Band
  • Thought
  • Years

• Fortunately, I grew up in a family that was grounded. My mother and father knew how to guide my career and look out for my best interests.

  

  Larenz Tate
  • Up
  • Family
  • Mother

• Even though I resigned as Papandreou's adviser early in 2006 and turned into his government's staunchest critic during his mishandling of the post-2009 Greek implosion, my public interventions in the debate on Greece and Europe have carried no whiff of Marxism.

  

  Yanis Varoufakis
  • Government
  • Greek
  • Debate

• When I was young, 'Scarface' was my favorite film. Al Pacino is my hero. I want to work with him.

  

  Rain
  • Work
  • Want
  • Hero

• I didn't record any additional dialogue for this CD, they are excerpts pulled from existing episodes.

  

  Tara Strong
  • Record
  • Dialogue
  • CD

• I never thought for a second that anything I ever did was going to make someone cringe. That never occurred to me.

  

  Larry David
  • Never
  • Thought
  • Occurred

• So many people in their 20s and 30s, on Twitter, say 'Please write something for us,' so I have to listen to them, they're my audience.

  

  R. L. Stine
  • People
  • Audience
  • Twitter

• I always said punk was an attitude. It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt. It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that.

  

  Malcolm Mclaren
  • Attitude
  • Creative
  • Haircut

• The public has heard the stereotypical love songs a million times, and they've heard the stereotypical life-or-death songs millions of times. It's good to mix it up a little bit.

  

  Ed Sheeran
  • Life
  • Up
  • Good

• It is a long revisionist road up from the bottom for George W. Bush. He is ranked toward the bottom rung of presidents.

  

  Douglas Brinkley
  • Up
  • Long
  • Road

• I literally make music for my wife and my friends. I don't feel beholden to my fans. I don't even really know who they are. But, I know that this whole thing started with me making stuff that I got off on, and I've gotta believe that that's how it's going to end, too. That's the only way it can go. There are a lot of artists who have gotten pretty caught up in that. That's why I like the defeatist attitude. Just assume that no one is going to like it and that no one cares, and you'll end up making something that you really like.

  

  Ben Lee
  • Music
  • Believe
  • Attitude

• Some people think they are worth a lot of money just because they have it.

  

  Fannie Hurst
  • People
  • Money
  • Think

• I get up, get coffee, and go into my home office. I check email and Twitter before I start work, but I have to try not to get too distracted.

  

  Julie Kagawa
  • Work
  • Coffee
  • Distracted

• There is a reactionary conservative side of classical music, which is not the most exciting side of it. The side that draws me in, there's a real encouragement of risk-taking, going back to masters of that tradition like Beethoven and Bartok and Stravinsky.

  

  Bryce Dessner The National
  • Music
  • Real
  • Risk