Joel A. Barker Quotes
The ultimate function of prophecy is not to tell the future, but to make it. Your successful past will block your visions of the future.

Quotes to Explore
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People just decided I was an R&B artist because I'm black.
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I'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.
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Iraq did not spontaneously opt for disarmament. They did it as part of a ceasefire, so they were forced to do it, otherwise the war might have gone on. So the motivation has been very different.
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I tell young actors to do anything that will sustain them.
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If you can play live and support yourself, it's one of the few ways you're going to actually get paid in this business these days.
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Bill Clinton left office with a more than 60% approval rating.
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This is what I love to do. And if pressure is something that comes with playing good golf, that's something a professional golfer has to handle.
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My choosing Islam was not a political statement; it was a spiritual statement.
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I love thinking about the film, the project and committing myself as much as possible.
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I had to make peace with my past because I can't change it.
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I had a dream cast when Dan first went off and wrote 'Ghostbusters 3' by himself. It was so long ago that my dream cast was Ben Stiller, Chris Farley, and Chris Rock. That would have been cool. Now, a lot of time has passed, and there are a lot of young funny people.
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Gone are the days when the upper classes were terrified of the angry mob wanting to smash their skulls and confiscate their properties. Now their biggest enemy is the army of lazy bums, whose lifestyle of indolence and hedonism, financed by crippling taxes on the rich, is sucking the lifeblood out of the economy.
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I never felt like I had a mother.
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The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting-points, and by unconnected roads.
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I did grow up in a military family but lacked the perspective to grasp the cognitive dissonance carried by most people who serve in the armed forces or the circumstances that push lots of folks into the military. I don't blame G.I. Joe or Rambo for that atmosphere, but they certainly reflected the final stage of a two generation cultural myth.
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Paris can be like the land of the Lotus-Eaters. You can't leave.
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I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person.
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One-sided national economic triumphs cannot be achieved in the increasingly interwoven global economy without precipitating calamitous consequences for everyone.
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I saw 'Tootsie' with Jessica Lange when I was eight or nine. I remember feeling something in my stomach. I didn't know what it was, but I wanted to watch that movie over and over again.
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We can get more energy out of the north slope of Alaska; we have available the ability to make ourselves less dependent on those uncertain sources of supply from the Middle East. And it's important we do that.
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The only difference between a dead skunk lying in the road and a dead lawyer lying in the road is that there are skid marks around the skunk.
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When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
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The average Nigerian person has come to reconcile himself with the fact that his or her social progress remain essentially in his or her hands in collaboration with other fellow Nigerians and not merely relying on what government alone could provide for him or her.
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The ultimate function of prophecy is not to tell the future, but to make it. Your successful past will block your visions of the future.