John Backus Quotes

You need the willingness to fail all the time. You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don’t work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work.

John Backus

• Ideas
• Doe
• Failing
• Willingness

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Quotes to Explore

• As far as 'Windup Girl' becoming a hit - none of us expected that. 'Night Shade' was just hoping not to lose their shirts, and I had grown up hearing from everyone that science fiction didn't sell, so all of our expectations were very low.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • Up
  • Night
  • Science

• No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't.

  

  Barbara Walters
  • Think
  • You
  • Like

• From a very young age, I wanted to get up on stage whenever I went to the theatre - the actors just seemed to be having so much fun. One of my worries about theatre, in fact, is that the actors are quite often having more fun than the audience.

  

  Olivia Williams
  • Up
  • Fun
  • Age

• I challenged things that needed to be challenged at Purdue.

  

  Earl Butz
  • Things
  • Needed
  • Challenged

• That's the great thing with the WWE. They want you to be like John Cena, they want you to be like The Rock, and they definitely give you that platform.

  

  A.J. Styles
  • Great
  • Want
  • Rock

• Young people have so many letdowns that people don't realize.

  

  Ione Skye
  • People
  • Young
  • Realize

• Famous people feel that they must perpetually be on the crest of the wave, not realising that it is against all the rules of life. You can't be on top all the time, it isn't natural.

  

  Olivia De Havilland
  • People
  • Life
  • Time

• Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Life
  • Time
  • Long

• Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply.

  

  Edmund Phelps
  • Employment
  • Economists

• I'm more comfortable writing traditional protagonists. But 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Social Network' have antiheroes. I like to write antiheroes as if they're making their case to God about why they should be allowed into heaven. I have to find something in that character that is like me and write to that.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • God
  • Writing
  • Why

• I have always been a coward as a child. I am not very brave. I am very aware of the fact that I am not very gutsy.

  

  Cai Guo-Qiang
  • Child
  • Brave
  • Coward

• I came back to do a live concert. Nobody had done that before and I know my managers were worried.

  

  Namie Amuro
  • Live
  • Done
  • Know

• Good science fiction is always based in contemporary truths.

  

  Forest Whitaker
  • Good
  • Science
  • Fiction

• The handwriting on the wall may be a forgery.

  

  Ralph Hodgson
  • May
  • Wall
  • Handwriting

• Even before I went to the UN, I often would want to say something in a meeting - only woman at the table - and I'd think, 'OK well, I don't think I'll say that. It may sound stupid.' And then some man says it, and everybody thinks it's completely brilliant, and you are so mad at yourself for not saying something.

  

  Madeleine Albright
  • May
  • Man
  • Woman

• My English was limited to vacationing and not really engaging with Americans. I knew 'shopping' and 'eating' English - I could say 'blue sweater,' 'creme brulee,' and 'Caesar salad,' - so I came here thinking I spoke English.

  

  Salma Hayek
  • Thinking
  • English
  • Blue

• People tend to treat people with disabilities sort of like they're aliens from another planet. It doesn't come from a bad place; it comes from a place of, 'I have no idea what this disability entails, and I don't want to offend anyone or make them feel awful.'

  

  Zach Anner
  • People
  • Bad
  • Want

• Hippy people had a hopeful idea of what they wanted the world to be like, then most of them changed into corporate Yuppies. But I still have that hippy thing underneath somewhere.

  

  Patricia Arquette
  • People
  • World
  • Like

• Presidents are nice people. They're nice, fun-loving people who have great jobs.

  

  Dan Jenkins
  • People
  • Great
  • Fun

• Our obsession with speed, with cramming more and more into every minute, means that we race through life instead of actually living it. Our health, diet and relationships suffer. We make mistakes at work. We struggle to relax, to enjoy the moment, even to get a decent night's sleep.

  

  Carl Honore
  • Life
  • Work
  • Night

• Things like email, and Twitter, and Facebook, and text messaging - they all work reasonably well. But we use them because they're convenient, and cheap, and easy, not because they're the best way to communicate with somebody.

  

  Palmer Luckey
  • Work
  • Text

• One of the main reasons for the existence of philosophy is not that it enables you to find truth (it can never do that) but that it does provide you a refuge for definitions.

  

  T. E. Hulme
  • Truth
  • Philosophy
  • Doe

• You can't give it to others if you don't have it in yourself.

  

  Oprah Winfrey
  • Yourself
  • Give It

• You need the willingness to fail all the time. You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don’t work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work.

  

  John Backus
  • Ideas
  • Doe
  • Failing