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.
Quotes to Explore
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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.
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No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't.
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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.
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I challenged things that needed to be challenged at Purdue.
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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.
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Young people have so many letdowns that people don't realize.
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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.
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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.
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Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply.
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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.
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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.
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I came back to do a live concert. Nobody had done that before and I know my managers were worried.
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Good science fiction is always based in contemporary truths.
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The handwriting on the wall may be a forgery.
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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.
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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.
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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.'
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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.
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Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self actualization and the love for the highest values.
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My advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world - unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
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Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.
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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.
