John Lithgow Quotes
I've said no to a lot of things I'd like to have done. My agent has never seen anything like it.
Quotes to Explore
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Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.
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In social policy, when we provide a safety net, it should be designed to help people take more entrepreneurial risks, not to turn them into dependents. This doesn't mean that we should be callous to the underprivileged.
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In many of my plays, there was a kind of autobiographical character in the form of a son or young man.
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I didn't expect to have music as my main thing. I always thought I was going to be a lawyer. When I graduated, I was doing really well with my music in Malaysia. I had stable income, and I had really good momentum in the music industry, so I had to make a decision whether to stop that and continue being a lawyer.
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In the '80 Olympics... people expected me to win. I was good enough to win, and I made a mistake and ended up second, which is pretty good, too.
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Of course, Minneapolis, we think, 'Oh well, it's cold there, lethally cold.' But the reality is you adapt to weather... Humans are consummately adaptable creatures.
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Allowing homosexuality means allowing satanic rights.
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When people go through something rough in life, they say, 'I'm taking it one day at a time.' Yes, so is everybody. Because that's how time works.
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When you do a film, you get picked up in a car, lunch is free. Theatre is really hard, and you get absolutely no money.
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I have not fully had the opportunity to evaluate the impact of cameras in the courtroom.
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I'm completely in love with the idea of love.
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You work with some people, you see a spark in them and you can't help praising them. But everyone has their own destiny. No one can make anyone. Who reaches where and when, is all written.
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I have been in more classrooms than any legislator will ever walk into in their lives, and I see wonderful, caring, dedicated teaching out there.
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I should have liked to get married, but over many decades I have lived essentially alone. I go to sleep when I'm tired, get up when I wake up, have my food prepared when I'm hungry. I can't bear the thought that I'd have to coincide, make an effort.
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When I am angry, I pray God to swing our globe into the fiery sun and prevent the sorrows of the not-yet-born: but when I am content, I want to lie forever in the shade, till I become a shade myself.
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California lacks a lot of the rules and restrictions the East has. Every house is a different style, different material, different color. There's a lot of craziness out there.
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My father was a screenwriter, but he was also a novelist.
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If a writer doesn't do anything but give a new word to his language and, from there, maybe to other languages, I think that writer redefines the world.
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The heritage of a British actor revolves around the challenges of playing the classic roles to meet certain levels of success as an actor. In America, the heritage of an actor is based on cinema mainly.
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But when you come right down to it, the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and values. Regarding the atomic bomb project.
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You've got to eat while you dream. You've got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that.
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I'm going to be doing solo stuff. The idea is to do 'small' and 'off my beaten path,' or go back to an old, beaten path - do some smaller things that I haven't done in 15 or 20 years. Just to sort of get my feet wet, because I haven't done my own material for a couple of years - I've been doing a lot of other things.
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I've said no to a lot of things I'd like to have done. My agent has never seen anything like it.
