John Shirley Quotes
I do try to be of some use in the world. I sometimes do volunteer work with kids, and manage to help some people a little, but really making a significant difference can be hard.
Quotes to Explore
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I've done some really weird gigs. The ones where no one turned up - they're probably not the interesting ones to talk about. I played some pretty random ones in L.A. I signed to play all-R&B nights or an all-comedy night where I'd be the only white person there. They were fun.
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I'd always put on little shows at home, but when I was 11, I did a community event in Woodford, where anyone could go. You had three days of vocal training and performed your song at the end. I sang 'I Say a Little Prayer.' It's a tough song to sing but they gave me the confidence to go for it and belt it out.
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I am cursed with computers; something always goes wrong.
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Nashville, I think, for me, personally, would be where I want to live and work. L.A. is a whole other world and has a whole other vibe to it, so I would like to come out here for work for a couple of months, but L.A. is just not really my scene, per se.
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It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.
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All my brothers and my dad at one point had dreadlocks.
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I am not reggae, I am me. I am bigger than the limits that are put on me. It all has to do with the individual journey.
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The thing about a failure is that it is possible to deny it forever.
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You have to find something there that relates to the characters and reality on some level.
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I studied the lives of jazz singers who would tour Europe, and... what I learned was life was big ride for them. They'd seen the dark side of humanity... but touring the world playing jazz, it was a truly carefree way of living. A great escapism, if you like.
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I just always wanted to be left alone to go into a creative space.
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I've been a big astrophysics nut since I was 12. I have always had a real soft spot for the bizarreness of quantum mechanics. But I gave up on being a scientist in high school - I'm just not that good at math.
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I got disappointed in human nature as well and gave it up because I found it too much like my own.
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I think there's something really poetic about using nuclear power to propel us to the stars, because the stars are giant fusion reactors. They're giant nuclear cauldrons in the sky.
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The nearest approach I have ever seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.
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Probably I understand very much the people who rise against injustice.
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Although my art work was heavily informed by my design work on a formal and visual level, as regards meaning and content the two practices parted ways.
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You've got to perform in a role hundreds of times. In keeping it fresh one can become a large, madly humming, demented refrigerator.
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Take the time today to understand your contribution to any bad event you've just been through.
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You want to make a record that stands the test of time and that people enjoy.
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I'm just not comfortable with that society stuff. I mean, we were just invited to the White House, but my husband won't take me because he knows I don't want to go.
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The United States government can indict you on something, and now you've got to prove your innocence. And that's not the Constitution of the United States.
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None but a people advanced to a high state of moral and intellectual excellence are capable in a civilized condition of forming and maintaining free governments, and among those who are so far advanced, very few indeed have had the good fortune to form constitutions capable of endurance.
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I do try to be of some use in the world. I sometimes do volunteer work with kids, and manage to help some people a little, but really making a significant difference can be hard.
