Paul Merton Quotes

The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear.

Paul Merton

• Listening
• Improvisation

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Quotes to Explore

• I don't have a phone, but I do have an iPad.

  

  Malala Yousafzai
  • Phone
  • iPad

• Working with special needs children is hard.

  

  Laura Linney
  • Children
  • Working
  • Special

• I wouldn't just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.

  

  Zac Efron
  • People
  • Time
  • Good

• Cartooning was a good fit for me. And yet now, years later, I almost never think about it.

  

  Gary Larson
  • Good
  • Think
  • Me

• I love the way soft white cheese such as ricotta or the creamier mascarpone reflect the milieu in which an animal has been raised.

  

  Yotam Ottolenghi
  • Way
  • Animal
  • Reflect

• I was very fortunate in my gene mix. The gambling instincts I inherited from my father were matched by my mother's gift for analysis.

  

  T. Boone Pickens
  • Mother
  • Father
  • Gift

• You don't want people thinking you're a cheat just because you're really fast and have broken the world record by a second.

  

  Adam Peaty
  • People
  • World
  • Thinking

• People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.

  

  A. C. Benson
  • People
  • Help
  • Wisdom

• Two cheers for Democracy; one because it admits variety, and two because it permits criticism.

  

  E. M. Forster
  • Democracy
  • Criticism
  • Cheers

• Most of those coming from the mainland are very destitute, almost naked. I am trying to find places for those able to work, and provide for them as best I can, so as to lighten the burden on the Government as much as possible, while at the same time they learn to respect themselves by earning their own living.

  

  Harriet Tubman
  • Time
  • Work
  • Trying

• Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

  

  Walter Pater
  • Experience
  • End
  • Fruit

• I was trying to be Mary Tyler Moore. I loved her in 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.'

  

  Vicki Lawrence
  • Trying
  • Loved
  • Show

• I did not come to NASA to make history.

  

  Sally Ride
  • History
  • Did
  • NASA

• The other day, someone called me this generation's Bruce Dern - I'd never thought of that, and frankly, I don't know enough of Bruce Dern's work to comment on it, though he is an incredible actor.

  

  Garret Dillahunt
  • Work
  • Day
  • Thought

• I think when I first started out making music here in Los Angeles, a lot of people were really curious about my ethnicity, and you know, whatever questions they had, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

  

  Yuna
  • People
  • Music
  • Happy

• I don't get easily bored. I'm not that kind of person.

  

  Sade Adu
  • Kind
  • Person
  • Bored

• In some extremely important ways, people are what you expect them to be, or at least they behave as you expect them to behave.

  

  Naomi Weisstein
  • People
  • Important
  • You

• Too many of Disney animators, and a lot try to emulate Disney, are trying to hit what they call quality levels. They're boring mannerisms.

  

  Ralph Bakshi
  • Trying
  • Quality
  • Try

• Perhaps... some day the precision of the data will be brought so far that the mathematician will be able to calculate at his desk the outcome of any chemical combination, in the same way, so to speak, as he calculates the motions of celestial bodies.

  

  Antoine Lavoisier
  • Bodies
  • Mathematician
  • Precision

• If you try to force yourself into change, then change will never stick.

  

  Gabrielle Bernstein

• I think that when you make a record, an album, it has to be a discovery for the person listening to it, so you don't want to pat everything out and say 'this was that, this is definite, that's how it happened and that's what you should feel and that's what you should like or dislike'. It's personal discovery.'

  

  Morrissey The Smiths
  • Listening

• A bore finds it easy to start talking, and even easier to get others to stop listening.

  

  Evan Esar
  • Listening
  • Talking
  • Finds

• The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear.

  

  Paul Merton
  • Listening
  • Improvisation