Sidney Lumet (Sidney Arthur Lumet) Quotes
In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.
Quotes to Explore
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Everyone thinks I land in a chopper on top of my building and I have the most cushy existence. Could you understand that I might have the most messed up life myself?
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You can't be a first-world economy in the 21st century if you haven't laid the groundwork to seize the opportunities.
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I think you need brains to do any Shakespeare with any authority. I could do Shakespeare, but not with any authority.
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The formula for achieving middle-class success is simple: Finish high school; don't have a child before the age of 20; and get married before having the child.
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We don't need bigger government. We need to shrink the size of government.
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I always tell people I went to the Harvard School of Comedy in front of America.
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Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.
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Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down.
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I like to razz the Trekkies a little bit. Who doesn't? It's trainspotting, isn't it? But they are very well-meaning, actually. I've done a couple of Star Trek conventions, and they've only been really welcoming.
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The gravest risks from al Qaeda combine its affinity for big targets and its announced desire for weapons of mass destruction.
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My work on human capital began with an effort to calculate both private and social rates of return to men, women, blacks, and other groups from investments in different levels of education.
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It's hard to say conversation has become a minimal thing, because look at the rise of mobile communications in the last 10 years. It used to be only the president had a mobile phone. Now everyone on earth, even if they have nothing else, they have a cell phone.
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To expect for me to be one-way every time you see me is to expect me to be a one-dimensional man, which I've never been. I've always applauded my efforts to be diverse and multi-faceted.
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It's not what you wear it's how you wear it, is what I say.
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I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers,' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?
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Let us together create the new building of the future, which will be everything in one form: architecture and sculpture and painting.
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If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she'd get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don't mean she wouldn't pay the bank, but the children always came first.
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I'd been living in the tunnel for about three months before the idea came up about making the film and really became good friends with the people.
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Every story makes a promise to the reader. Actually, two promises, one emotional and one intellectual, since the function of stories is to make us both feel and think.
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Parsi theater was known for melodrama.
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There is so much inherent drama in the matter of change. Disappointment in yourself and others, coping with the fact that life is essentially shipwreck, becoming a person you yourself could not imagine yourself to be, for good and for bad, and then ultimately there is the basic matter of loss.
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Wrestling is a fraternity, and the boys will work their butts off for you as long as you respect them and don't lie. You can't anyone walk all over you or everybody will walk all over you.
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In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.
