T. H. White Quotes

Only fools want to be great.

T. H. White

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Quotes to Explore

• At one point, I had a story accepted at the 'New Yorker,' which sent off weird bells in people when I told them - 'Oh,' they thought, 'now you are a writer' - where I really had been for the last 30-odd years.

  

  Karen Bender
  • People
  • Thought
  • Weird

• You don't have to be desperate. Never be desperate. That is my slogan.

  

  Yitzhak Shamir
  • You
  • Never
  • Desperate

• There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

  

  Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Step
  • Ridiculous
  • Sublime

• I made a very slatternly mother, notably unkeen on housework, unaware that homes need to be cleaned now and then, and too often to be found with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

  

  J. G. Ballard
  • Mother
  • Hand
  • Now

• Crankiness is a human attribute that, when people walk in the door of Xerox, they remain human. The best way to get the best out of people is to not force them to be something other than they naturally are. Now what do they have to be? They have to be respectful. You can't be ridiculously disrespectful.

  

  Ursula Burns
  • People
  • Best
  • Door

• Each of the bracelets I wear is from a long trip I've taken. One is from Nicaragua. One is from Nepal. One is from Guatemala. One is from Laos. They don't come off. I walk into a lot of very high-level boardrooms now, and I present to distinguished conferences, but these bracelets remind me of the places I've been and the people I've met.

  

  Adam Braun
  • People
  • Long
  • High

• The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.

  

  Maggie Smith
  • You
  • Always
  • Better

• I consider my education to be the first 10 years of my career.

  

  Olivia Wilde
  • Career
  • Education
  • First

• I've really had two heroes in my life. My father and Ronald Reagan.

  

  Ted Cruz
  • Life
  • Father
  • My Life

• The stakes are high on every film now because there's the opening weekend. The first week is extremely crucial; increasingly, films are being judged in terms of opening day, opening weekend, then first week. People are going berserk promoting their films.

  

  Vidya Balan
  • People
  • High
  • Day

• I went to Moses Malone's golf tournament in Houston, and I've been hooked ever since.

  

  J. R. Smith
  • Golf
  • Ever
  • Houston

• Despite great advances in women's rights, statistics show that when it comes to the balance of power between the sexes, equality is far from being a global reality.

  

  Sam Taylor-Johnson
  • Great
  • Women
  • Power

• It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life.

  

  Randall Jarrell
  • Life
  • Live
  • Home

• You can involve yourself in electronics, computers, puzzles... there's a lot of creativity and brain working. There's a lot to model trains that people don't realize.

  

  Gary Coleman
  • People
  • Brain
  • Model

• I always knew where I was going eventually, so it helped me to stay at home for three years. It helped me to develop my game. But it also helped me off the ice. Life here is way different, and I was able to get older.

  

  Saku Koivu
  • Life
  • Different
  • Home

• We've gone further on this album, where we have a Big Band song, kind of a Sinatra-type song; we have a couple songs that have electronic music on them. We've got a couple rock songs, maybe a little heavier than what we've done. So the title 'Jekyll & Hyde' really covers the breadth of the record.

  

  Zac Brown Band
  • Music
  • Done
  • Song

• I think they have not learned over the years that the more you talk, the more I will want to beat you.

  

  Usain Bolt
  • Think
  • Want
  • Talk

• Chermoula is a potent North African spice paste that is ideal for smearing on your favourite vegetables for roasting.

  

  Yotam Ottolenghi
  • Vegetables
  • African
  • Spice

• I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on.

  

  Harold Prince
  • Age
  • Famous
  • Golden

• My mother, R. Rajalakshmi, taught at Annamalai University in Chidambaram, and during the day, I was well cared for by aunts and grandparents in the usual way of an extended Indian family.

  

  Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
  • Family
  • Mother
  • Day

• I know there are writers who feel unhappy with domesticity and who even manufacture domestic turmoil in order to have something to write about. With me, though, the happier I feel, the better I write.

  

  Paul Theroux

• 'Shitty things are always simple. Same as great things. Patrick Standish, in conversation.'

  

  Kingsley Amis
  • Great
  • Simple

• In this great age of communication, there a lot of people you can't actually understand. I know everyone tweets, and twits and texts and all that, but actually we've all got voices, and it is awfully nice to hear them and if you can understand what people are saying.

  

  Penelope Keith
  • People
  • Great
  • Age

• Only fools want to be great.

  

  T. H. White
  • Great