Michael Dirda Quotes

I have now and again tried to imagine the perfect environment, the ideal conditions for reading: A worn leather armchair on a rainy night? A hammock in a freshly mown backyard? A verandah overlooking the summer sea? Good choices, every one. But I have no doubt that they are all merely displacements, sentimental attempts to replicate the warmth and snugness of my mother's lap.

Michael Dirda

• Environment
• Choices
• Imagine
• Conditions
• Sentimental
• Warmth
• Lap
• Backyards
• Replicate
• Armchair
• Hammocks

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Quotes to Explore

• We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.

  

  M. H. Abrams
  • Problem
  • Environment
  • Military

• I went to a Steiner School, which is very small and nurturing and creative, so I felt like I was in an environment where I could mature. There was less of the clique-y stuff, which can really make high school a living hell for a lot of people, going on, so I was very similar then to who I am now. I'm still a dork.

  

  Zoe Kravitz
  • School
  • Small
  • Environment

• The childhood poverty of both my parents and their minimal education did much to influence me and my two younger brothers in our education and career choices. One brother became a dentist and the other, a professor of anthropology with a Ph.D. degree.

  

  Ferid Murad
  • Career
  • Parents
  • Education

• As in any technological revolution, there will be winners and losers. On balance, everyone will come out ahead, although there will be particular companies that will not be able to cope with a new environment.

  

  Ralph Merkle
  • Environment
  • Balance
  • Revolution

• I can't imagine working without and audience.

  

  Bea Arthur
  • Working
  • Imagine
  • Without

• In terms of competitiveness of new global environment, Kenya will have absolutely no choice but to tackle the most important constraint to its development: it has been corruption.

  

  Obiageli Ezekwesili
  • Important
  • Environment
  • Corruption

• The challenge as we saw in the Nigerian project was to restructure the economy decisively in the direction of a modern free market as an appropriate environment for cultivation of freedom and democracy and the natural emergence of a new social order.

  

  Ibrahim Babangida
  • Free
  • Freedom
  • Environment

• Our experience in fooling around with the genes of mice has taught us that many of the traits that interest us are not definite products of specific mutations but emergent phenomena arising from extremely complex interactions between genes, environment, and life experience.

  

  Gary Wolf
  • Life
  • Experience
  • Environment

• It is futile for an artist to try to create an environment because you have an environment around you all the time. Any living organism has an environment.

  

  Carl Andre
  • Time
  • Environment
  • Artist

• It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego.

  

  Taylor Hackford
  • You
  • Fighting
  • Choices

• For whatever reason, maybe it's because of my story, but people associate Livestrong with exercise and physical fitness, health and lifestyle choices like that.

  

  Lance Armstrong
  • People
  • Health
  • Choices

• Scientific and technological 'solutions' which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself are of no benefit, no matter how brilliantly conceived or how great their superficial attraction.

  

  E. F. Schumacher
  • Great
  • Environment

• Circumstances will determine what I term the survival value of humankind’s moral compass. Being highly moral in an immoral environment will almost certainly be detrimental to one’s survival and vice versa.

  

  Nayef Al-Rodhan
  • Value
  • Environment
  • Moral

• Every time I'm preparing a new production, I'm trying to reinvent my style and offer the audience several choices.

  

  Anthony Santos Aventura
  • Time
  • Trying
  • Style

• The more you know about somebody's back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after a while, cleverness is just really obnoxious!

  

  Constance Wu
  • People
  • Trying
  • Choices

• Senator Udall focused his entire campaign as a social-issues warrior, and that was rejected by the people of Colorado, who embraced our plan of creating jobs and opportunity, growing energy independence, looking at education opportunities for the future, and making sure we're focused on protecting this great Colorado environment.

  

  Cory Gardner
  • People
  • Great
  • Future

• Rarely, Type 2 diabetes develops without any readily identifiable predisposing factor. But in the great majority of cases, it is brought on by lifestyle activities, including, and clearly most importantly, dietary choices.

  

  David Perlmutter
  • Great
  • Choices

• The premise is simple: One economy and one environment, and they're interdependent.

  

  Dennis Weaver
  • Simple
  • Environment

• I used to cover the environment, and it does have the advantage of the fact that when you call people up and ask them questions, their first instinct is not to lie to you.

  

  David Fahrenthold
  • People
  • Up
  • Environment

• If you can look back and say, "The economy's better. Our security's better. The environment's better. Our kids' education is better," if you can say that you've made things better, then considering all the challenges out there, you should feel good. But I'm the first to acknowledge that I did not crack the code in terms of reducing this partisan fever.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Good
  • Kids
  • Education

• I want to encourage women to take control of their health.

  

  Laila Ali
  • Women
  • Control
  • Health

• People cain't help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak.

  

  Fannie Flagg
  • People
  • Help

• I have now and again tried to imagine the perfect environment, the ideal conditions for reading: A worn leather armchair on a rainy night? A hammock in a freshly mown backyard? A verandah overlooking the summer sea? Good choices, every one. But I have no doubt that they are all merely displacements, sentimental attempts to replicate the warmth and snugness of my mother's lap.

  

  Michael Dirda
  • Environment
  • Choices
  • Imagine