Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes

If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

Michael Tilson Thomas

• Wonder
• Inspiration
• motivation
• Capacity

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Quotes to Explore

• For a long time, I thought I was going to play basketball. There's not many 6-4 white guys playing the three spot in the NBA, so I realized I probably didn't have much of a future in basketball and that football was probably going to be my best bet.

  

  Sam Bradford
  • Time
  • Long
  • Future

• I needed to really pursue music and learn what I needed to learn on my own by getting in and doing it, not by reading a book about it.

  

  Kacey Musgraves
  • Music
  • Book
  • Reading

• In politics, the reaction to a controversy is very often more enlightening and important than the details of the allegations themselves.

  

  Tammy Bruce
  • Important
  • Politics
  • Details

• People who live in glass houses... have to answer the door.

  

  Karl Pilkington
  • People
  • Live
  • Door

• I don't want to kill windowing; I want to restore choice and options.

  

  Ted Sarandos
  • Want
  • Choice
  • Options

• I've been doing stand-up since I was 15 years old.

  

  Hal Sparks
  • Up
  • Years
  • Doing

• I don't get far enough into a boring book to hate it.

  

  Garry Wills
  • Book
  • Hate
  • Enough

• I came into the rap game in 1992; my life was changing, but my group wasn't successful; I also saw the biggest rappers in the world die all of a sudden in the ensuing years, so it was a matter of conquering yourself before you can conquer the world.

  

  Ja Rule
  • Life
  • World
  • Game

• I've met Bob Dylan. We did one of those non-handshake handshakes. I was with all guys, and he shook hands with all of them, and then they said, 'And this is Kate,' and I put my hand out, and he didn't put his out. And then I took my hand away, and he put his out. It was one of those. We finally did shake. And then I fainted!

  

  Kate Moss
  • Hand
  • Hands
  • Said

• Most of us were probably less than immaculately honest as teenagers; it's practically encoded into adolescence that you savor your secrets, dress in disguise, carve out some space for experiments and accidents and all the combustible lab work of becoming who you are.

  

  Nancy Gibbs
  • Work
  • Space
  • Dress

• Emmitt Smith is a great running back. One of the things I like about him along with Edgerrin James is that neither one of them 'show out' when they run a touchdown.

  

  Earl Campbell
  • Great
  • Running
  • Run

• The interval between a cold expectation and a warm desire may be filled by expectations of varying degrees of warmth or by desires of varying degrees of coldness.

  

  Samuel Alexander
  • May
  • Desire
  • Cold

• I have always watched my close friends fall in love, but I never thought it would happen to me.

  

  Uday Kiran
  • Love
  • Friends
  • Fall

• Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • You
  • Wealth
  • Pizza

• Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.

  

  Rabindranath Tagore
  • Love
  • For Her
  • Creation

• Corruption is rife in the Muslim world, and when it is coupled with the marginalization of religion, it manifests itself as frustration and becomes a fertile recruiting ground for extremism.

  

  Hamza Yusuf
  • World
  • Religion
  • Frustration

• Tanning is tricky, because a lot of people just look orange.

  

  Laura Linney
  • People
  • Look
  • Orange

• I have friends who are science journalists, and I'm seeing stories of theirs or talking with them about ideas that they're pitching. Certain kinds of science are around me all the time, like climate change and biology.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • Time
  • Friends
  • Science

• Donors don't win elections; voters win elections.

  

  Jeff Sessions

• No one likes to be criticized, of course, but if the things we successfully strive for do not make our future selves happy, or if the things we unsuccessfully avoid do, then it seems reasonable (if somewhat ungracious) for them to cast a disparaging glance backward and wonder what the hell we were thinking.

  

  Daniel Gilbert
  • Thinking
  • Happy
  • Future

• I have been very influenced by the director Maurice Pialat, who I continue to be in conversation and conflict with and get inspiration from.

  

  Ira Sachs
  • Inspiration
  • Conversation
  • Conflict

• I wonder if they ever are. I thought they might let that go this year, but it didn't seem apparent at all. Right away, he got booed. He just may be one of those guys that has to carry that for a year or two until another group comes along that gives him a break.

  

  Phil Jackson
  • May
  • Wonder
  • Break

• If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

  

  Michael Tilson Thomas
  • Wonder
  • Inspiration
  • motivation