Walter Becker Quotes

Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could be, much, much better than they are.

Walter Becker Steely Dan

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• Cynicism

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Quotes to Explore

• I've never been conscious of having any real career plan, and I do not have a wish-list of actors, directors, screenwriters, or cameramen I'm hoping to work with. Life, I feel, has a way of leading us to the right situations and people, or at least to interesting ones.

  

  Viggo Mortensen
  • People
  • Life
  • Work

• All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.

  

  W. H. Auden
  • Good
  • Work
  • Art

• The high-grossing films are not all that interesting to me, I have to say. It's not stuff I would want to be in. Yes, you would want the big paycheck, but that's never really been my concern.

  

  Edie Falco
  • High
  • Want
  • Interesting

• Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.

  

  Barbara Boxer
  • God
  • Said
  • Thank God

• I am often in contact with the hareidi public and politicians.

  

  Naftali Bennett
  • Public
  • Politicians

• I don't play an instrument - I just write in my head, and I usually hear fully formed songs. 'We Are Young' turned out so much like it was in my head. But it also exceeded all my expectations.

  

  Nate Ruess Fun.
  • Play
  • Young
  • Expectations

• People have an idea that one is in control of a career, a lot more than you really are. You can engineer things to an extent. But you are at the mercy of what comes in across the desk.

  

  Gary Oldman
  • People
  • Career
  • Control

• Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living.

  

  Harold MacMillan
  • Mean
  • Living
  • Tradition

• Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.

  

  E. Joseph Cossman
  • Eyes
  • Leadership
  • Obstacles

• Mr. Obama has an ingenious approach to job losses: He describes them as job gains.

  

  Karl Rove
  • Job
  • Approach
  • Losses

• The thing that has always struck me is that there has always been a bit of a hole at YouTube when it comes to authenticity, human emotion, fun and play.

  

  Ze Frank
  • Fun
  • Human
  • Emotion

• I go to the gym in the morning to warm up, and then I go to the mountain and train. Then I come home and go to the gym again to recover. But on travel days, you get pretty much no physical exertion.

  

  Hannah Kearney
  • Up
  • Home
  • Pretty

• When you're 14, anything with a sword and a dragon is pretty cool. But when you're 21 and you've read 2,000 fantasy novels, you start to realize that some of those books, well, they weren't really good. OK, let's be honest. A lot of them were crap.

  

  Patrick Rothfuss
  • Good
  • Pretty
  • Cool

• I'm very aware that after you've played Cleopatra, there's not a lot that can top that in this sphere, so it means that I want to almost change the sphere I work in rather completely because I will always be comparing it to Cleopatra.

  

  Harriet Walter
  • Work
  • Want
  • Change

• I was leftwing, I am leftwing, and I will die leftwing.

  

  Zygmunt Bauman
  • Leftwing

• The good life, as it is popularly conceived, typically involves acquiring mastery in one's work, thus gaining for oneself better terms - or means to rewards, whether material, like wealth, or nonmaterial - an experience we may call 'prospering.'

  

  Edmund Phelps
  • Life
  • Good
  • Work

• In poetry, I have, since very young, loved poetry in translation. The Chinese, the French, the Russians, Italians, Indians and early Celts: the formality of the translator's voice, their measured breath and anxiety moves me as it lingers over the original.

  

  Fanny Howe
  • Poetry
  • Voice
  • Chinese

• It's one of the hardest things in life - choosing your own name.

  

  Caitlyn Jenner
  • Life
  • Name
  • Own

• I try to write life and not songs. People live life, and when you write life, you're going to mess around and touch somebody's heart, and they'll relate to you and what you're singing about.

  

  R. Kelly
  • People
  • Life
  • Live

• Anything that looks good makes you feel better.

  

  Young Jeezy
  • Good
  • Feel
  • Better

• Revolutions go not backward.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Go
  • Revolutions
  • Backward

• It's very hard to just have a pure form like a Hulu or a YouTube to be successful in China because our view is, users come to a platform; they really don't care whether it is professional or whether it's a user-generated, or it's premium, you see. They want to come to a big database to be able to find the content they want.

  

  Victor Koo
  • Want
  • Care
  • Professional

• Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could be, much, much better than they are.

  

  Walter Becker Steely Dan
  • Better
  • Someone
  • Cynicism