William Boyd Quotes
Quotes to Explore
-
At 21 years old, I could produce 400 people like that.
-
I'm from New York. My grandparents were settlers of Long Island City. When they came here, there was no bridge, and they had to hire a boat across the river. They had a farm, and my grandmother had to go once a week to Manhattan to buy provisions - very primitive.
-
Reason cannot calm the storm of emotion, and emotion usually wins, until it settles down and allows reason to rise again and apologize on behalf of it.
-
What is extraordinary about contemporary art is the energy - it has our energy. New energy. Pieces hundreds of years old are beautiful from an aesthetic point of view, but without our modern energy.
-
I don't feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there's something that I really did do. I believe I'm just ordinary. And I'd like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.
-
Give the peasants neither life nor death.
-
In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics.
-
Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed; he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.
-
This is America, not a banana republic.
-
I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
-
I was at a book convention, in a cab. On one side of me was Arthur Schlesinger; on the other side was William Manchester - real heavyweights. All they were doing was asking me about Charles Manson. The only thing that enables me not to be bored is the people talking about it - they're so interested.
-
I think that dwelling on other people's perception of you is the road to complete madness, unfortunately. I try and resist that.
-
Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'
-
Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.
-
Likewise, education can direct people toward good or evil ends. When education is based on a fundamentally distorted worldview, the results are horrific.
-
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
-
My own death threats have declined considerably.
-
Jack Benny: Where's that big glass star I told you to pack away last Christmas?
-
It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.
-
I just hope that I'll stay around musically for as long as I can. I love to think that I will still be satisfying myself and other people as a musician until the day I die.
-
As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.
-
I think that when you're an actress, you have to think about what kind of a role model you're going to be. I hope that I'm a good role model for young girls. I'm not going to, if people still want me in their movies, I don't want to be one of these girls who goes around partying every night and is in rehab. I don't want to do that.
-
If you step back from it and really think about what the mass media does on a global scale, the most significant thing it does is coordinate behaviour.
-
I don't think they'll ever make a retro Bond.
