William Petersen Quotes
If I could change on thing about myself, I would: Have better knees. Mine are shot because of injuries. You're only as good as your legs, whether you're an athlete or an actor.
Quotes to Explore
-
When I grew up in West Baltimore, anything associated - and I'm talking about my childhood - with white people 99 percent of the time was something malevolent, like it was an explanatory force for something bad.
-
A purpose of our lives is to broaden what we can understand and say and therefore be.
-
My first novel, 'In the Drink,' begun when I was 29 and floundering and published when I was 36 and married, was about a 29-year-old woman whose life was even more screwed up than my own had been.
-
The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It's always changing.
-
In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.
-
There is a kind of structure for a story that was peculiarly compelling for the radio. I thought I had invented it atom-by-atom sitting in an editing booth in Washington on M Street when I was in my 20s. Then I found out that it is one of the oldest forms of telling a story - it was the structure of a sermon.
-
I realized that equipment really had little to do with why I sound like the way I sound.
-
Women are complicated. We all know that.
-
When I became a published writer, I said, 'Whatever I can do to help the libraries I want to do,' so all of my book tours since then have involved me coming to a library and talking about how important libraries are for a community.
-
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
-
Coming out involves varying degrees of difficulty that are affected by class, race, religion, and geography.
-
'No Bones' has some reverb that I kick around.
-
You would not believe that Paula Patton and I have the same trainer.
-
The secret of happiness is the determination to be happy always, rather than wait for outer circumstances to make one happy.
-
I felt so free in space, flying around and unrestrained by any social relationships, but my life since has changed a lot. Now I am extra-careful about what I say and do because everyone recognises me.
-
About 90 percent of the pieces in my home are vintage, and I'm a ruthless editor. I only live with things that I love. There is not one thing in my home that doesn't have meaning to me.
-
Now, guitar was pretty cool. Everybody knew something on the guitar. So I wanted to play guitar, but I told my dad if he wanted me to keep studying something, I'd like to study piano.
-
I didn't work hard to make Ruby perfect for everyone, because you feel differently from me. No language can be perfect for everyone. I tried to make Ruby perfect for me, but maybe it's not perfect for you. The perfect language for Guido van Rossum is probably Python.
-
I guess professionally it began when Hal Hartley used some music of mine in his film The Unbelievable Truth.
-
Think about what caused the injury and how it can be prevented next time; that way, you will become a smarter athlete and less likely to repeat the same mistakes.
-
As an actor, I like as much time with the material as possible and given the opportunity, time spent with the other actors in the scene. But that is a rare luxury in working in any TV series.
-
The essence of my character is an inability to get used to things. This, in fact, is the one thing I have grown accustomed to: an inability to get used to things.
-
It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.
-
If I could change on thing about myself, I would: Have better knees. Mine are shot because of injuries. You're only as good as your legs, whether you're an athlete or an actor.
