Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes
This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing ...

Quotes to Explore
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Could you imagine being from Siberia? Like, a small part of Russia, where it's like, 'When was the last time Russia was having a super big international pop star in the U.S.?' I don't know, but I can name a few from Sweden. I think that gives us a lot of confidence in being pop stars because we're like, 'Oh, we actually can. We know we can.'
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In our culture, the shame about accidental pregnancy is inextricable from the shame about having had sex. That disapproval of sex is one reason our record with contraception is so poor. If you're not supposed to be sexual, you don't plan for sex. You cross your fingers and hope for the best.
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Orchestra had a little brass ensemble on two tracks as well, but the rest was me. I knew I couldn't continue in this direction, even if people liked it, because I can only duplicate myself.
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Time has lost all meaning in that nightmare alley of the Western world known as the American mind.
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The family is very important. They make me feel good always because if I won, when I started to be famous, the relationship never changed with my friends and family.
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I have often heard that the novel is dead. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well.
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I think I've always been somebody to break rules.
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You learn so much on set; I don't know if you learn as much anywhere else as you do when you're on set, working.
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I don't want to subject myself just to one scheme. I think it's just if you can play, you can play no matter what scheme you play in.
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I don't really shop any more. I only do it when I have to. I think it is very overrated.
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You have no ability, if you're a financial institution and you're threatened with criminal prosecution, you have no ability to negotiate.
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I don't have time to listen to anybody's music. I'm making it, you know.
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I love figure skating and what I am able to express creatively. I want to leave a legacy in the sport.
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Agatha Christie holds special personal memories for me because my mum, a television producer called Pat Sandys, had been the first person to persaude the Agatha Christie estate to put one of her stories on T.V.
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Many young men in the 1960s and 1970s came to reject some of the traditional ideas about manhood that many of their fathers tried to pass down - like unquestioning respect for authority even when that might mean killing and dying for questionable or unjust causes such as the Vietnam War.
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Back when I was growing up, it was like, 'You're too young to know what you want. We're telling you what you want. It doesn't matter if you like it. And you are stupid. Just so you know.'
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I always draw from things around me that people around me have gone through... The story that could be taken really literally is not from my life exactly. But bits and pieces are, and the sentiment behind it is.
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Fitness has always been one of the top priorities in my life because that's the way I grew up, with soccer being the sport of choice.
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Christy Turlington is my idol. She really is. She's a gorgeous woman inside and out. I admire her work in the charity field. She's just been able to balance it all - and gracefully, as well.
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The Internet definitely could be a weapon of mass destruction - it's not going to come in a bomb, it's going to come as a cyberattack. It's pretty amazing to see what a small group of people can do if they really know how to control the universe.
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I am really passionate about my career and my music and I am so lucky to be able to do what I do for a job, so for all the early morning starts and long days, I could never trade it all in.
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You must be wise, but not too wise.
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I think I would find being in Hollywood intense if I had more of a social life, but all I do is stay indoors with my sister and play with our puppy, watch movies.
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This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing ...