Ernest K. Gann Quotes
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
Quotes to Explore
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The pop-star thing bores me because it's somebody programming someone else. Stand over here, sing that, no, sing it like this, talk like that, when they ask you this, don't say that, say this, hold that, drive this, stay here, live there - you're not even a human being. You're a puppet.
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My parents did their best - that earns a lot of forgiveness. But they say children grow up in spite of their parents, and I think I did.
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I can't get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.
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I played with Michy for Belgium. He is still young; he can finish and is very good. He just needs to adapt to English football, and he will. He is intelligent and a good player.
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One of the first serious attempts I made to write a novel was when I was in Grade 6 and I had read 'Matilda.' I wrote my own version and my teacher had it bound and permitted me to read it to the class - cementing my love of reading, writing and Roald Dahl!
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'The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq,' by Hanna Batatu. Few may wish to take on this massive, obscure work, but it changed my life, and I love it.
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If you are going to make a change, don't go halfway. Make it with conviction and stick with your new idea. Ignore the scoffers. Remember, it is a law of nature that if something is different you're going to be taunted, jeered, and told the world is flat. Let the doubters fall off the edge.
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A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.
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Your belief system saturates the space around you.
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I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.
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I have been absolutely hag-ridden with ambition. If I could wish to have anything in the world it would be to be free of ambition.
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I'm not the biggest Miley Cyrus fan. I'm not the risque type.
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I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.
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It is totally different making films in the East than in the West. In the East, I make my own Jackie Chan films, and it's like my family. Sometimes I pick up the camera because I choreograph all the fighting scenes, even when I'm not fighting. I don't have my own chair. I just sit on the set with everybody.
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Religion is so much more than the god you pray to. The religion that you associate with, it's culture, it is family, it is background. That is something that I have always grown up with.
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I would rather not have contentious interviews. I'd rather do 30 minutes with Charlie Rose, laid back in a La-Z-Boy chair.
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The notion of being on a cop show was appealing, just because it's one of those tick boxes in a career.
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It is important to make the fans that support me feel supported.
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One of the most lethal mistakes a public official can make is raising taxes and not paying your own.
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As far as movies, I love 'The Notebook.' I always say that I wish I could play Rachel McAdams' character. She's amazing. That's the movie every girl wants to be in.
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I have a fondness for writing about precocious, troubled teenagers, who are alienating, but kind of endearing. It's from remembering so clearly that time in my own life. I experienced myself as more dramatically troubled than I was, but I just remember how it felt.
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To me, if we're not failing a little bit, we're not trying hard enough. I think great cultures encourage risk and are tolerant of failure. If you don't do that, you're going to end up with a culture that is stagnant and not thinking about the next generation of products and experiences.
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Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won.
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Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
