Nathaniel Parker Willis Quotes
The Italians say that a beautiful woman by her smiles draws tears from our purse.
Quotes to Explore
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Conformity is dangerous.
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The only way to learn a language properly, in fact, is to marry a man of that nationality. You get what they call in Europe a 'sleeping dictionary.' Of course, I have only been married five times, and I speak seven languages. I'm still trying to remember where I picked up the other two.
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The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath.
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He is very upbeat but we hear that all the time from just about any athlete.
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I have learned to take the part of me that is very fearful and work on that. There is space for that in my life. I have learned to give myself a bit more freedom between 'action' and 'cut.' I come by all that fear honestly, like most humans have. I can't bring it with me to work, so in that way, the work feels quite liberating.
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And in fact I don't believe there is such a thing as a definitive picture of something. The land is a living, breathing thing and light changes its character every second of every day. That's why I love it so much.
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People win Oscars, and then it seems like they fall off the planet. And that's partly because a huge expectation walks in the room and sits right down on top of your head. The moment I won the Oscar, I felt the teardown the very next day.
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I think the play actually became bigger than me. No pun intended.
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If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is of no more authority than any other uninspired volume, how is it that the book is what it is?
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I was the first person in the world to audition for 'The Hobbit'. The casting director told me that when I went in. That's a lot of pressure, isn't it? The first person in the world.
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The best times I had on film sets were the times the director let me express myself, but those were rare.
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If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.
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Everyone puts all of the advances that we've made on Dr. King, but there's a lot of people who were part of the civil rights movement.
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I shot a movie with Nicole Kidman that I got cut out of - it was crap anyways.
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Kirstie Alley seems like she's absolutely amazing.
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Celebrity is seen by a huge amount of people and certainly myself for a while as the pinnacle of society, of success. It is revered almost religiously, both the institution and its quickly growing member base.
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To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable.
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A duel is just two murderers who agree to take turns trying to kill each other.
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It is moral by his code to get into office by false pretences. It is moral to change convictions overnight. Anything is moral that furthers the main concern of his soul, which is to keep a place at the public trough.
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If a Chinese student does not know Chinese learning, it's like a person without a surname, a horse without a bridle, a boat without a helm. The more Western learning he possesses, the more hateful of China he will become. Even if he becomes a capable man of vast learning, how can he be of any use to the state?
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Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.
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Adverbs lead to overwriting. Try taking them out and reading your prose again to see how it sounds. Simple and less words are more powerful.
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The Italians say that a beautiful woman by her smiles draws tears from our purse.
