Alexander Payne Quotes

There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympathetic.' I just know 'interesting.'

Alexander Payne

• Interesting

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Quotes to Explore

• We must develop huge demonstrations, because the world is used to big dramatic affairs. They think in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions and billions... Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.

  

  A. Philip Randolph
  • World
  • Think
  • Eye

• M.G.M. never really gave me a break. They loaned me out for leading roles but cast me in programme pictures.

  

  Laraine Day
  • Break
  • Roles
  • Pictures

• There's nothing wrong with a thick eyebrow; Frida Kahlo had them.

  

  Paloma Faith
  • Nothing
  • Wrong
  • Eyebrow

• If it's a good song, it's a good song. I'll take it.

  

  Zara Larsson
  • Good
  • Song
  • Take

• When you're told to go brief a United States senator on a covert operation, you go do it. And you trust the information isn't going to leak.

  

  Oliver North
  • You
  • Trust
  • Information

• If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle.

  

  Fanny Howe
  • Hope
  • Reading
  • Alone

• For years, Judaism has been a sort of product put on the religious shelf, and on holidays, we would take it off the shelf and let seculars play with it for a bit. Now, Judaism is going back to being something that more closely touches everyone.

  

  Yair Lapid
  • Play
  • Religious
  • Now

• Every once in a while, something happens to you that makes you realise that the human race is not quite as bad as it so often seems to be.

  

  Ian Hacking
  • Bad
  • You
  • Race

• Earth's dispossessed are vulnerable targets for extremists: those who teach that global justice is meaningless; that satisfaction can come only in violence, division, and intellectual isolation.

  

  Abdullah II of Jordan
  • Earth
  • Justice
  • Violence

• You try to do what you can to bring harmony wherever you go.

  

  Aaron Neville
  • You
  • Try
  • Harmony

• I don't really like to talk about other people. I think people who have things going on in their lives, I think they have enough to deal with, they don't need, you know, Abigail Breslin weighing in on their lives.

  

  Abigail Breslin
  • People
  • Think
  • Know

• I like listening to music and driving. How do you say... It's the only way I can 'chillax.'

  

  Lapo Elkann
  • Music
  • Listening
  • Driving

• If I see a now-28-year-old woman coming up to me, she's probably thinking of 'Juno' because she watched it with her parents when she was 18 years old.

  

  J. K. Simmons
  • Up
  • Thinking
  • She

• I joke that we're not dissimilar to a rock band in the '70s.

  

  Isaac Hanson Hanson
  • Band
  • Rock
  • Joke

• My eyes aren't special, my nose isn't special, my mouth isn't special.

  

  Valerie Bertinelli
  • Eyes
  • Mouth
  • Nose

• My bedroom is my sanctuary. It's like a refuge, and it's where I do a fair amount of designing - at least conceptually, if not literally.

  

  Vera Wang
  • Like
  • Fair
  • Bedroom

• The challenge for Muslims in America is to respect the fears of ordinary people while resisting the exploitation of those fears by political parties, lobbies and sectors of the media. To meet this challenge, Muslims must reassess their own involvement, behavior and contributions in American society.

  

  Tariq Ramadan
  • People
  • American
  • America

• I love showing my scar on my tummy - it is shaped like a question mark.

  

  Sam Taylor-Johnson
  • Love
  • Question
  • Like

• You look like a dishonest Abe Lincoln.

  

  Alexander Woollcott

• It's as if to be interesting, you had to be depressed and messy, but that's complete nonsense.

  

  Edgardo Osorio
  • You
  • Interesting
  • Nonsense

• Really interesting genre films, especially monster movies, evoke the fears of the times intentionally. Our starting point was 'Godzilla' - the original movie was released less than 10 years after Hiroshima, and it's a classic in Japan.

  

  Matt Reeves
  • Movie
  • Interesting
  • Monster

• You try to make every word count, so there's no doubt what you're talking about. When you're young, you waffle away. Well, I'm done with that. I think it's much more interesting to say just what you mean.

  

  Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz
  • Thinking
  • Trying
  • Interesting

• I'm a novelist from the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations of British Columbia, both small coastal reserves hugging the rugged shores of the west coast.

  

  Eden Robinson
  • Small
  • First
  • West

• There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympathetic.' I just know 'interesting.'

  

  Alexander Payne
  • Interesting