Alexandra Petri Quotes

George Washington didn't have to make us laugh; he just had to establish precedents and avoid chopping down more cherry trees than he could possibly help. But somewhere along the line, Americans began expecting their presidents to do more than just govern. They also had to make us laugh.

Alexandra Petri

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Quotes to Explore

• The way we do music in Brazil is very different because we are so moved by music; we grow up with that.

  

  Camila Alves
  • Up
  • Music
  • Different

• When the opportunity came along to do 'Win, Lose or Draw,' I took it selfishly to find out if I did enjoy being me on camera. And I did that for the last two years I was doing 'Mama's Family.'

  

  Vicki Lawrence
  • Family
  • Opportunity
  • Win

• I don't try to sugarcoat things, but I also think my books make positive statements about the people and values in small-town America.

  

  Tawni O'Dell
  • People
  • America
  • Small

• Musical compositions can be very sad - Chopin - but you have the pleasure of this sadness. The cheap consolation is: you will be happy. The higher consolation is the pleasure and recognition of your unhappiness, the pleasure of having recognised that fate, destiny and life are such as they are and so you reach a higher form of consciousness.

  

  Umberto Eco
  • Life
  • Happy
  • Sad

• I'm more of a guy's girl. I like having a beer in a bar, and I don't bicker or sit down and do my nails.

  

  Zoe Saldana
  • Guy
  • Girl
  • Down

• Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it.

  

  Sam Harris
  • You
  • Human
  • Wellbeing

• In '87, I was about 9 years old, and so at that point I was wearing, like, fluorescent green T-shirts and acid-wash jeans and leg warmers, and my hair was in a ponytail with a scrunchie and I had the teased bangs that were up in a rainbow shape. It was crazy.

  

  Malin Akerman
  • Up
  • Crazy
  • Hair

• You know sometimes when you're in a really bad mood and you're not sure why? That's how I get sometimes.

  

  Maisie Williams
  • Why
  • Bad
  • Know

• The very idea of carrying my memory into eternity devastated me, and I took refuge in atheism.

  

  Taylor Caldwell
  • Idea
  • Memory
  • Eternity

• I was deposed by a coup d'etat, by friends that I trusted and aided by the American Government.

  

  Ferdinand Marcos
  • Friends
  • American
  • Government

• The results showed that Joe Mokoena and I had made history. For the first time in the history of education in South Africa, two African students had passed the JC with a First Class degree, regarded as a rare achievement for any student.

  

  Oliver Tambo
  • Time
  • History
  • Education

• I make sure I eat well without depriving myself of the things that I love: a cheeseburger and fries, creamy white-truffle pasta, bowls of ice cream. Everything in moderation, but I indulge at least three times a week.

  

  Kate Hudson
  • Eat
  • Sure
  • Least

• I would say to an actor new to the business that it's best to go where you are most comfortable as a person, both in and outside of the business.

  

  Becki Newton
  • Business
  • Best
  • New

• The true measure of success for the U.N. is not how much we promise, but how much we deliver for those who need us most.

  

  Ban Ki-moon
  • True
  • Success
  • Promise

• I went to a Catholic all-girls school, and we would play cassettes of music we liked, and when it was my turn, they would laugh at my choices. I would play Billie Holliday, Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf, but it was fine; if I had to listen to their choices, they had to listen to mine.

  

  Imelda May
  • Music
  • School
  • Choices

• I really am an open book. I don't keep anything in at all, which is good and bad.

  

  Kaley Cuoco
  • Good
  • Book
  • Bad

• One afternoon, on my way to the campus - I was majoring in political science at Nairobi University - a photographer by the name of Peter Beard stopped me in the street and asked me if I'd ever been photographed.

  

  Iman
  • Political
  • Science
  • Name

• I might literally fall over dead if I meet Oprah Winfrey. I'm kind of joking, but I'm not confident that wouldn't happen.

  

  Uzo Aduba
  • Kind
  • Fall
  • Confident

• Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

  

  William Shakespeare
  • Life
  • Men
  • Character

• I was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.

  

  Eddie Van Halen Van Halen
  • Trying
  • Band
  • Thought

• In 1559, Duke Frederick III was summoned before the Emperor Ferdinand I at Breslau to answer the accusations of extravagance and oppression brought against him by the Silesian Estates and was deposed, imprisoned, and his son Henry XI given the Ducal crown instead.

  

  Sabine Baring-Gould
  • Son
  • Oppression
  • Crown

• Out of every other rap guy, Wiz is the most humble, down-to-earth guy, like me.

  

  Ty Dolla Sign
  • Guy
  • Earth
  • Rap

• George Washington didn't have to make us laugh; he just had to establish precedents and avoid chopping down more cherry trees than he could possibly help. But somewhere along the line, Americans began expecting their presidents to do more than just govern. They also had to make us laugh.

  

  Alexandra Petri
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