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
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
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
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
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
Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it.
Sam Harris
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
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
I really am an open book. I don't keep anything in at all, which is good and bad.
Kaley Cuoco
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
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
I've had the most untraumatic life a human being can have. But I've always been drawn to those who have had far more complicated histories.
Malcolm Gladwell
All you can do is focus on telling the best story you can with compelling characters. If you do it right, it will endure. If you do it wrong, it won't.
J. Michael Straczynski
You meet people, and you're like, 'I don't know how I feel about you,' and someone does something surprising that changes your mind. We're interesting creatures; we're nuanced, complicated and layered, and we make all sorts of choices.
Clare-Hope Ashitey
To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one’s ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.
Alain de Botton
Beginning with adolescence, my political formation was oriented in the ideological direction of Marxism. It was natural, being that my thinking was influenced by an atmosphere of active critical resistance. That was the way it was during all of the dictatorship and up to the Revolution of 1974.
Jose Saramago
Right away when I got to college, I realized that being a politician sucks. It's really hard! It wasn't for me. B.J. Novak is convinced that I will run for mayor of Chicago at some point. He begs me to do it. It'd be a tough gig, but I was always very attracted to the idea of helping people and trying to make the city a better place.
Ike Barinholtz
Seventy-five percent of women who smoke would like to quit, and yet only two to three percent quit every year... It's significant because we can help women quit smoking.
David Satcher
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
