Benjamin Britten Quotes
The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.
Quotes to Explore
-
I'm a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word. I say something I didn't think through adequately. I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it.
-
I was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can't she just shut up and be happy?'
-
I grew up playing on unprepared surfaces where your wicket depended on quickly adapting to the bounce. As a kid, I could never differentiate off-spin from leg-spin. All I looked to do was to try to hit the ball before it pitched.
-
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
-
I grew up in different parts of Africa. I grew up in Mozambique and places like that. I've been in South Africa many times.
-
Brad Pitt is a dude who just wants to make good movies. He's not afraid to surround himself with the greatest actors, which I always appreciate because I've also seen actors who only want to surround themselves with weak actors because it makes them look better. That ends up making a poorer movie.
-
Growing up in a small town gives you two things: a sense of place and a feeling of self-consciousness - self-consciousness about one's education and exposure, both of which tend to be limited. On the other hand, limited possibilities also mean creating your own options.
-
I grew up a Detroit Tigers fan, and now to be an owner of the Dodgers is amazing.
-
The things that drive me are poverty, and pain, and knowing that I don't want to end up being alone and I want to do something with my life and I want the name Dobson to remain in everyone's heads. Basically, just to rock and be the best performer I can be, and be true, and be real, and give people the real Fefe, nothing fake, all real.
-
You don't have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country?
-
What is most amusing and can happen only in India is that the most posh and big households that I've seen in Mumbai, the 'big city', will have their balconies and windows festooned with rows of baniyans and tauliyas hanging on them.
-
I couldn't live up to it. So I chose to run away.
-
Last I checked, the album was #82 out of the top 200 on the Billboard charts thanks to you all. I pray that keeps moving up and with your help it will.
-
Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can't - you can't put a wall up around here. We tried that in the '30s. It didn't work.
-
I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.
-
Sometimes I wake up and think, 'I want to look like Sherlock Holmes today,' and other times I want to look like a witch from 'Macbeth.'
-
This is why cup finals are so special because on the day anyone can beat anyone. That's what it's all about and that's why for me the FA Cup and the Carling Cup are the best cups in the world. That's the beauty of the cup.
-
I've been giving back since I was a teen, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and handing out toys at toys drives for Christmas. It's very important to give back as a youth. It's as simple as helping an old lady across the street or giving up your seat on the bus for someone who is pregnant.
-
California is infamous for passing things and then waking up and saying, 'What the hell did we just pass?'
-
When I was very young, I used to clean up after my parents. If I stay in a hotel, I make the bed and clean the room when I get up, even the bathroom mirror, for which I carry a tiny bottle of ammonia.
-
I put my comics that are really valuable into regular mylar because I like to look at them. Once they're in those clam shell boxes, they're impossible to open up.
-
As a dramatist, you have 200 choices at every fork in the road. But the audience will reject it if you make the wrong choice, if they feel you are trying to shape the character in a way that suits you. It rings false immediately. People can sense when you're being cynical or schematic.
-
I had been on this improv team at this really great improv theater. It's called iO now. It used to be called Improv Olympic. They have showcases for Lorne Michaels and other writers and people who work at 'SNL' usually about once a year, although I don't know if it always happens.
-
The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.
