Quite Quotations | Page 2

I am quite convinced now... that the actual training of drawing cartoons - which is, of course, my style - led to my producing Spot. Cartoons must be very simple and have as few words as possible, and so, too, must the 'Spot' books.

To me, it's always been a challenge to look for the light: to look for those spaces in your heart where there is hope and faith and try to embrace that rather than crush it. I've spent so many years trying to crush those feelings of hope, and I certainly succeeded for quite a while.

I played a homosexual bodyguard in 'The Last Detective,' and that was quite a pleasure to do something slightly different. I was a very camp bodyguard!

I don't quite jump for joy, but I am awfully glad to see him.

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and I got the opportunity to take some on-camera classes while I was in school and met a casting director who informed me quite a bit before my move out to L.A.; it made L.A. feel possible, coming from Oklahoma and not having a family that was in the industry.

My dad has done a bit of research on our family tree, and we can trace it quite far back. My dad believes he has traced us back to being a great-great-great-great-great-great cousin of Wellington.

I did want to be Joni Mitchell for quite a long time.

I worked in Dad's stores, moving boxes - I remember quite well one stockroom that was upstairs - sweeping floors, laying tile. I also had paper routes.

I'll be honest - I never saw myself making a ninja movie, never entertained the idea. I think ninja films can be quite cheesy unless you do them in feudal Japan.

As a drummer, you're always fighting for a level that you never quite attain.

Your body has something in the neighborhood of 40 trillion cells - quite a consulting committee. Call on it when you're confused or undecided. Relax quietly and ask your body what it has to say.

I used to think, 'I'm going to write.' I knew that from quite early on, but I also thought, 'Maybe I'll be an explorer or a spy,' and it all came from books.

I had gone to nursing school at Northampton Community College in my hometown of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. And nursing didn't feel quite right, and an old boyfriend gave me a 35-millimeter camera just to play with. So, I took a darkroom class.

On my mother's side, I'm English, so that's where the freckles come from. On my father's side, I'm German, and he has the fantastic olive hues... I was given mum's skin, whereas my brothers and sisters were given my dad's skin. I do tan up quite well, but it takes me a bit longer.

In my career quite a few people have tried to force me out, but so far no one has succeeded.

With a track like 'White Christmas,' everybody has done that song in every format you can imagine, so I just looked at the chords at that particular song and what chords would make it work. That's kind of quite a sad song, and I had this idea of someone singing it in the subway, someone who is homeless, old and sad.

I was 13 years old at music school talking to my teacher. I can't quite remember what it was I was trying to describe, but I do remember my music teacher saying to me, 'Do you have synesthesia?' In hindsight, it seems a little presumptuous of her to think a little boy in Essex would know what synesthesia was.

Their elegant shape, showy colours, and slow, sailing mode of flight, make them very attractive objects, and their numbers are so great that they form quite a feature in the physiognomy of the forest, compensating for the scarcity of flowers.

That's quite a difficult thing in life, to be who you are. And when you are doing interviews, you kind of feel this need to say something interesting.

I get very excited when I go to a show - there are all these people who don't know each another who've come together to celebrate this amazing ritual. The making of community that theater provides is quite profound.

Caution is the key to safe cycling. I'm aware that cars are bigger than me, but I feel quite safe. I'm in control, liberated and free, when I'm on my bike.

I'm actually quite a nice person. It's to do with the way I look, an uncompromising sort of face, brusque delivery and voice, and I think the combination of all that. When I'm doing pantomime, children will scream the place down before I open my mouth. There's obviously something that really gets them.

The Vikings themselves are fascinating creatures. They're human beings, of course, but their ethos are so different from ours. The fact that they live as warriors - their willingness to die for the sake of what they believe in - is quite shocking to us, and it's fascinating to see.

Then I thought I was going to be a photographer. I tried a hand at darkroom technician. I played in a band. It took me quite some time to discover that I wanted to write.

As I go back and listen, the other girls weren't singing quite like I was.

I'm quite lucky in that at certain angles I look all right, and at others I don't look so good, which enables me to play some leading roles and some stranger, more 'character'-type parts. I wouldn't say I'm the conventional handsome Hollywood leading man.

Back in the 1500s, the culture that we had built in the West embraced multigenerational projects quite easily. Notre Dame. Massive cathedrals were not built over the course of a few years, they were built over a few generations. People who started building them knew they wouldn't be finished until their grandson was born.

I'm not like most comedians. I don't deal with just heckles - I'm also dealing with threats and anger. Here I am, a brown person on stage being quite blunt. I talk about white privilege; I talk about U.S. imperialistic practices; I talk about colonialism. I'm not saying things that are easy for people to laugh at.

I came quite late to gaming: I didn't start playing until 2002.

Fantasy was something I'd read as a child. And, in fact, my teachers despaired a little bit because I refused to give up Enid Blyton. Then I walked through the wardrobe with C. S. Lewis, and I don't think I actually have returned fully from the wardrobe. So, fantasy was something that was in my life from quite young.

I started buying on the Internet quite rapidly, as early as 1995.

My father loved antique shops and shows, and quite a bit of my childhood involved outings to dim, dusty places packed with cast-off treasures.

It's quite amazing to me, as I walk around a supermarket or a health food shop, to observe the number of Fairtrade choices: not just staples such as coffee, tea, fresh fruits and rice, but cocoa and chocolate, herbs and spices, honey, ice cream, and jams.

We are not actually in charge of life, yet behave as if we are the masters of our own destiny. The realization of this fact is quite a hard one. The ridiculousness of our pomposity and presumption can only result in anger or humor.

I've read quite a few readers' reviews of my book on Amazon, saying, 'Ah, he criticises the free market, he advocates central planning.' I don't do that for a minute! But this is our black and white, dichotomous way of thinking - which has really been harmful.

I was black and blue for about two years, but it's paid off tremendously. You know, if you get enough whacks, your reflexes pick up, and I've become quite good - if somebody throws keys or something, I can catch them.

Asylum was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.

I've left Boro in the Premiership, which was always what I wanted to do. Actually that's not quite true. I took them to three cup finals, where they'd never been before. But I had set my eyes on being the first manager in their history to deliver a major trophy.

I don't believe that we should limit waterboarding - or, quite frankly, any other alternative torture technique - if it means saving Americans' lives.

I love escaping into film, because everyday life I find quite troublesome. So any excuse to go into a cinema and say goodbye to the world for a couple of hours, or in a book or whatever, is great.

People in retail banks are not smart. They have a business model that's quite difficult to not make money out of - but still they somehow manage it.

I cry a lot when I feel empathy. I can feel heartbroken by life, and I cry quite easily, sometimes for no reason. It's healthy, I think.

The Nobel Prize has been a disturbance at the beginning of October for some years. It would be gratifying to win, but it would be quite an ordeal, too, with all the events which go on for two days. I'd think carefully about what I was doing the day it is announced and maybe not be around, or be around, but elsewhere.

Because of the accumulation of objects, things are never quite the way I want them to be. There has always been a lack of, well, clarity.

There's something about being rejected - when I go out without my friends, I'm reminded of how I'm actually quite antisocial. I don't look like a guy who feels like that, but it's very hard for me to start up a conversation. At a party, I'm lost.

The big difference between TV and theater is that you get to do a new play every week, so it's quite challenging, but it keeps you fresh. There's never any fear of getting stale in your performance.

I believe people who are looking for a fresh idea and spirit have received Danielson. The conservative Christian press have been quite mean to us, but the mainstream 'secular' press has been very, very nice.

I knew I wanted to be an actress, but I hadn't ever really told anyone. I'd always got quite good grades, so people assumed I would go and do a 'normal' job. My dad took me to my first audition for drama school and picked me up without anyone knowing, really.

There are quite a few actors in the business who are much more difficult than kids or monkeys.

I get around nature. I have a vegetable garden, and I enjoy being outside. I do work quite a bit around the house.

My ideal relationship with the reader is that at certain points they will have said, 'I'm finding this quite tough, but I'm going to hang in there,' then at the end they will say, 'Oh God, I'm glad I hung on, it was so worth it.'

Being in America isn't old-hat - it's where we're from - but I get excited to be in other parts of the world like Athens and Croatia, which were quite cool. I'm a sightseer. I go see the sights and museums. I'm into that kind of thing.

I was lucky I went to school in London because the tutors could see what to do. I knew I wanted to do something different. Why would I want to do what other people were already doing, because they would always do it better? I always wanted to work around the body. So throughout my college years, my work was quite free.

I really hate being recognised. I'm quite a shy person, and I'm not very good at talking to strangers. So when people come up to me in the street, I just find it quite awkward. I don't really know what to say to them.

No one intuitively understands quantum mechanics because all of our experience involves a world of classical phenomena where, for example, a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher seems to take just one path, the one described by Newton's laws of motion. Yet at a microscopic level, the universe behaves quite differently.

We found vines of a large size, and in some cases quite loaded with grapes; we also found an abundance of roses, which appeared to be like those of Castile.

The overall view of the human genome project has been one of great excitement and positive press, but there are people who have concerns that are quite reasonable, and they are frightened of things they don't understand.

I think Dogme was inspiring for quite a few peoples and sort of started a digital movement. Personally, I found it extremely uplifting and fantastic making Dogme movies, but I felt I completed it with 'The Celebration.' I think that was the end of the road on Dogme for me. It was as far as I could go.

Neon signs don't consume much power, but they look like they do. A cousin of fluorescent lighting, neon is actually quite energy efficient. A neon tube glows coolly when high-voltage, low-amperage electrical power excites the gas within it.

I've lived so deep under masks, my interior was built to satisfy me alone - I have lived almost 60 years alone, mentally, and quite content to have it so.

I'll always be grateful for what 'Doctor Who' has given me. I go to quite a few fan conventions. It's lovely to hang out with people you worked with so long ago. And, more than that, it's made me aware of the impact that television can have.

For me, it's really like, okay, if you go far with the unexpected materials and unexpected proportions or volumes, then keep the colors quite simple and straightforward for men.

It quite often happens that they attach a name to a project and it doesn't get all the financing it needs.

What I have always loved about modelling is the chance to play a part. I am quite shy naturally, but I like getting into somebody else's head space, understanding how people work and the psychology behind their actions.

I was very, very shy in public and school, and quite loud and brash at home.

Poor Andy Nave was killed. He refused to surrender and was shot by Dick Fields. I felt sorry as he used to be quite friendly towards me before the war, but it could not be helped.

Baseball would be a quite remarkable activity if it was the one place in the world where your co-workers didn't have any impact on how productive you were. But in fact, baseball is a high-stress occupation, and those sort of stress-inducing activities... just have a huge impact on how the team functions, I think.

My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he's also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion.

When you model for a show, you get this real sense of adrenaline. It's difficult when the shoes are so high - that part's quite scary - but you just have to do it.

I think for anybody reading the book they're going to get an idea in their heads of all those characters, and I think that once that gets fixed, it's quite hard to shake.

Blacks who have not succumbed to the victim culture have been, are, and will be doing quite well - all on their own, without handouts, affirmative action, and other patronizing measures.

I love video games. I'm also slightly in awe of them. I'm in awe of their power in terms of imagination, in terms of technology, in terms of concept. But I think, above all, I'm in awe at their power to motivate, to compel us, to transfix us, like really nothing else we've ever invented has quite done before.

I think you must be running away from something pretty enormous if you don't want to see a person more than once or twice. I think relationships don't get interesting for quite a while. When the initial heady rush fades, that's when it gets really exciting.

I've been using a computer for quite some time, and I don't understand everything.

I am quite sure that from America will come the greatest help for the cause of peace, and I consider it my duty to inform the people of Europe as to the feelings and intentions of the friends of peace in Europe.

There are two types of collector, I think. There are those who are quite academic, and get into the archaeology of finding the earliest example of a particular idea. Then there are those interested in what's new.

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'

In Finland, we learned quite a lot from our own civil war. The wounds were visible when I was a boy, but my generation went into the Second World War and it united the Finnish nation, so I do not see any more wounds.

Iceland, though it lies so far to the north that it is partly within the Arctic Circle, is, like Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, affected by the Gulf Stream, so that considerable portions of it are quite habitable.

Car-essential is a real turn-off to me, so yeah, I just want a friendly holiday resort with a villa and a pool, but which is really private, but there again, there's a supermarket and a doctor's and a beach a five-minute walk away. That's all I want, and it's quite difficult to find.

But what is striking about this, in a town that often talks about tax cuts, we could quite easily, Republicans and Democrats working together, do something that everybody in America desires, and that is a simplification of our Tax Code.

This is not a country that has had a tremendous sympathy for poor people, so I think that the notion that somehow we have slipped into an era in which poor people don't matter is not quite the way our history would define it.

Quite frankly, I'm tired of taking insulin and pumping my stomach every three days and pricking my finger and drawing blood out of it every day - it's a tedious, meticulous, annoying disease that never goes away. And I want to get rid of it like everybody else does.

What's so great about playing a female lead, especially in law enforcement, is that these women do exist, and they're really quite interesting. They're fascinating.

For the first time in my life I tried whale. It was very chewy and quite fatty. My friend had had whale before, so I knew it would be quite blubbery. It was delicious. I loved it. It was smoked, so it had a lovely kind of tangy taste to it. We had it a couple of nights. I was won over. It was very yummy.

I'm quite proud of my piano playing. Robin's never played a note on the piano at our recording sessions. I just wish I could be appreciated musically now.

I went to uni and then drama school afterwards and lived in quite a few student houses.

Starting in '98 when I was researching 'Traffic,' I got to meet really serious people in Washington, which for a screenwriter was kind of a great gift. And I really valued these guys; I stayed in touch with them, and I find their point-of-view quite interesting.

What's similar between 'Daily Show' and 'RJ Berger' is that people are grabbing me - not quite the groovy intelligentsia Starbucks barista, but the Latina nurses at my gynecologist's office - and telling me they love the show.

'Re-Mit' is going to terrify people. It's quite horrible. The Fall have had enough and we're coming for you.

Harrison Ford invited me to fly on his private plane to Los Angeles, and he's great to work with. He's really down to earth, and we got to know each other quite well.

Governments do not have the answers - indeed, quite the reversal. A lot of times, they not only do not have the answers, but they themselves are the problem. If we are committed to helping our world's children, then we must begin to create solutions from the bottom up.

As Brian Urquhart has said quite correctly, I don't think that individual countries in the international community can stand aside and let all of these slaughters continue without doing anything.

Nothing focuses your mind quite like flying a jet. That's one reason NASA requires that astronauts fly T-38s: it forces us to concentrate and prioritize in some of the same ways we need to in a rocket ship.

Going around Rome, you can find beauty because, quite simply, Rome is very beautiful. But the beauty of the people is sometimes harder to discover.

When I first started drumming, when I was 14 or 15, I started writing songs. I wrote for a couple of years, but when we started 'Radiohead' it became very apparent quite quickly that I just wanted to concentrate on the drumming.

She said, and I'm not kidding, 'Is this a speaking role?' I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.

There were a great many in vaudeville - people who never quite came through. But they had their place, and they filled it. They kept theatres open. Those pan-timers, those interstate-timers, those four-a-dayers, those six-a-dayers - they were an integral part of that endearing merry-go-round called vaudeville.

My husband is the chef of the family; he's a brilliant cook. Actually, it makes you quite lazy when you have somebody that's so good at cooking under the same roof. It's all beans or spaghetti when I'm left to run it.

I've never quite worked out how to do holidays. I've got a house in France which I suppose is a kind of holiday house. But it's really only so I can go on drawing when I get there. I'm never far away from the feeling that I want to be getting on with something.