It's rather splendid to think of all those great men and women who appear to have presented symptoms that allow us to describe them as bipolar. Whether it's Hemingway, Van Gogh... Robert Schumann has been mentioned... Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath... ...
Revolutionaries who come to power by force of arms usually have great crimes in their background. Leaders who survive campaigns by great powers to destroy them do not survive because they observe the niceties of law. Subversives who shape world event...
The great thing about getting married young like I did and having a child so young is that he gets to know all the relatives. He knew his great-grandmother, and we sat down together and tied down the stories of our uncles and aunts. They were quite t...
I don't want to be one of those 'hour' guys who is all bitter about reality TV. It's as viable as any other genre - when it's great, it's great. However! Reality does a certain thing. It burns quickly, brightly, and then it burns out. You can't repea...
I've always felt like we're all human beings and we're all basically given the tools to make whatever choices we want to make. How we treat other people. How we treat ourselves. Just the whole philosophy of that and the philosophical logic of that is...
You can find virtually everybody black back as far as the 1870 census. Why 1870? That's when the ex-slaves first have surnames. But if you find your great-great-grandfather in 1870 and it says he's 50, that means he was born in 1820 and you're back t...
I used to think no one should go into show biz, but now I feel differently. I now feel like it's a great career. If you can do it and make money at it and still not be so famous that you can have a normal life - then I think it's a great career.
His whole effort, therefore, will be to get the man's mind off the subject of his own value altogether. He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forget about it, than that he should spend much time and pains ...
Being what we are, rational but also animate, amphibians who start from the world of sense and proceed through myth and metaphor to the world of spirit. I do not see how we could have come to know the greatness of God without that hint that furnished...
Without the existance of people to acknowledge or dispute your greatness, your greatness is irrelevant. You are because they are. Without them, no matter how they treat you, you would not exist. Treat all the world as if you owe it your gratitude, be...
Life is made up of a few moments all strung together like pearls. Each moment is a pearl, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest luster. If we do not have time to do great things, take a few gentle moments and do small things in a great...
Samantha: [after James protests his inability to debate with Samantha or Henry] James, you're the best researcher I've ever seen. We couldn't do this without you. James Farmer Jr.: [angrily] Oh, there's PLENTY you do without me!
[on some materials he's using for escape clothes] Bartlett: Where in God's name did you get these? Griffith: Hendley. Bartlett: Well, where did he get them? Griffith: Well, I asked him that. Bartlett: What did he say? Griffith: "Don't ask."
Stratwitch: Your name? Ives: Ives. [Strachwitz looks through his prisoner profiles] Stratwitch: Ives... Ives... Oh, yes. Archibald Ives. Scot. The photograph doesn't do justice. Ives: I'd like to see one of you under similar circumstances.
[the German camp commandant explains why so many incorrigible Allied prisoners were placed in the place Stalag] Von Luger: We have in effect put all our rotten eggs in one basket. And we intend to watch this basket carefully.
Herr Kuhn: We have reason to believe this prisoner is the mastermind behind numerous criminal escape attempts. Von Luger: [sarcastically] Squadron Leader Bartlett has been three months in your care! And the Gestapo has only "reason to believe"!
[last lines of part one] Hilts: [after Ives is killed] Sir, let me know the exact information you need. I'm going out tonight. Bartlett: Right. [to Danny] Bartlett: Open up Harry. We dig. Around the clock.
Great Goblin: Well, well, well... look who it is! Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain! [bows mockingly] Great Goblin: Oh, but I'm forgetting, you don't have a mountain, and you're not a king, which makes you nobody, really.
Exercise is a great leveler. It doesn't matter how rich you are, you can't just buy your way into a great body. You have to do the work. I find that comforting. It's one of the few things in life where we're all on a level playing field.
Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses ...
I grew up in a great family.
