I'll generally write out every scene that's in the film on a couple of pieces of paper, just with a little one-line. And then I can scan it a bit and go, 'This first third of the film, generally, I'm kind of calm.' Then I might do something on one pi...
You know, I think of the global economy as an inverted triangle, resting on the shoulders of the American consumer. And if the American consumer cannot have enough disposable income in order to maintain a standard of living that creates more opportun...
I kind of dislike 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' but most of Hemingway in general, mainly because his stylistic shenanigans ruined so many young writers of my generation who tried to imitate him. I think, for his time, he moved fiction to a different lev...
[Riggs is captured by General McAlister] Martin Riggs: You're General Peter McAlister, Commander of Shadow Company. McAlister: I see we've heard of each other. Martin Riggs: Yep. It'll almost be a shame when I nail you.
General Omar N. Bradley: What we really need is... someone tough enough to really pull this outfit together. Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver: Patton? General Omar N. Bradley: Possibly. Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver: [with a smile] God help us!
German officer: [on the Battle of Kasserine Pass] The Americans were under the command of British General Anderson. [smiles broadly] German officer: American soldiers and British generals - the worst of both worlds! Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: [curtl...
Capt. Oskar Steiger: [explaining Patton's attitude toward war] Sir, do you not see? General Alfred Jodl: What? Capt. Oskar Steiger: Don Quixote battles six merchants from Toledo and saves Dulcinea's virtue! General Alfred Jodl: Who the devil is Dulci...
Army General: [shouting] You told us that windows 98 would be faster, and more efficient with better access to the internet! Bill Gates: It IS faster! Over five million... [General shoots Bill Gates and everyone cheers]
Robert Wakefield: Well you've done a fine job, General. The Office of National Drug Control Policy is in better shape than when you found it. General Ralph Landry: I'm not sure I made the slightest difference. I tried. I really did.
A whole generation of veteran composers has never taken a stand or provided an example and has produced in the music academies generations of docile workers for the music industry. What can you expect from downtrodden workers who see music as a type ...
If readers, young and old, would take even a moment to reflect on our rapidly shifting culture and ideology, I would be happy. Many leaders of the older generation dismiss emerging culture. Those leaders are at risk of becoming a feeble voice-piece w...
Making changes requires making new and different choices, choices that are more conscious, and more life-supporting. Continuing to do what we have been doing so far is also a choice, but not one that will bring any meaningful improvement. I would sug...
One of the greatest myths in the world - & the phrase 'greatest myths' is just a fancy way of saying 'big fat lies' -- is that troublesome things get less & less troublesome if you do them more & more. People say this myth when they are teaching chil...
I didn't know his age or how he liked his tea, I was wearing a terrible coat and I was drunk as a stoat - but this moment felt like it. The one I'd been waiting patiently for since I was a little girl. I'd worked so hard, for so long, at being ok wit...
...there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love *running*. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating wha...
The Tarahumara would party like this all night, then rouse themselves the next morning to face off in a running race that could last not two miles, not two hours, but two full days. According to the Mexican historian Francisco Almada, a Tarahumara ch...
I read and reread and recommended and rarely rejected, became one of those readers who will read trashy stories as long as they're not too terrible--well, even perhaps the truly terrible ones--and will reread something she's already read, even if it'...
According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Clea...
Mathematicians call it “the arithmetic of congruences.” You can think of it as clock arithmetic. Temporarily replace the 12 on a clock face with 0. The 12 hours of the clock now read 0, 1, 2, 3, … up to 11. If the time is eight o’clock, and y...
Humanity is a huge aggregate lie, and a huge lie is less than a small truth. Humanity is less, far less than the individual because the individual may sometimes be capable of truth, and humanity is a tree of lies. And they say that love is greatest t...
Lady Clio’s father claimed her pale silvery hair was her greatest asset…or perhaps his greatest asset, considering he had the duty to see her wed to some poor unsuspecting fool. ... According to the Church, the color of a woman’s hair bespoke h...
