As with our earlier worship of saints and facts, there is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting. The message of the competition/efficiency/marketplace Trinity seem...
Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is,...
I spend a lot of time with young people now, bright, public-spirited kids from across the political spectrum who give me hope for the future...They want to have an impact, but they're not sure that politics is a viable path on which to do that. Congr...
Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things—like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale. One night in Hiroshima it occurred to me that the moon behind a certain ...
My fight isn’t so simple, it has very deep roots, from long ago, from earlier generations. Life weighs on me with the weight of my family history, my genes drag along a race of sons of plenty and sons of bitches who with a blade of a machete cleare...
Today, you are as old as you have ever been and as young as you will ever be! It is never too late, or too early to start working toward your goals and your dreams. Every moment, every situation, and every turn of events presents you with an opportun...
Today you are encouraged to work towards your dream! Each of us has a fire in our hearts burning for something. It’s our responsibility in life to find it and keep it lit. This is your life and it’s a short one. Don’t let others extinguish your...
If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at...
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, cl...
[last lines] Professor Levy: [voiceover] We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions. Moral choices. Some are on a grand scale. Most of these choices are on lesser points. But! We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We ar...
[Uzbekistani Army soldiers carrying Dr. Pavel greet a CIA agent and several Special Ops soldiers] CIA Agent: Dr. Pavel, I'm CIA. [shakes hands with Dr. Pavel] Barsad: He wasn't alone. [motions to three hooded prisoners he has brought alone] CIA Agent...
Brian Clough: You know he'll be making a file on us. A dossier. Peter Taylor: Who? Brian Clough: Don Revie. Prepares a file on every game. Leaves nothing to chance. Knows every opponent's formations, strategies everything. Peter Taylor: I've heard he...
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: [narrating over a military parade in Moscow] In bourgeois terms, it was a war between the Allies and Germany. In Bolshevik terms, it was a war between the Allied and German upper classes - and which of them won was of total indi...
Mr. X: I thought I heard a stranger. We've got chicken tonight. Strangest damn things. They're man made. Little damn things. Smaller than my fist. But they're new. Hi, I'm Bill. Henry Spencer: Hello there. I'm Henry. Mrs. X: Henry works at LaPelle's ...
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Boy, Mr. Lugosi, you must lead such an exciting life! When is your next picture coming out? Bela Lugosi: I have no next picture. Edward D. Wood, Jr.: You gotta be joking, a great star like you? You must have dozens of them lined ...
Dr. Barringer, Clinic Director: There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside chance... Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try to ...
Bill Foster: What are you doing to the street? Construction Worker: We're fixing it! What the Hell does it look like? Bill Foster: Two days ago it was fine. Are you telling me the street fell apart in two days? Construction Worker: Well, I guess so. ...
Nicholas: So, you've played recently? New Member Ted: Oh, about a year ago. I was working in Los Angeles. Nicholas: I hear the London office is very good, too. It just sounds like a lot of fantasy, role-playing nonsense. New Member Ted: [leans in] Yo...
Boss Tweed: Bill, I can't get a days work done for all the good citizens coming in here to harass me about crime in the Points. Some even go so far as to accuse Tammany of connivance in this so-called rampant criminality. What am I to do? I can't hav...
Ron Weasley: The deluminator. It doesn't just turn off lights. I don't know how it work but Christmas morning, I was sleeping in this little pub, keeping away from some Snatchers, and I heard it. A voice. Your voice, Hermione. You said my name. Just ...
Aunt Marge: [to Vernon] You mustn't blame yourself about how this one turned out, Vernon. It's all to do with blood. Bad blood will out. [to Petunia] Aunt Marge: What is it the boy's father did, Petunia? Aunt Petunia: Nothing. He didn't work. He was ...