The imagination is our final advantage as a species, a place to safely (and happily) explore experiences that are far from safe and far from happy. “Dracula” and “The Fly” may delight and appall in equal measure, but they also gently prepare ...
We are a generation that is obsessed with nostalgia. Everything from the past is so readily available in ways that it never was before and because of that, western civilization will experience a period of arrested growth. The future holds fifty-year-...
I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partl...
I spent a long time experimenting, saying, 'Here's a record that's free, or $5 if you want a nice version or $250 if you'd like a really nice coffee-table thing.' Everything felt like the right thing to do at the time and then six months later would ...
There's a theory about fame: the moment it strikes, it arrests development. Michael Jackson remained suspended in childhood, enjoying sleepovers and funfairs; Winona Ryder, an errant teen who dabbled in shoplifting and experimented with pills; George...
Leonard Shelby: I meet Sammy through work. Insurance. I was an investigator. I'd investigate the claims to see which ones were phony. I had to see through people's bullshit. It was useful experience, 'cause now it's my life.
Brock Lovett: 26 years of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship they're gonna see in time to turn. The ship's too big with too small a rudder. It doesn't corner worth a damn. Everything he knows is wrong.
I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic - I use this metaphor a lot but I'll use it again - it's like a pine tree producing pine cones, or...
I want to challenge myself to see where my limit is and experiment with a lot of different films. A lot of artists from Asia focus too much on their Asian background. I don't want to let go of my background, but to be a success in the U.S., which is ...
A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, concerts and lectures. Yet you can partake of all these experiences and never say hello to anyone new. And one of the things that all religions do is t...
The alternative to pain may be worse. When you live with an open heart, you will inevitably get hurt. The alternative of living a life closed off from experience, however, is barren. Ironically, it also still involves suffering. In fearing pain, we a...
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
I am drawn mostly, insistently to the human voice. How powerful and necessary the solo voice, the experience of being someone, something else for a little while. This is and will remain literature’s killer app, the thing most impervious to threat b...
I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn't intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play, so I started to think like, 'Well if I'm going to fight agai...
One or a couple of good thoughts may be a fluke or derived from life’s challenges, a few can be a practice or a lesson from failures and bad experiences but the consistency of excellent quotes is certainly a mark of an excellence that being prepare...
It's an arbitrary thing if you're born with an XX or XY chromosome, but it can determine your experience of the world. It's about whether you are physically intimidating vs. being physically intimidated. It determines whether you are the one to take ...
Christopher McCandless:"I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just n...
Test your talents, pursue your passions, and let those experiences lead you to a sure sense of who you are. Build a strong core for yourself so that almost nothing and no one can shake you from that foundation. Don't be afraid to know what you want a...
Always try to be perceptive and observant in living, sensatory for details and diversity. Always try to see beyond the surface, and look in another perspective. Always try not to judge. Always seeks new experience, embrace and took chances. To live l...
There is no condition so severe that you cannot reverse it by choosing different thoughts. However, choosing different thoughts requires focus and practise. If you continue to focus as you have been, to think as you have been, and to believe as you h...
Reflection is time sensitive; and with the realization that the 'present' and 'future' can be altered, it is also purposeful, for we can set goals to grow into a graceful work of art. Reflection is deliberate and purposeful. It is our past that provi...
