To say that ‘life’s a joke’ is not so much to belittle life as to correctly identify the elusive nature of the joke. Jokes have the measure of us. They change in the telling, defy capture, slip through our fingers like water. And they outlast u...
The chimpanzee study was - well, it's still going on, and I think it's taught us perhaps more than anything else to be a little humble; that we are, indeed, unique primates, we humans, but we're simply not as different from the rest of the animal kin...
The only thing that interests the physicist is finding out on what assumptions a framework of things can be constructed which will enable us to know how to use them mechanically. Physics, as I have said on another occasion, is the technique of techni...
The language that we use now impacts on the ability to vote, it impacts on the marketplace; instead of making things clear, it makes it more confusing. I think we need to stop using neutral language and speak in straighter terms. So when you agree to...
Human beings either function as individuals or as members of a pack. There's a switch inside us, deep in our spirit, that you can turn one way or the other. It's almost always the case that our worst behaviour comes out when we're switched to the mob...
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 re...
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someon...
You know, I think there was a point in time when people didn't really understand how birth certificates were kept in the state of Hawaii, and now, I think that it's been pretty much disclosed that they used to have a long form and now they don't have...
We're in an inflection point where it's cheaper to learn to read on a tablet computer than it is to learn to read on paper. And that being the case, it's only a matter of time before every 6-year-old kid has a tablet computer, and we know for a fact,...
An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one ti...
Abbe Faria: With two of us digging, we can cover twice the ground. It'll only take us, oh... 8 years to reach the outer wall. [Edmond laughs] Abbe Faria: Ohh... and does something else demand your time? Some pressing appointment, perhaps?
Ralphie: Scut Farkus! Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Scut Farkus! What a rotten name! We were trapped. There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!
Zeus: Excuse me, sir, but I'm expecting a call. I need that phone. Businessman: Why don't you use the other phone? Zeus: Sir, please. I need to use that phone. Businessman: Hey, listen, bro, I was here first. Zeus: Bro? Get away from the goddamn phon...
Nick: You know what was in this? Zyklon-B! You remember? What the Nazis had? Listen! [Shakes the can, a slight rattle is barely audible] Nick: Empty! This was used, man! This was actually used. I wonder how many kikes this little can took out! Huh! T...
English Teacher: [speaking very slowly] In... what... way... does the author's use of the prison [takes chalk and draws prison bars through the word 'prison' on blackboard] English Teacher: symbolize the protagonist's struggle, and how does this rela...
Smokie: Are you fucking crazy? Go back in the house. Walt Kowalski: Yeah? I blow a hole in your face and then I go in the house... and I sleep like a baby. You can count on that. We used to stack fucks like you five feet high in Korea... use ya for s...
[last lines] Ma Joad: Rich fellas come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good an' they die out. But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people.
Nadi: I am tired. Behrani: Soon we will return to the flowers of Isfahan... the mosques of Qom... and to the fine hotels of old Tehran. I have taken us so far off our course. But now it is time to return. It is time for us to go home, to our destiny.
Tom Reagan: Think about what protecting Bernie gets us. Think about what offending Caspar loses us. Leo O'Bannion: Oh, come on, Tommy. You know I don't like to think. Tom Reagan: Yeah. Well, think about whether you should start.
Chico: They're afraid. She's afraid of me, you, him. All of us. Farmers! Their families told them we would rape them. Chris: Well we might. But in my opinion you might have given us the benefit of the doubt. But just as you please...
Patrick 'Patsy' Goldberg: Hey, Noodles, get a load of this... Hey, scotch heating! Philip 'Cockeye' Stein: Yeah, a buck a cup. Noodles: A buck a cup? Max: Yeah! Noodles: How much's it cost us? Max: Costing us? A dime, including overhead!
