Quotes on Play

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That’s baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, ‘I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.’

Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.

The secret of poetry is never explained,— is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, and the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, and knows not that they are such. 'T is as easy as breath. 'T is like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, and none knows what it is.

Divers alarums and excursions', she read, uncertainly. 'That means lots of terrible happenings, said Magrat. 'You always put that in plays.' Alarums and what?', said Nanny Ogg, who hadn't been listening. Excursions', said Magrat patienly. Oh.' Nanny Ogg brightened a bit. 'The seaside would be nice,' she said. Oh do shut up, Gytha,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'They're not for you. They're only for divers, like it says. Probably so they can recover from all them alarums.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

I don't want to wake up and be bored. That's probably my greatest fear is to have nothing to do. What better job is there than to play quarterback for an NFL team, and certainly one that I've been on for a long time and had success with? I don't plan on giving it up any time soon.

Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease.

Studios are passe for me. I'd rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.

If money titles meant anything, I'd play more tournaments. The only thing that means a lot to me is winning. If I have more wins than anybody else and win more majors than anybody else in the same year, then it's been a good year.

And then it was like, wait, you can go to college and study theater? And act in plays? This is almost a racket, you know. And then when the opportunity came along to do it professionally, I thought I'd won the lottery.

All you have to do is play one note. But it needs to be the right note.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

It is playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.

Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.

My life experience has taught me nothing happens by chance. Even the idea of the ball in a roulette game: it's not chance it ends up in a certain place. It's forces that are at play.

We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.

Americans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active role in ensuring that what the United States does abroad is not merely in keeping with a foreign policy elite's sense of realpolitik but also with the American public's own sense of American values.