Quotes on Something

When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.

Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way - everything is interdependent, not absolute. So that view is very helpful to maintain a peace of mind because the main destroyer of a peaceful mind is anger.

Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise.

I used to believe, like many people who come from poor backgrounds, that it gave me an edge, but I think that's just something we have to tell ourselves to get by sometimes. I don't believe that anymore. Children of privilege can be just as talented and clever as anybody else.

We have a deeply rooted misconception in our country that unhoused people have done something to deserve their conditions - when the reality is that unhoused people are living the consequences of our government's failure to secure the basic necessities people need to survive.

I feel George Wallace symbolizes something in the past which America has rejected.

I'm against retiring. The thing that keeps a man alive is having something to do.

When I see a story, I ask: is this something I'd like to be in? Is this something I'd like to see? And if I'd like to see it, would I like to tell it?

I'd like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.

Back then, as a teenager, I kept thinking, why don't the adults around here just say something? Say it so they know we don't accept segregation? I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there's no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'

The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous will happen.

Once you stop wanting to improve, you start to slide. And if you want to keep winning, if you want to stay at the top, that's not something you can afford to do.

In a way, I feel it might be ill-mannered to try and top myself. The music I play is a ritual. Something that matters to people in a special way. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.

You don't have to have a great art idea - just get to work and something will happen. So that's pretty much my modus operandi and pretty much my principal position, such as it is.

You could look at something a hundred times from space, but the next time you come around the world, suddenly it's very different and gorgeous-looking, just because of the change of weather or the angle of the sun.

I think you get to a point where you watch something just to enjoy it. I don't think it's really done so that you're supposed to feel, Oh, he's the most wonderful drummer. I think the whole lot is what's more enjoyable.

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is. I don't believe in 'super-men,' for the world is full of capable men, but it's the fellow with determination that wins out.

The aristocracy in the future is not one of wealth or university education, but the aristocracy of the men who have done something for themselves and their fellow men.

I still have a feeling that I haven't written the best that I can write. I think all poets must feel this: that there is constantly something new to be discovered in the language. It's like a thrilling encounter, and you can find things.

If it all just happens like this for the rest of my life, it's going to be one endless Groundhog Day. I determined that I was not prepared to submit to this regime, so I thought I had to do something about it.

You have to trust yourself, not research. Not testing. Testing helps, but you have to trust your own taste. If your taste says something isn't any good, don't let research rationalize that out of its own truth.