Quotes on Something

Perseverance has always just been something that was in me. And it was a tool that came in very handy as a ballerina.

I think that any time you get into an area where it requires humility, and accountability, it's gonna get touchy. And so I understand the reality of when someone says something that requires you to look at yourself and change, it's not easy.

If our dreams are sincere desires to achieve, not mere pipe-dreams, there is something deep within ourselves which comes out to meet them and helps to make them realities.

What we must not do - what we must never do - is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human.

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare - something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state - something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

I don't think you can create art out of anger; it has to come out of some form of understanding. You have to feel good about who you are and that you could do something to change things.

Being criticized in the media is a good problem to have - most of the time. It means you're doing something that is at least interesting or cool or crazy enough to be noticed. It might not always feel good, but it's usually better than the alternative of obscurity.

Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.

The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates.

It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.

There's so much chaos in life, I think I make music to make things feel calm and sane, to define something, to bring some meaning into it - it's a real peaceful thing to me.

I want to do work that means something to me so that when I go to work at the theater eight times a week, I want to be there.

The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself.

If you want to be an actor and you love acting, you can do it whether you're doing something else or not. You can be connected with community theater or make your own little movies. But if you want to be a movie star, you've got a tough road ahead of you.

Obviously a primary liberal conviction is that we should be tolerant of other peoples' convictions. But if we believe in something, we had better find ways to say so convincingly.

The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish a flow of words, and criticise them later.' You give this advice but can't always take it.

When I write something, I can't remember in the end if this is a memory or if it's not - I'm talking about fiction. So for me, it's the same thing.

The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something, and those who make things on a canvas with a frame, they're called artists. Formerly, they were called craftsmen, a term I prefer. We're all craftsmen, in civilian or military or artistic life.

As every scuba diver knows, panic is your worst enemy: when it hits, your mind starts to thrash and you are likely to do something really stupid and self-destructive.

It wasn't stone. It wasn't welded steel. It wasn't traditional sculpture. They thought it was craft, or something else, but not art. They couldn't define it in the early Fifties when I was starting out.

You make observations, write theories to fit them, try experiments to disprove the theories and, if you can't, you've got something.