Quotes on Thing

It's one thing to be groped and harassed by passers-by, but when the state gropes you, it gives a green light that you are fair game.

I've realized that it's important to stop trying to think I'm any one thing. People are confused as to their identity and try to cling to one aspect of that identity to describe what they are: American, Republican, Muslim. These are really incomplete.

Honestly, in the music business, it's all about being cool or being the newest thing or being the 'It' person, and I've tried really hard to be what is expected of me or what would be advantageous to my career, and I just reached the point where I said, 'No, I'm an emotional loser. I can't pretend to not care.'

One thing that struck me in my study of history is how people are excluded. I don't mean just racial minorities or women. Pretty much all poor people who don't have documents are excluded from history and its records. People who were illiterate usually didn't leave any primary documents.

The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don't forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it's always there in your head.

To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative.

I think the legacy we leave is our family. I don't think it's money. I don't think it's - I'm not saying that charity isn't a great thing. I just think that it's my family. Even now I look and I think, God, I'm lucky if I lost it all.

I think the thing that we agreed to so many years ago, actually, was that the music didn't have to support the dance nor the dance illustrate the music, but they could be two things going on at the same time.

The thing that makes me want to write a piece of music is having something to talk about, you know? Something I want to get across. Because I'm a composer, music is my first language, and that's what I reach for when I want to convey something.

We know that efficiency and effectiveness are increased when you're getting sufficient sleep, and it will take you longer to do the same thing on an underslept brain, which means you end up having to stay awake longer. So goes the vicious cycle.

It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done.

One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear.

Fashion is a very ongoing, renewing thing, about change and reaching for the next thing. You are permanently dissatisfied, and it's always got to get better.

I always tell my students to complicate your characters: never make it easy for the reader. Nobody is ever one thing. That's what makes characters compelling.

I did learn eventually - perhaps far too late - to respect the talent I have. For a lot of years out there, I was just bashing on to the next thing and not really thinking about it too much. That's what we do. But I'm learning to appreciate the moment.

The best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.

The most important thing at Daytona is, are you going to have friends willing to work with you during the race as far as drafting? You've got to have friends out there. You can't do it alone. You form those relationships as the race moves along.

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.

All work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working. There is need to realize the value of work in all its forms whether manual or intellectual, to be called 'mate,' to have sympathetic understanding of all forms of activity.

You can be big, and you can be successful, but you cannot abuse your power to stop others from challenging you from being the next big thing in five or ten years.

I refused to accept anything, doubted everything. So, doubting everything, I had to find something that had not existed before, something I had not thought of before. Any idea that came to me, the thing would be to turn it around and try to see it with another set of senses.