Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.

Charles Dickens

To see the butcher slap the steak before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable too - it really was - to see him cut it off so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite.

Charles Caleb Colton

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

Charles Dickens

Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Charles Dickens

We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money.

Charles Spurgeon

Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then hast thou reason to rejoice: but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying "I am saved" is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee.

Charles Spurgeon

Alas, if our children lose the crown of life, it will be but a small consolation that they have won the laurels of literature or art.

Charles Spurgeon

Come boldly, 'O believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the doubtings of thine own heart, thou art greatly beloved.

Alanis Morissette

I firmly believe that the only reason why I'm on this planet, the only reason why I live, breathe, and exist is, that it's my duty to be as honest as possible in my art.

Louis Gossett, Jr.

I didn't know anything about acting, I didn't know anything about theater, but I was just an exceptional student at high school. I wanted to play ball; I'm going after a basketball scholarship and be a doctor. I got injured and my marks began to drop.

Brian Keith

We started slowly, but then began to put things together. We were 3-9 to begin the year, but we have gone 9-4 the rest of the way.

John Timoney

We stopped the rescue operation around 11 o'clock (Thursday) night, ... As the tide came in, the structure began to move, and other parts began to collapse again. We made the decision to pull our divers out.

Helen Scannell

We started from scratch. Immediately people began dropping things off - and they were nice things. Our goods are gently used. We are not a junkyard or garbage drop.

Leslie Cockburn

When I was at graduate school in London, I began working at NBC News, which had a thriving documentary unit.

M.I.A.

Sri Lanka is an island off the coast of India. There's two ethnicities there; one the Sinhalese, which is the majority and the government, and the minority, who are the Tamils. That's where I'm from. And my lifetime sort of began there; I spent 10 years, and I was there during when the war started and fled as a refugee to England.

Natasha Trethewey

Writing 'Native Guard,' I didn't know I was working on a single book. I began writing that book because I was interested in the lesser-known history of these black soldiers stationed off the coast of my hometown.

Natasha Tsakos

I was commissioned in 2003 to create an original show, and began developing 'Upwake.' 'Upwake' tells the story of Zero, a modern-day business man, going to work with his life in a suitcase, stuck between dream and reality and not able to decipher the two. I wanted 'Upwake' to have the same audiovisual qualities as a movie would.

Ma Jian

While I was writing 'Stick Out Your Tongue' in Beijing, the police began knocking on my door again. As soon as I finished the book, I moved to Hong Kong so that I could work undisturbed on my next novel.

Tom Lantos

(We) strongly encouraged them to understand that in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina, the focus of the American people will turn inward,

Lev Yilmaz

We made satires of everything - news broadcasts and TV shows that we watched. When I look at them now, they are totally amateurish, but I find it quite remarkable that we were so skeptical of the world! My parents watched them and thought they were funny; they really encouraged us.

Jordan Metzl

We were always encouraged to do whatever it was we wanted to do. There was never a goal that was too high or too crazy.

Keeley Hawes

We're not an acting family, but my parents have always encouraged me.

Richard Murray

We're really excited about it. We're also encouraged by the number of competitors who've signed up. So long as the weather holds up, we should have a great day.

Kris Gopalakrishnan

Engineering college students should be encouraged to start entrepreneurial ventures in their second year itself. It is safer to fail while in college.

Uzo Aduba

I think of myself as a little kid, and I had a wild imagination, but it was something that was encouraged and supported, which helped steer me into the arts.

Joseph B. Wirthlin

The Savior encouraged brotherhood. He was not a long-distance leader. He walked and worked with those whom he led. He was not afraid of close friendships. He spent many hours with his disciples, and his relationships with them were intimate.

Kate Bush

Thanks to everyone who's encouraged and supported my work over the years.

Meta Golding

When I was a kid, we lived in Italy, which isn't really known for figure skating. I think that's why I excelled so well. I spent a lot of my high school years training.

John Harder

She was forced into a role that she not only accepted, but excelled at. I can't say enough good things.

Marc Walters

She's having a great season for us. Not only has she come in as a freshman and taken over the No. 1 spot at singles, but she has also excelled at that spot.

Rita Peters

She's excelled at every position she's done. At every position she's been in, in the district, she's been the best.

Pat Metheny

One of the things jazz has always excelled at is translating the reality of the times through its musical prism.

Chris Witty

For me, the great thing about having excelled in a sport was that it was a way to feel happy. People would congratulate me on things I accomplished. I was able to be free on the ice. If I didn't have that I don't know what my life would have been.

Dave Tippett

There were a lot of guys that we put into roles where we knew they had to jump in and do a good job. They've excelled in all of them.

Charles Caleb Colton

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

Alan Watts

The greater the scientist, the more he is impressed with his ignorance of reality, and the more he realizes that his laws and labels, descriptions and definitions, are the products of his own thought. They help him to use the world for purposes of his own devising rather than understand and explain it.

Alan Perlis

Optimization hinders evolution.

Alan Perlis

Any noun can be verbed.

Alan Perlis

A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.

Alan Perlis

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Alan Perlis

To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.

Nolan Sotillo

I play guitar, piano, and I'm learning to play the drums.

Beverley Mitchell

I think it's so important to keep learning and keep your brain active.

Alanis Morissette

I started making music because I could.

Alanis Morissette

I am what I am Are you what you are or What?

Alanis Morissette

Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.

Alanis Morissette

Music helps you find the truths you must bring into the rest of your life.

Al Jarreau

You have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the Blues.

Al Jarreau

Once you discover that you can, then you must.

Chris Colfer

I grew up doing musical theater.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

I'm constantly discovering things. Like Bobby Bland. Right now I suppose I'm into the Eighties, which turned out to be a great musical period.

Chico Hamilton

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.

Caio Fonseca

I've been playing piano my whole life, but I'd never tried to understand how compositions are made, really. Try to imagine if you'd loved paintings your whole life but had never painted one. My aspiration now is just to understand.

Buffy Sainte-Marie

I didn't know what I was gonna get the first time I sat down at a piano, but I loved it and it became my playmate for life.

Billy Joel

I have long admired Steinway pianos for their qualities of tone, clarity, pitch consistency, touch responsiveness, and superior craftsmanship.

Diana Krall

It is a privilege and an honor to perform on Steinway pianos.

Carl Andre

I didn't study the piano - the piano studied me.

Agnes Obel

Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.

Billy Taylor

Steinway is the finest piano ever made. Its tone is magnificent and its well-balanced action superb.

Mark Smith

Unfortunately, I was hauling a piano on that one.

Artur Schnabel

I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play.

Chris Crutcher

If we are to stop bullying in schools, we have to start with teachers and administrators. If we want to stop it, we have to stop it.

Wendy Kopp

The teachers are trying to build the same culture in the classroom as we're building in the organization.

Avi

I think you become a writer when you stop writing for yourself or your teachers and start thinking about readers.

Mary Quant

As the daughter of two teachers with first-class degrees, I'd always seen myself as a duffer by comparison.

Dave Craig

Saturdays we always have a lot of browsers -- teachers and tourists.

Peggy Smith

Some teachers are better with adults and some aren't.

Catherine Johnson

If you've ever been in a classroom, you know these teachers are underpaid.

Alan Watts

Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work.

Alan Clark

Give a civil servant a good case and he'll wreck it with clichés, bad punctuation, double negatives, and convoluted apology.

Alan Bennett

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.

Alan Ayckbourn

A gentleman ... sleeps at his work. That's what work's for. Why do you think they have the SILENCE notices in the library? So as not to disturb me in my little nook behind the biography shelves.

Al Kaline

You've got to get good habits of working hard so that when that play comes up during the regular season that you're able to complete it and do it the right way.

Akio Morita

Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as honorable.

Chloe Sevigny

I do a dance-based cardio workout infused with circuit training, and emphasizing strength and alignment.

Dave Chappelle

If I put forth a legitimate effort, then I feel like, if that doesn't work out, that's all I can do.

Dave Chappelle

I always take a relationship to the next level. If that works out, I take it to the next level after that, until I finally reach that level when it becomes absolutely necessary for me to leave.

Arthur Bryant

Say what you have to say in the fewest possible words.

Robert Klein

In some articles written about me, writers have said I'm a link between the old and the new, and I think, in a certain sense, that's legitimate.

Brian K. Vaughan

There are probably writers who are much more visual than I am and some who are less. I like to think of myself as a happy medium.

Alan Moore

I could never be the kind of writer who went to the set of the movie and fussed and fretted about, 'Oh, that dialogue's wrong,' or 'That character doesn't look like that.' That would be insufferable.

Charlaine Harris

Well, you know, writers just suck up new experiences - we're just like the vacuum cleaners of newness.

Sara Sheridan

Scottish writers are particularly successful in the crime genre.

Aminatta Forna

Most writers I know go for word counts, and I used to be a journalist, so I guess that's ingrained.

Claire Tomalin

Most writers can tell stories of how their books failed to be made into films.

John Dos Passos

If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.