Trying Quotes - Page 505

Our legislators have become a set of "whores" open to the highest bidders. The problem is that if we try to limit lobbying, we are in effect limiting free speech.

When I try to outline the history of ethical life, it's sometimes possible to find evidence for a hypothesis about how important transitions actually went. Often, however, that isn't so. There are many facts about human life in the Paleolithic we're never likely to know.

I'm a fan of Hugh Kenner, Richard Ellman, Lionel Trilling and Frank Kermode. All these people have taught me how to read - but perhaps, above all literary critics, I'm indebted to Wayne Booth (several people have suggested to me that I'm trying to reinvent "ethical criticism").

We have entered a Moment when we are alone. We cannot get assistance, as before. Well, Mr. Tagomi thought, perhaps that too is good. Or can be made good. One must still try to find the Way.

One even tries to figure out why Donald Trump is so admiring of a leader who has cracked down on journalists and is suspected of using even violence, cracked down on civil society, ruling with an iron fist within Russia. To look with admiration on that sort of domestic leadership, I think is just really inconsistent with American values.

Theatrical times are different from concert times, to put it simply. Taking a figure like [Mahatma] Gandhi and setting him on a stage requires thinking about what theater is about and what the whole experience is about and what we're trying to communicate in that way, so you get into certain less abstract considerations.

Avowed work, even when uncongenial, is far less trying to patience than feigned pleasure.

Let us pray! God is just, he tries us; God is pitiful, he will comfort us; let us pray!

High school was the first time I ever saw spoken word poetry. The first place I ever performed a poem was at my school, so in some ways it was the nucleus of how it all started. For me I think high school was a period of trying to figure myself out, and poetry was one of the ways I did that, and was a very helpful avenue to try to do that.

I probably wouldn't kill a spider now, I'd probably try to scoop it up in a cup and put it outside, but not for any reason other than I don't need to take other lives recklessly. But other than that, I don't believe in ... anything. Anything, anything.

I think that I probably inevitably fetishize nature, although I try not to, because it's kind of embarrassing, repulsive behavior. I think it's just an extension of me being old-fashioned.

I'm not trying necessarily to become a movie star; that wouldn't be bad but that's not the aim. I'm just trying to do interesting things and go into areas where I've not been before.

And I would like to marry and have more children. I would like to try and do it right.

That's sort of what I try to do with music: to harness whatever energy is already there and see where that momentum takes me. Sometimes you're spinning that oncoming momentum in a different direction, or sometimes you're coercing it to consider itself, or sometimes you're holding it up to a mirror. But I don't really like to interrupt and come in and destroy everything and start all over. I'm not that kind of guy.

I have to experiment with methods and I'm trying to find an authentic way of making an equivalent of the living, breathing person within the limits of a single picture.

Just because you're starting from something which you know - a theory which you know is right and trying to further develop your understand of that theory is maybe a more fruitful thing to do than trying to just throw all that out and start afresh with something more speculative.

However hard we try to bring in the new; it comes into being only in the midst of clumsy deals.

Studios are attracted by making money, and they're also trying to simplify things, going with the genre thing. The gambling instincts of a few years ago where you might make some thousands or a few hundred, it's nothing now.

Sixty-five days principle photography, five-day weeks, which is the only way I'll work. With my cinematographer Russell Boyd, we take as much time as possible before pre-production, looking at stills. The next most important thing: he will come to me and talk about lenses. And I'll see his plan, which is generally great, and I might talk about how the light will be, handheld or not? I talk very freely, and try not to talk specifically, just talk around it, because it can unlock all sorts of things.

In terms of how I work with actors, having worked so heavily on the script I have a very clear idea of the characters; they are reasonably well illustrated in the script. If you cast it right, to a great degree you can hand it over to the actor and I just make suggestions. I'm not the kind of director who needs or wants to get into too much finessing. Ideally, when you hit the set, you have this conversation, like, 'eh, what did you think?' 'I don't know, what did you think?' 'Why don't we just try it again, make a few physical changes.'

I was really able to confirm something that I knew on some level before I'd made a film. The best actors know how to really relax. Because in film, a lot of the decisions are made in the editing room, so when you're trying to guide your performance too much - always it's a push and pull because you can't be too relaxed. Too relaxed and it's like, "What are you doing?" Too tense and it's not good either.

Hollywood is a cottage industry involving a very small number of people, and around the edges are enormous numbers of people trying to get into it and work.

Pope Benedict is an amazingly visionary person. What he has done is establish an evolutionary process that will help undo the Reformation. The Anglican Church has been hijacked by modernism, with synods trying to amend the faith and this process will allow traditional Anglicans to be themselves.

To play in the World Cup and try to win something for England was the ultimate.

I think one of the things that might distinguish me is when I'm going to work as an actor I really try not to worry about my own personal hang-ups and just really concentrate on the work. Because I have such a respect for acting, which is something I feel like I'm constantly learning how to do, that all of my energy is always focused on the acting itself.