Sam Taylor > Sam's Quotes

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”
― Malcolm X

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.”
― Stephen King

“There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.”
― Stephen King

“Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
― Stephen King

“Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”
― Stephen King

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.”
― Mark Twain

“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“You can blow the world to pieces, but you can't blow the world to peace.”
― Dennis Kucinich

“The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.”
― Stephen Sondheim

“We shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on — and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same — like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

“Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Now you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it...because you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled.”
― Christopher J. J. Nolan

“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”
― Stanley Kubrick

“I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.”
― Stanley Kubrick

“Academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.”
― Werner Herzog

“If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.”
― Werner Herzog

“Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
― Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: Alone

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“I have an idea about voting, how about on every ballot we include "None of the above". People may laugh at that, but what that is, it is a vote of no confidence in your government and I'm willing to bet that in some elections, 'None of the Above' would win. Imagine if you won the election but lost to 'None of the Above'. Wouldn't that make you re-think your positions?”
― Jesse Ventura

“Remember something, if you will, about voting: Voting is not a horse race, you're not going there thinking "Gee, I gotta pick the winner so I can brag to my friends 'Oh, I picked so-and-so and he or she won'". Voting is voting your heart and voting your conscience and when you've done that, don't ever, EVER let a Democrat or Republican tell you that you've wasted your vote because the fact is, if you DON'T vote your heart and conscience then you HAVE wasted your vote.”
― Jesse Ventura

“If Waterboarding is okay, then why don't we let our police do it to criminals so they can find out what they know? Because it's against the law. If we're not going to be a country that stand's for the rule of law, when it's convenient or inconvenient, then what DO we stand for.”
― Jesse Ventura