Bland Quotes - Page 6

but ignorance is a kind of insanity in the human animal. People who delight in torturing defenseless children or tiny creatures are in reality insane. The terrible thing is that people who are madmen in private may wear a totally bland and innocent expression in public.

Akira Kurosawa

Children, Ignorance, Animal

Akira Kurosawa (2011). “Something Like An Autobiography”, p.83, Vintage

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He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.

Peter De Vries

Eye, Vanity, People

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We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.

Curtis Sittenfeld

Soccer, Art, Writing

Curtis Sittenfeld (2005). “Prep: a novel”

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I see far stronger and more charismatic personalities strolling around Philadelphia's neighborhoods than are being featured in most of today's bland daytime soaps.

Camille Paglia

Philadelphia, Personality, Stronger

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Do you know what you’ve done?” I asked in a bland tone. Annette gave me an inquiring look. “You’ve gotten on my last nerve.” The table went crashing into her before she could blink, and then my fist found a home in her perfectly arranged hair.

Jeaniene Frost

Home, Hair, Nerves

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Customer research produces bland products. We're producing a piece of art.

Michael Arrington

Art, Pieces, Research

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I've dealt with numbers all my life, of course, and after a while you begin to feel that each number has a personality of its own. A twelve is very different from a thirteen, for example. Twelve is upright, conscientious, intelligent, whereas thirteen is a loner, a shady character who won't think twice about breaking the law to get what he wants. Eleven is tough, an outdoorsman who likes tramping through woods and scaling mountains; ten is rather simpleminded, a bland figure who always does what he's told; nine is deep and mystical, a Buddha of contemplation.

Paul Auster

Character, Math, Intelligent

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In the light of consciousness all sorts of things happen and one need not give special importance to any. The sight of a flower is as marvelous as the vision of God. Let them be. Why remember them and then make memory into a problem? Be bland about them; do not divide them into high and low, inner and outer, lasting and transient. Go beyond, go back to the source, go to the self that is the same whatever happens.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Peace, Memories, Flower

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Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation.

David Ogilvy

Men, Personality, Corporations

David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

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Greasy food might not be good for your body, but it does wonders for the soul. A healthy diet may prolong your life, but what would you have to live for? What is the point of living to a hundred if you have to subsist on bland food? One may as well die of boredom.

Jessica Zafra

Boredom, Healthy, Soul

Jessica Zafra (1998). “Twisted”, Anvil Books

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He raised his brows. "You're drunk." "Am not!" He gave me a bland look. "A drunk's famous last words before they fall flat on their face.

J. Lynn

Fall, Drunk, Looks

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The worst thing in the world is to be bland.

Ben Huh

Sleep, Insomnia, World

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These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the original parable, the bland lead the bland.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Taken, Men, Discipline

'The Affluent Society' (1958) ch. 1, sect. 3

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[Alan Berg's] memory haunts many people, even those who never heard him on the radio, because his death could be read as a message: Be cautious, be prudent, be bland, never push anybody, never say what you really think, offer yourself as a hostage to the weirdos even before they make the first move. These days, a lot of people are opposed to the newfound popularity of 'trash television,' and no doubt they are right, and the hosts of these shows are shameless controversy-mongers. But at least they are not intimidated. Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?

Roger Ebert

Memories, Moving, Thinking

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Tell him what? Kat’s a raging nymphomaniac. (Kytara) Tara! (Kat) Oh, all right. She’s so bland she makes plain toast look spicy. (Kytara)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Looks, Rage, Spicy

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Even the street, the sunshine, the very air had a special Sunday quality. We walked differently on Sundays, with greater propriety and stateliness. Greetings were more formal, more subdued, voices more meticulously polite. Everything was so smooth, bland, polished. And genuinely so, because this was Sunday. In church the rustling and the stillness were alike pervaded with the knowledge that all was for the best. Propriety ruled the universe. God was in His Heaven, and we were in our Sunday clothes.

Rose Wilder Lane

Sunshine, Sunday, Air

"Old Home Town". Book by Rose Wilder Lane, 1935.

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