Cautionary Tales Quotes

• Cautionary tales were fantastic in the '70s.

  Alfonso Cuaron

  Fantastic, Tales

  "Alfonso Cuarón, director of “Y tu mamá también” searches for hope in “Children of Men”". Interview with Mark Rahner, www.seattletimes.com. December 22, 2006.

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• People have been modeling their lives after films for years, but the medium is somehow unsuited to moral lessons, cautionary tales or polemics of any kind.

  Renata Adler

  Kindness, Years, People

  Renata Adler (2015). “After the Tall Timber: Collected Nonfiction”, p.258, New York Review of Books

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• The past history of human belief is a cautionary tale. We have killed thousands of our fellow human beings because we believed they had signed a contract with the devil, and had become witches. We still kill more than a thousand people each year for witchcraft. In my view, there is only one hope for humankind to emerge from what Carl Sagan called "the demon-haunted world" of our past. That hope is science.

  Michael Crichton

  Science, Past, Years

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• The greatest sci-fis, in my mind, are two things: They're what-ifs - what if this happened, and you get to see it - but they're also these philosophical cautionary tales. They deal with the underlying themes beneath the what-if.

  Bryce Dallas Howard

  Philosophical, Two, Mind

  "Chris Pratt And Bryce Dallas Howard Are Living Our Dinosaur Fantasies In ‘Jurassic World’". Interview With Matthew Jacobs, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 10, 2015.

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• From the time we're born, our brothers and sisters are our collaborators and coconspirators, our role models and our cautionary tales.

  Jeffrey Kluger

  Brother, Role Models, Roles

  Jeffrey Kluger (2011). “The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us”, p.8, Penguin

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• I've been with the project for like three years: creating it, pushing it. [There] becomes a certain doubt when you're pitching this story to people. ["The Land" is] a cautionary tale. It's not the brightest or best ending to a film when you're telling a cautionary tale about four kids, kids who are killing each other, kids who are products of the streets.

  Steven Caple Jr.

  Kids, Years, Land

  Source: www.rogerebert.com

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• [Frida Farell] also wanted the film to serve as a cautionary tale for young women - to say, "Be careful when an attractive man asks you to go to a casting or a photo shoot, because it might be a demon in disguise."

  Rudolf Buitendach

  Men, Might, Casting

  Source: variety.com

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• We thought by setting the film ["Selling Isobel"] in the cloak of... let's call it an indie-Hollywood thriller, it would appeal to a wider range of young women who would see this cautionary tale and say, "Hang on, I've got to think twice about what I get myself into."

  Rudolf Buitendach

  Thinking, Hollywood, Film

  Source: variety.com

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• As a writer, the ideal job is the one that allows you time and mental space away from it. Teaching seemed to me like the obvious choice - those summers off, you know - but my experience may serve as a cautionary tale.

  Debra Dean

  Summer, Jobs, Teaching

  Source: therumpus.net

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• After an 18-year career, I left the film industry, not wanting to become one of those child-actor cautionary tales.

  Lisa Jakub

  Children, Years, Careers

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• Madame Bovary is timeless. It is not just about the female condition in France in the 1840s. It's not a simple cautionary tale. Emma is more than a character; she gives us an insight into human nature. With Emma, we are diving into the complexities of Flaubert's psyche.

  Sophie Barthes

  Character, Simple, Giving

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• Have you ever been tempted to start your own business? First read this cautionary tale, especially if you think your ideas come from God.

  Phil Vischer

  Thinking, Ideas, Firsts

  "Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About God, Dreams, and Talking Vegetables". Publisher's Weekly review of Phil Vischer's book, www.publishersweekly.com. October 09, 2006.

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• You can think of my films as cautionary tales, but you might even think of them as despairing tales, because at least in a cautionary tale, you have this idea that by listening to the story you can assure a better outcome. Whereas I'm not at all convinced that's the case. In fact, if anything, I'm convinced that it's the opposite.

  Errol Morris

  Thinking, Opposites, Ideas

  "The Eleven-Minute Psychiatrist". Interview with James Hughes, Stop Smiling Magazine, www.errolmorris.com. March 2006.

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• PowerPoint presentations, the cesspool of data visualization that Microsoft has visited upon the earth. PowerPoint, indeed, is a cautionary tale in our emerging data literacy. It shows that tools matter: Good ones help us think well and bad ones do the opposite. Ever since it was first released in 1990, PowerPoint has become an omnipresent tool for showing charts and info during corporate presentations.

  Clive Thompson

  Thinking, Opposites, Data

  Clive Thompson (2013). “Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better”, p.56, Penguin

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• I'm not certain that I draw from any one culture more than others. Many myths and legends of many different cultures are really the same story when you get to the heart of it. They are often cultural cautionary tales about how we should behave and how we should live.

  Robert Jordan

  Heart, Different, Culture

  "Robert Jordan chats about his 'Wheel of Time' series". Live chat, edition.cnn.com. December 12, 2000.

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• Robert Zubrin’s masterful study…makes for riveting reading. . a cautionary tale of what happens when powerful, unprincipled elites are not only alienated from the mass of their fellow men, but come to see them as a barrier to imagined social, evolutionary, or environmental progress.

  Steven W. Mosher

  Powerful, Reading, Men

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• Jacqueline Carey has created a postmodern fable of enormous scope and force. Santa Olivia is at once a cautionary tale of people caught in a web of lies and creeping terror, and a love song to the beauty and power of being different. At the novel's heart is the kind of grace Carey is known for: an illumination of the strength that lies hidden inside all of us.

  Eric Van Lustbader

  Song, Lying, Heart

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• Europe is often held up as a cautionary tale, a demonstration that if you try to make the economy less brutal, to take better care of your fellow citizens when they're down on their luck, you end up killing economic progress. But what European experience actually demonstrates is the opposite: social justice and progress can go hand in hand.

  Paul Krugman

  Hands, Europe, Opposites

  "Learning From Europe" by Paul Krugman, www.nytimes.com. January 10, 2010.

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• I tell you this as a cautionary tale: beware of getting what you want. It's bound to disappoint you.

  Jodi Picoult

  Getting What You Want, Disappoint, Bounds

  Jodi Picoult (2014). “Sing You Home: A Novel”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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• Uh-uh, dude. I tried it your way with the dating and the girls and the kissing and the drama, and man, I didn't like it. Plus, my best friend is a walking cautionary tale of what happens to you when romantic relationships don't involve marriage. Like you always say, kafir, everything ends in breakup, divorce, or death. I want to narrow my misery options to divorce or death - that's all.

  John Green

  Girl, Breakup, Drama

  John Green (2008). “An Abundance of Katherines”, p.174, Penguin

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• Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.

  Tom Waits

  Goodbye, Song, Rope

  "Tom Waits: 'I look like hell but I'm going to see where it gets me" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. October 22, 2011.

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