Crank Quotes

• If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank.

  William Dean Howells

  Dream, Men, Political

  William Dean Howells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells (Illustrated)”, p.4038, Delphi Classics

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• I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

  Cyril Connolly

  Book, Writing, Air

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• I still like to make crank calls.

  Kate Walsh

  Stills

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Success, Good Life

  1897 Following the Equator, ch.32.

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• Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is.

  Garrison Keillor

  People, Eccentric, Mouths

  "A Prairie Home Companion". Radio show, December 13, 1997.

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• Was the fun in the fall?

  Ellen Hopkins

  Fun, Fall

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• And Seinfeld is so quick: we crank out one show a week, and the hours are very reasonable

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus

  Hours, Week, Shows

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• Well in the end the world can crank itself up to sanctions, as it has with Zimbabwe, another sad case.

  Helen Clark

  Zimbabwe, World, Sanctions

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• (Crank theories) always violated the first rule of a scientific model: they were uncheckable.

  Gregory Benford

  Firsts, Theory, Models

  Gregory Benford (2010). “Timescape”, p.235, Spectra

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• Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.

  Alfonso X of Castile

  Crazy, Mad, Hints

  Said after studying the Ptolemaic system (attributed)

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• How can I explain purposely setting foot on a path so blatantly treacherous? Was the fun in the fall?

  Ellen Hopkins

  Fun, Fall, Feet

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• Life was good before I met the monster. After, life was great At least for a little while

  Ellen Hopkins

  Monsters, Littles, Mets

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Crank”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Mind, Different, Patterns

  Daniel H. Pink (2006). “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future”, p.14, Penguin

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• I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Lying, Hate, Past

  Ellen Hopkins (2008). “Impulse”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

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• Taking no chances means wasting your dreams.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Dream, Mean, Chance

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us - in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Karma, Nice, Heart

  "The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore".

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• More cranks take up unfashionable errors than unfashionable truths.

  Bertrand Russell

  Errors

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.93, Routledge

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• I love the balls-to-the-walls rule-breaking approach the Beatles had in the studio (which I emulate), although I don't try to make my songs "sound" like their songs. But every time I crank a knob of some piece of equipment, or plug an instrument into the "wrong" amp/effect, I am channeling the Beatles.

  Alan Cohen

  Song, Wall, Trying

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• I've been a huge Psychedelic Furs fan for a long time. I love Butler's paintings, too. I like all their songs. I'll even crank 'Pretty in Pink,' I don't care.

  Norman Reedus

  Song, Long, Fans

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• We simulated the predator with livestock and the perennial grassland returned. Just put the whole back, and there it was. You'll find the scientific method never discovers anything. Observant, creative people make discoveries. But the scientific method protects us from cranks like me.

  Allan Savory

  Discovery, People, Creative

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• Students of the heavens are separable into astronomers and astrologers as readily as the minor domestic ruminants into sheep and goats, but the separation of philosophers into sages and cranks seems to be more sensitive to frames of reference.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Science, Sheep, Heaven

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• Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank.

  Rose Macaulay

  Children, Thinking, Nuts

  Rose Macaulay (1926). “A Casual Commentary”

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• Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets screwed.

  Larry Wall

  Progress, Boring, Turns

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• You might argue that I make the rounds no matter what year it is, but sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls.

  Markus Zusak

  Race, Escaping, Years

  Markus Zusak (2016). “The Book Thief: 10th Anniversary Edition”, p.225, Random House

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• There are a couple of people in the world who can really program in C or FØRTRAN. They write more code in less time than it takes for other programmers. Most programmers aren't that good. The problem is that those few programmers who crank out code aren't interested in maintaining it.

  Bill Joy

  Couple, Writing, People

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