Stories Quotes - Page 29

• When you combine a media - bent on exploiting tabloid-type stories to boost ratings and circulation by innuendo and titillation - with unhappy or opportunistic individuals who have nothing going for them in their own lives, you get a bitter brew.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Media, Unhappy

  4 Copy quote

• I find it ironic to read stories about myself which have never occurred and are simply so absurd that they are comical. At other times, it is very painful to be so misinterpreted and vilified.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Ironic, Rama

  4 Copy quote

• All I can say is that these cult stories are totally untrue, are without any foundation, and trade on a deep bias against Westerners who dare to embrace an Eastern belief-system.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Foundation, Rama

  4 Copy quote

• For those who reject it, the Victorian experience is something to feel embarrassed about, to apologise for, to escape from, and never to repeat. But to those who remain enthralled, it is a fabulous story of oustanding success and splendid achievement, by comparison with which Britain's 20th century records seems at best unimpressive, and often distinctly lacklustre.

  David Cannadine

  Achievement, Records, Fabulous

  4 Copy quote

• Here ends the story of a ship, but there will always be other ships, for we are an island race. Through all our centuries, the sea has ruled our destiny. There will always be other ships and men to sail in them. It is these men, in peace or war, to whom we owe so much. Above all victories, beyond all loss, in spite of changing values in a changing world, they give to us, their countrymen, eternal and indomitable pride.

  Noel Coward

  War, Pride, Loss

  Noel Coward, Barry Day (2009). “The Essential Noël Coward Compendium: The Very Best of His Work, Life and Times”, p.346, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a great historical joke that when the Spanish met the Aztecs, it was a blind date made in serve-you-right heaven. At the time, they were the two most unpleasant cultures in the entire world, and richly deserved each other. Still, the story of how stout Cortes blustered, bullied and bludgeoned his way to collapsing an entire empire with a handful of contagious hoodlums is astonishing.

  A. A. Gill

  Two, History, Heaven

  43 Copy quote

• The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.

  Geoffrey K. Pullum

  Book, Reading, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• He lived in a fantasy world. There was not a day when he didn't add some Mickey Mouse story about a club that wanted him. First of all, he came in and told me that Arsenal wanted to buy him, then the next week it was Manchester Utd, then the next week it was Real Madrid. He made it clear that he did not want to be at the club so, in the end, there was only one thing I could do - send him to Wigan.

  Joe Kinnear

  Soccer, Football, Real

  6 Copy quote

• Centuries from now our great-great-great-grandchildren will look back at us with amazement at how we could allow such a precious achievement of human culture as the telling of a story to be shattered into smithereens by commercials, the same amazement we feel today when we look at our ancestors for whom slavery, capital punishment, burning of witches, and the inquisition were acceptable everyday events.

  Werner Herzog

  Grandchildren, Punishment, Achievement

  4 Copy quote

• The phrase 'contrary to all expectations' rings through the story of the progress of human knowledge. It was 'contrary to all expectations' that the Earth was found to revolve around the sun, and not the other way round, and that a mould growing in one of Dr. Alexander Fleming's dishes was found to be capable of destroying bacteria. When in 1989 the spacecraft Voyager 2 got close enough to the planet Naptune to take detailed pictures of the surface, they were 'contrary to all expectations'.

  Anthony Terence Quincey Stewart

  Science, Expectations, Progress

  4 Copy quote

• If a large number of people who are convinced alien abductions are real are hypnotising even larger numbers of others who suspect they might be, then it is likely there will be many alien abduction narratives flying around, as, indeed, there are. Of course, this is not proof they are not true, but it does provide a persuasive context for a simple psychosocial explanation. Hypnotism is a technique that triggers a mass storytelling project in which all the stories are linked.

  Bryan Appleyard

  Real, Simple, Numbers

  4 Copy quote

• In some ways, that's the story of my season - when I wasn't making big mistakes, I was winning races and being on the podium. And when I made mistakes I was still fourth or fifth, just off the podium.

  Bode Miller

  Sports, Mistake, Winning

  7 Copy quote

• We grew out of the superhero comics, but we still liked comics, so we started putting our own experiences in the stories we were doing for our own amusement.

  Gilberto Hernandez

  Artist, Superhero, Amusement

  8 Copy quote

• It works in the comic book, but as the audiences have gotten older and more sophisticated, I think the stories need to grow up with them. This is a story about a couple of rival gangs and what goes wrong in a couple of days.

  Todd McFarlane

  Growing Up, Couple, Book

  8 Copy quote

• I'll tell you what I miss most. What I would love to do, more than anything, is just anthologies. With an anthology you can tell any story and be in every division of television. We don't have any anthologies anymore, do we?

  Aaron Spelling

  Missing, Division, Television

  7 Copy quote

• There's no quit in our family. Our dad was the chief proponent of that. [On the set] we were constantly telling each other, Stay true to the story, we know that we love each other, keep communication open. We knew how unique this was-you're doing a movie that really could be put out there all over the world, and you're telling this personal story about your family.

  Andrew Shue

  Dad, Communication, Unique

  4 Copy quote

• I wish we didn't have to tell this story.

  Andy Garcia

  Wish

  9 Copy quote

• Making this movie as a period piece about a period that was very recent in people's minds. I was in Taiwan [during the 1970s], so I hope I did all right. Otherwise, it could be the biggest embarrassment of my life. Also, the story is not linear, it's patchy, like a cubist painting, and there is always the possibility it will not hold together, it will fall apart. The tone is part satire, part serious drama, part tragedy, all mixed together, and it has to hit an emotional core. That's also very scary.

  Ang Lee

  Drama, Fall, Emotional

  4 Copy quote

• You know I've been in these tabloids for years now. And at some point you just become a Zen master of it all. Most of these stories, you get probably 2 percent real fruit juice and the rest is just garbage with no nutritional value.

  Brad Pitt

  Real, Fruit Juice, Garbage

  "Pitt Urges Tabloids to Change Focus". www.foxnews.com. June 07, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You know, you find that these stories ... will turn one of us into the good guy and one of us into the bad guy. If you look at it closely or even not that closely ... it's ridiculous.

  Brad Pitt

  Guy, Looks, Ridiculous

  "Brad Pitt tries to be 'Zen master' of tabloids". www.today.com. June 7, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well I'm Superman, just not action. I'm kind of looking for something with a lot less action and more talking and listening. I also have a film that's premiering Vegas Film Festival, short film, directed by Joel Kelly, it's called Denial and it's a story, short film, 35 mm short film and it's about a man's struggle to choose between the woman of his dreams and his reality, so it's definitely different than Superman. So I'm really proud of that.

  Brandon Routh

  Dream, Struggle, Reality

  "Brandon Routh for 'Superman Returns'". Interview with Paul Fischer, www.darkhorizons.com. June 16, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Knowing that we were doing good work and the stories were good. They were original and charming. They weren't particularly violent or sexy or any of that. They were just unique and that had a good feel to it.

  Derek Jacobi

  Sexy, Unique, Knowing

  7 Copy quote

• I think they went with the idea that people know the story pretty much- knowing that he's going to take her when she's going to go with him. Also, the movie is really focused on Achilles and Hector and their battles.

  Diane Kruger

  Thinking, Ideas, Knowing

  "Diane Kruger for 'Troy'". Interview with Paul Fischer, www.darkhorizons.com. May 6, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel like I've come out of this grown up, maybe because I live through the character vicariously and she grows up so much during the course of this story.

  Emmy Rossum

  Growing Up, Character, Grows

  7 Copy quote

• He brought imagination to the story of the Creation.

  Harvey Keitel

  Imagination, Creation

  4 Copy quote