Kevin's Page of Quotes
Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another. This painting here. I bought it 10 years ago for 60 thousand dollars. I could sell it today for 600. The illusion has become real and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it.
--Oliver Stone (b. 1946), U.S. filmmaker. Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas), in the film Wall Street (written by Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser, directed by Stone, 1987).
Friendship is one of the most tangible things in a world which offers fewer and fewer supports.
--Kenneth Branagh (b. 1960), British actor, director. Daily Telegraph (London, 4 Nov. 1992).
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
--Muhammad Ali (b. 1942), U.S. boxer. Quoted in: New York Times (6 April 1977).
Racism is when you have laws set up, systematically put in the way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people. Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out themselves. If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing . . . then it will be done, but not until then.
--Spike Lee (b. 1956), U.S. filmmaker. Interview in Roger Ebert’s Home Movie Companion (1990).
The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.
--David Mamet (b. 1947), U.S. playwright. Writing in Restaurants, "Things I Have Learned Playing Poker on the Hill" (1986).
Love is too young to know what conscience is.
--William Shakespeare (1564–1616), English dramatist, poet. Sonnet 151.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie— deliberate, contrived and dishonest— but the myth— persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
--John F. Kennedy (1917–63), U.S. Democratic politician, president. Commencement address, 11 June 1962, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you’ve been to some of those places, you think, "How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?"
--Jerry Garcia (1942–1995), U.S. rock musician. Rolling Stone (New York, 30 Nov. 1989).
Military glory— the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809–65), U.S. president. Speech, 12 Jan. 1848, to the House of Representatives, arguing against the war with Mexico.
And now a quote given to us by Baggio, "Reading departure signs in some big airport Reminds me of the places I've been. Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure makes me want to go back again. If it suddenly ended tomorrow, I could somehow adjust to the fall. Good times and riches and son of a bitches, I've seen more than I can recall... ~Jimmy Buffet~ Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)