"Computers, like automobiles and airplanes, do only what people tell them to do."
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Quote collection
Bill James quotes (page 2 of 3)
50 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Because crime stories reveal an aspect of our personality that everybody has, but which we normally keep very deeply hidden. We like to talk about the good sides of ourselves. We don't like to talk about our hatreds, our distrusts of one another, our secrets, but crime stories drag those things to the surface and consequently they fascinate people and always have throughout all history."
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"You're just too poor to get rich."
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"I tried not to write about the O.J. Simpson case too much because so much has already been said about it, but there are a lot of questions left worth asking. However, the case is very useful to illustrate other points. The case is a common reference point because everybody knows the ins and outs of it, more than any other case in this generation, so it becomes useful to reference other points. In itself, there aren't that many questions about it that remain unanswered."
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"On the other hand, if you suggest to a person who has been a victim of a serious crime that we take the issue too seriously, they'll look at you like you're crazy. So that's a really tough issue, whether we're doing more harm than good by paying so much attention to a few cases that honestly don't normally intersect with our lives."
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"When I was a small kid, I grew up in the newspapers."
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"We don't genuinely need more literary geniuses. One can only read so many books in a lifetime."
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"There comes a moment during a job interview when you're still talking, but you might as well take off your shoes."
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"There are, I believe, many more false confessions to murders than true confessions."
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"In a crime story, the details become tremendously important - where the staircase was in relation to the bed, for example."
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"Television is full of fictional and real violence that's turned into entertainment."
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"Serial murders are just the worst stories. It can take an emotional toll on you."
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"Men feel challenged when a woman is in danger, so those types of stories interest women and they interest men on a level that the crimes against men tend to draw a different visceral reaction. Again, not saying it's right, but they tend to draw a different visceral reaction, which is that the man was out in the world doing men stuff and something happened to him."
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"You know one little way in which baseball changes us? We don't even think twice about Japanese names anymore. You know what I mean?"
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"I would never encourage my children to be athletes - first because my children are not athletes and second because there are so many people pushing to get to the top in sports that 100 people are crushed for each one who breaks through. This is unfortunate."
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"Famous crime stories almost always lead to the passing of new laws."
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"Crime stories show us the part of people's lives they try to keep hidden."
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"(Mantle) was clearly a greater player in his peak years."
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"Any of us are capable of doing things we're not proud of under the wrong kind of stresses."
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"Professionalism in medicine has given us medial miracles for the affluent but hospitals that will charge $35 for aspirin."
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