“There’s nothing more embarrassing than a person who tries to guess what the great American public would like, makes a compromise for the first time, and falls flat on his face… I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.”
Regretful feeling
Regretful Quotes — page 59 of 169
“We can make up for lost money, but we can't make up for lost time.”
“The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.”
“If you want to be loathsome to God, just run with the herd.”
“To defend something is always to discredit it. Let a man have a warehouse full of gold, let him be willing to give away a ducat to every one of the poor - but let him also be stupid enough to begin this charitable undertaking of his with a defense in which he offers three good reasons in justification; and it will almost come to the point of people finding it doubtful whether indeed he is doing something good. But now for Christianity. Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it.”
“A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.”
“It's best to be ruthless with the past.”
“I have tons of regrets, but I think that's one of the reasons that push people to create things. Out of their angst, their regret, comes the best from artists, painters and writers.”
“Well, that's your opinion, isn't it? And I'm not about to waste my time trying to change it.”
“For any movement to emerge, it has to be innovatively independent from the mainstream cinema, and I don't see that much.”
“The system knows how to cherry pick black people. It's like affirmative action - once a year, one is recognized. But what has to occur is self-emergence so if they ignore you, you don't have to disappear.”
“We are interested in stifling the sale of this book. We believe that this can be best accomplished by refusing to be stampeded into giving it publicity...The less discussion there is concerning it the more sales resistance will be created. We therefore appeal to you to refrain from comment on this book...It is our conviction that a general compliance with this request will sound the warning to other publishing houses against engaging in this type of venture. (Signed) Richard E. Gutstadt, Director.”
“I regret trusting The Guardian. I didn't want to do an interview, but the journalist was persistent. [The writer] was masked as a fan, but was hiding sinister ambitions and angles. Maybe he's actually the boring one looking for something interesting to write about.”
“We Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution.”
“Without order nothing can exist-without chaos nothing can evolve. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“All counter-revolutionary wars are unjust, all revolutionary wars are just.”
“She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it.”
“I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.”
“They used us as an excuse to go mad and then blamed it on us. Gandhi says create and preserve the image of your choice. The image of my choice is not Beatle George - those who want that can go and see Wings. Why live in the past? Be here now.”
“The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”