Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention; but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger picture appears. That's the appeal: the challenge of it. ~Stephen Merchant
#quotes #stephen-merchant #comedy #attention

One of my lungs is half gone, and the other half, because I smoked for years, has a lesion. So I can't swim anymore and had the swimming pool covered over. Now it's what I call the dance pavilion, and so I and my friends sit out and put music on and watch people dance. ~Maya Angelou
#quotes #maya-angelou #smoking #music

Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel. ~Jimi Hendrix
#quotes #jimi-hendrix #music

Whatever you choose you will repent because the other will remain and haunt you. If one needs absolute freedom then choiceless awareness is the only thing. ~Rajneesh
#quotes #rajneesh #choices

You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence. ~William J. H. Boetcker
#quotes #william-j-h-boetcker #character #courage #independence #freedom

For eight years Republicans worked around the clock to delegitimize Bill Clinton. For the next eight years, Democrats tried to delegitimize Bush. Now Barack Obama is enduring the rage of his conservative opposition. ~Joe Scarborough
#quotes #joe-scarborough #republicans #democrats #politics

My dad loved comedians, especially George Jessel, and he loved Henny Youngman and Buddy Hackett. ~Al Franken
#quotes #al-franken #george-jessel #henny-youngman #comedy

So, after school, I needed to learn a trade and started to work as a tailor. ~Desmond Dekker
#quotes #desmond-dekker #work

A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God. It prevails with Him unspeakably. ~John Bunyan
#quotes #john-bunyan #christianity

The West is dead; you may lose a sweetheart but you won't forget her. ~Charles Marion Russell
#quotes #charles-marion-russell #west

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find, if it's a good novel, that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed. ~Ursula K. Le Guin
#quotes #ursula-k-le-guin #reading #novels

I hate to lose, and I do whatever I can to win, and if it is ugly, it is ugly. ~Pete Sampras
#quotes #pete-sampras #success

We understand ourselves through stories, by making stories out of our lives. Storytellers give people structure with which they can begin to look at their own lives and try to make sense of them. ~Bill Harley
#quotes #bill-harley #stories

The rain follows after the forest. ~Hawaiian Proverb
#proverbs #hawaiian-proverbs

I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me. ~Patti Smith
#quotes #patti-smith #music #puccini #little-richard

We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, "What is real?" Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power, that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ~Philip K. Dick
#quotes #philip-k-dick #society #government #media #religion

The most important of the Lord's work you will ever do will be the work you do within the walls of your own home. ~Harold B. Lee
#quotes #harold-b-lee #home #family

I wear my shadows where they are harder to see, but they follow me everywhere. I guess that should tell me I am travelling toward light. ~Bruce Cockburn
#quotes #bruce-cockburn #light

I am too pure for you or anyone. ~Sylvia Plath
#quotes #sylvia-plath #purity #feminism

The problem with Chelsea is I lack a striker. I have Samuel Eto'o but he is 32 years old; maybe 35, who knows? ~Jose Mourinho
#quotes #jose-mourinho #chelsea #samuel-eto-o #football

It's true, I had an extremely delicious life, but that was my life at home, and perhaps because I was only a child, or for whatever reasons, I found the company of others, especially other boys, quite terrifying and upsetting. ~Harry Mathews
#quotes #harry-mathews #life #childhood #boys

I've had a fairy tale life. I had a perfect family, a beautiful childhood, an incredible upbringing. I lived a lot of life but a lot of good life. ~John Stamos
#quotes #john-stamos #life #family #childhood

In Indiana we had a queen we named Alice which lived to the ripe old age of eight years and two months and did excellent work in her seventh year. There can be no doubt about the authenticity of this statement. We sold her to John Chapel of Oakland City, Indiana, and she was the only queen in his yard with wings clipped. This, however is a rare exception. At the time I was experimenting with artificial combs with wooden cells in which the queen laid. ~Jay Smith
#quotes #jay-smith #queen

I realized that even in a world of proliferating media venues, online and in print, and on TV and on countless cable channels, the idea that I could be considered an expert on chronic knee pain was I think troubling for society, but very exciting for me. ~John Hodgman
#quotes #john-hodgman #thinking #media

Physically he was the connoisseur's connoisseur. He was a giant panda, Santa Claus and the Jolly Green Giant rolled into one. On him, a lean and slender physique would have looked like very bad casting. ~Craig Claiborne
#quotes #craig-claiborne #entertainment #santa