Eight Quotes - Page 33

Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.

When [Vladimir] Putin, a former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB, became Russia's president on December 31, 1999 - eight years after the failed coup attempt against (then Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorbachev, and eight years after the people had torn down the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the hated founder of the KGB, in Moscow - it was admittedly a shock. Nevertheless, I decided to give Putin a chance. He seemed dynamic and capable of learning. But I had to bury my hopes after just a few months. He proved to be an autocrat - and, because the West let him do as he pleased, he became a dictator.

Warfare has been marvelously developed. It will soon be impossible to raise it to further heights.

We must see whether the same clock with weights will go faster at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a mine; it is probable, if the pull of the weights decreases on the mountain and increases in the mine, that the earth has real attraction.

Imagine sitting down to an eight ounce steak, and then, imagine the room filled wit 45 to 50 people with empty bowls...For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a cup pf cooked cereal grains.

I've always overworked in the weight room. I love working with weights. I knew they'd give me the strength I needed.

When I went to Brooklyn in 1948 Jackie Robinson was at the height of his brilliant career.

For me, I was raped in my own dorm bed. Since then, it has basically become fraught for me, and I feel like I've carried the weight of what happened there with me everywhere since then.

To take my work seriously would be the height of folly.

I certainly did feel inferior. Because of class. Because of strength. Because of height. I guess if I'd been able to hit somebody in the nose, I wouldn't have been a comic.

He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight.

If I had one thing I'd like to lose weight. It's tough because of the way I live.

If I need to bulk up for a role, I will do more weights. If I need to slim down for something, I will do more cardio. That's usually how it goes.

The best way to lose weight is to put the handle of the fridge two inches from the ground.

One in eight plant species face extinction.

I need eight hours to get maybe 20 minutes of work done. I had one of those yesterday: seven hours of self-loathing.

Just as a diamond can only be polished by another diamond, it is only through genuine, all-out engagement with others that people can polish their character, and help each other to reach greater heights.

Eight generations of African-Americans are still waiting to achieve their rights - compensation and restitution for the hundreds of years during which they were bought and sold on the market.

How strange and abandoned and unsettled I am. Like a snowdome paper weight that's been shaken. There's a blizzard in my bubble. Everything in my world that was steady and sure and sturdy has been shaken out of place, and it's now drifting and swirling back down in a confetti of debris. (p30)

If I like myself at this weight, then this is what I'm going to be. I don't have an eating disorder.

I'm a gemini, and I get so bored so easily. I mean, I have moved six times in the last eight years.

In timing a film, we used to assume that sneaks move slowly. This was great for animators-thirty-six to forty-eight drawings for a single step-but it was sheer hell for the pace of the picture. So the rapid tiptoe was invented.

The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.

For some reason, humans have this funny thing about where we came from - it always has far more emotional weight than where we are.

I still have to work on my weight and some of my other demons.