Would Be Quotes - Page 35

It would be ridiculous to say I don't want to sell records, but I trust my taste.

When I recorded for Columbia, I could usually do anything in one take...I would invariably want to use the first take because that would be the one that was spontaneous and fresh.

Conceptual relativism is a heady and exotic doctrine, or would be if we could make good sense of it. The trouble is, as so often in philosophy, it is hard to improve intelligibility while retaining the excitement.

If we were in tune and communing with God every moment, where would be the need to pray or ask for anything?

It's impossible to compare two bands. It would be like comparing two lovers.

It would be a serious mistake to replace a seasoned statesman with a tempermental tycoon who has no respect for the constitution.

It would be strange if we came to shun the genuine simply because it resembled the counterfeit.

I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, 'Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.'

In this speedy world of ours when facts are multiplying rapidly and giant rearrangements are happening all around us, it seems dangerous to be made nervous by the new - to want what we can never have, to want things not to be rearranged. It would be better to be able to take the leap, which is to be able not only to live with change and newness, but even to help make it.

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

If ifs were gifts, every day would be Christmas.

If women were in charge, abortion would be a sacrament, an occasion of deep and serious and sacred meaning.

This crusade is much more important than the anti- lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.

A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?

It will not bother me in the hour of death to reflect that I have been "had for a sucker" by any number of imposters but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need.

The composition of a common world would be the definition of politics.

The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.

Punk is always something that's going to be with us and to try and explain that would be stupid at this point.

And truly, O man, if you concentrate hard on the state you are in it will be surprising if you have time for anything else.

If I could set a world record, it would be that I have 150 business partners, all with thriving businesses of their own that started with nothing and I made the difference to make them all billionaires.

If your job was remotely interesting, there would be a show on A&E about it.

If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general's fault. It would be mine.

I still care about people but it would be so much easier not to care. I don't want to get too close; I don't like to touch things.

If I had to describe my work in one word, that word would be time.

And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, so too all things would be in everything. Nor is it possible that they should exist apart, but all things have a portion of everything.