The unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg
#quotes #verlyn-klinkenborg

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. ~English Proverb
#proverbs #english-proverbs #skill

A man without tattoos is invisible to the Gods. ~Iban Proverb
#proverbs #iban-proverbs #tattoos

I am usually called upon to play the dreary suicidal girl. ~Hope Davis
#quotes #hope-davis

Look down if you would know how high you stand. ~Yiddish Proverb
#proverbs #yiddish-proverb #ranks

It is not a matter of upper and lower class but of being up a while and down a while. ~Irish Proverb
#proverbs #irish-proverbs #adversity

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

This arena is a special place. Everybody loves it. To be able to stand behind the bench and be a part of a great tournament for the '96 Elite is fun. The kids, having a chance to play in the building where the Penguins play, it's a special feeling for them. ~Mario Lemieux
#quotes #mario-lemieux #fun

To contribute to the emergence of a society in which development will supplant stagnation, in which growth will take the place of decay, and in which culture will put an end to barbarism is the noblest, and, indeed, the only true function of intellectual endeavor. ~Paul A. Baran
#quotes #paul-a-baran #society #culture

Playing football, I'm getting chills just thinking about it. That first knock of the game, you are going on kickoff, and you are just trying to smack somebody just as hard as you can. That's how I play baseball. I want to hit you. ~Bryce Harper
#quotes #bryce-harper #games #football #baseball

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are. ~Norman Vincent Peale
#quotes #norman-vincent-peale #failure #success #attitude #optimism

People think of art and science as being fundamentally opposed to each other, because art is about celebrating individual human creativity, and science is about discovering general principles, not about individual people. But in fact, the two have a lot in common, and the creative spirit is similar in both. ~Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
#quotes #vilayanur-s-ramachandran #art #science #creativity #thinking

In many ways, theatre is more rewarding for a writer. I used to think it was like painting a wall - that when the play is finished, it's done; but now I realise it's more like gardening; you plant the thing, then you have to constantly tend it. You're part of a thing that's living. ~Lee Hall
#quotes #lee-hall #gardening #theatre

Listen to the sound of the river and you will get a trout. ~Irish Proverb
#proverbs #irish-proverbs

To devastate by language, to blow up the word and with it the world. ~Emile M. Cioran
#quotes #emile-m-cioran #language

Offers for me to play dances, society parties, even churches, were now coming in regularly. For most dates I was paid the sum of one dollar per hour, and they always tipped me at the end of the night. ~Mary Lou Williams
#quotes #mary-lou-williams #career

A fear of the unknown keeps a lot of people from leaving bad situations. ~Kathie Lee Gifford
#quotes #kathie-lee-gifford #fear

I love that you can have the language between the two worlds of technology and fashion, because I don't think that many designers get to do that. ~Stella McCartney
#quotes #stella-mccartney #fashion #technology

My dad says that when I was two or three I used to go out dressed as a different character every day. I remember thinking it was perfectly normal to wear different coloured shoes and carry a pink umbrella. But now I've got a goddaughter of that age; I realise it's not normal at all. ~Alice Eve
#quotes #alice-eve #childhood #clothing

If you want to be criticized, marry. ~Irish Proverb
#proverbs #irish-proverbs #marriage

I love all those girls the same as they love me. I get thousands of letters a week from girls who love me... Every time I sing a song, I make love to them. I'm a boudoir singer. ~Frank Sinatra
#quotes #frank-sinatra #entertainment #love

I was never one to go up to someone as a five- or six-year-old and say, "Hello, my name's Paul, will you be my friend?" But I found if I did an impression of the PE teacher or whatever and people laughed, then they did like me, and so then they started talking to me, rather than me making the initial overture and then maybe being rebuffed. ~Paul Merton
#quotes #paul-merton #teaching

Beer, it's the best damn drink in the world. ~Jack Nicholson
#quotes #jack-nicholson #beer

There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same. ~Chinese Proverb
#proverbs #chinese-proverbs

It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done. ~John Greenleaf Whittier
#quotes #john-greenleaf-whittier #people