The Quotables Blog

Guest blogger Adam Gee, cross-platform commissioner at Channel 4, shares his favourite lyrical inspiration:

Walter Pater, the art and literary critic much admired by Oscar Wilde, wrote that “All art aspires to the condition of music.” I read that as other arts striving for the direct impact music has on the heart and spirit without recourse to any physical medium and being able to by-pass the intellect. Much though I love music I’ve never tended to listen to the lyrics of songs in a coherent and systematic way. Phrases and lines emerge over time in their own way and hook themselves into the brain.

I was jogging along yesterday morning listening to a podcast of the evergreen Desert Island Discs when a Bob Dylan song came on and a line really resonated for me as a perfect expression of what women mean to men. When I got home and sat down in front of my machine for the first time that day I whacked the line into Quotables for posterity – and to look at it on its own for a moment.

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

Not particularly poetic. Quite ordinary really. But in its context perfect and to the heart of the matter, to the matter of the heart.

So I felt inspired to pick out 10 great lines from songs that are worthy of the condition of music, that have the resonance and penetrative power of the supreme art. I tried being strict about one stand-out line per song only (only cracked once with a couplet).

1. Bob Dylan, Shelter from the Storm (1974)

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

2. John Lennon, Oh Yoko! (1971)

In the middle of a cloud I call your name.

A powerful yet simple expression of romantic love.

3. John Martyn, Couldn’t Love You More (1977)

If you kissed the sun right out of the sky for me.

Song lyrics straining to capture Love (is there a theme emerging?)

4. Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze (1966)

‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

This could be love or drugs that’s fogging Jimi’s brain – either way it’s a great line.

5. The Clash, Garageland (1977)

Back in the garage with my bullshit detector.

A spirited (spirit of Punk) response to an early bad review (of a gig with The Sex Pistols at Islington’s Screen on the Green): “The Clash are the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately, preferably with the engine running”. [Charles Shaar Murray - what did he know?]

6. Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City (1982)

Well now everything dies baby that’s a fact.

But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.

Reckon there’s a load of philosophy buried in this couplet.

7. David Bowie, Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed (1969)

As I am unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed.

Loved this phrase for a long time, the “somewhat” is just what’s needed to throw it off kilter.

8. The Doors (Jim Morrison), The Wasp (1968)

Out here we is stoned – immaculate.

One of those lines that throws a word into a whole new light.

9. John Coltrane, Acknowledgement (1964)

A Love Supreme.

Sometimes you don’t even need a whole line or clause – this is a transcendent chant. They’re the only words in this track and all the more striking for that.

10. Well, why don’t you add this one? What song words do it for you?…

From guest blogger Adam Gee, cross-platform commissioner at Channel 4.

So many books, so little time.
— Frank Zappa

One of the joys of quotations is that you can enjoy all of the pithy wisdom of great writers, thinkers, and speakers, without having to catch up on reams of reading materials.

However, here at Quotables, we love getting our noses stuck into a good book. Here are some of our Top 10 Quotes about the joy and importance of reading.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid.
— Jane Austen

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
— Harper Lee

If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books in their house, don’t sleep with them. I think that’s very important.
— John Waters

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
— Bertrand Russell

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
— Logan Pearsall Smith

Wicked people never have time for reading. It’s one of the reasons for their wickedness.
— Lemony Snicket

She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.
— Louisa May Alcott

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
— C. S. Lewis

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.
— Alan Bennett

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.
— Oscar Wilde

For more quotes about reading, check out our Top 100 Bookish Quotes, Top 100 Harry Potter Quotes, and Quotes for World Book Day.

What are your favourite quotes about reading?

Featured image by Kat Clark.

Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
— Roy Trenneman

Sometimes quotations get a bad reputation for being stuffy or old-fashioned, but some of the choicest words were pronounced about technology, and remain timeless.

Quotes about gadgets and technology abound on Quotables. Here are some of our top quotations about the magic of modern technology and its inherent trickiness.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that do not work.
— Thomas Edison

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.
— Stephen Fry

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
— Albert Einstein

There’s no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure.
— Clay Shirky

That’s a strange word, users. It is only used in the drug and computer industries.
— Edward Tufte

The email of the species is deadlier than the mail.
— Stephen Fry

Prior to the Internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table.
— Clay Shirky

Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.
— George Orwell

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C. Clarke

The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.
— Eric Schmidt

Still seeking information overload? Try our Top 100 Social Media Quotes on for size.

What are your favourite quotes about technology?

Featured image by James Vaughan.

We’re huge fans of the wonderfully-quotable Tina Fey, queen of American comedy, here at Quotables HQ. From Saturday Night Live, to Mean Girls, to 30 Rock, and not forgetting her infamous Sarah Palin impressions, Tina Fey is a pioneer of smart, side-splitting quips and slyly hilarious zingers, she’s the sexy, funny everywoman who is almost indecently talented. We love her rather a lot.

To celebrate the launch of Tina’s first book – the memoir/essay collection Bossypants, we’ve put together our Top 20 Tina Fey Quotables, including a choice few from her new book. And for all your 30 Rock fans, look out for our Top 20 Liz Lemon quotes next week! Click on each quote to love it on Quotables, or share on Twitter or Facebook – and let us know in the comments if we’ve missed any of your favourites!

Click here to buy Bossypants on Amazon.

1. I never dreamed I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, mostly because my style is so typically Austrian.

2.Ladies gotta say no to their husbands at the movies. They gotta say: “No, we are watching back-to-back cancer movies. And then this movie about a cat.”

3. I know older men in comedy who can barely feed and clean themselves, and they still work. The women, though, they’re all ‘crazy.’ I have a suspicion — and hear me out, because this is a rough one — that the definition of ‘crazy’ in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to f*ck her anymore.

4. How do you juggle it all?’ people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. ‘You’re screwing it all up, aren’t you?’ their eyes say. My standard answer is that I have the same struggle as any working parent but with the good fortune to be working at my dream job. Or sometimes I just hand them a juicy red apple I’ve poisoned in my working-mother witch cauldron and fly away.

5. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am all about money. I mean, just look how well my line of zodiac-inspired toe rings and homeopathic children’s medications are selling on Home Shopping Network.

6. [On what to expect from her Oscar dress] I only know that this dress will have to be ‘fancier’ than a Golden Globes dress, but I wouldn’t hold your breath to see me in a four-foot ruffled train with an origami-inspired front. Whatever it is, it will be see-through, because that is my trademark.

7. I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract. The baby and I only have a verbal agreement.

8. At the request of the Catholic Church, a three-day sex orgy to be held near Rio de Janeiro was cancelled last Friday. So instead I spent the weekend cleaning my apartment.

9. Researchers reported that they developed a “self-healing” plastic that repairs itself if cracked. The plastic will change the way airplanes are built and medicine is practiced. In a related story, Joan Rivers will never die.

10. Don’t be too precious or attached to anything you write. Let things be malleable. For sketch writers, remember they’re called sketches for a reason. They’re not called oil paintings. Some of them are going to stink. You have to let them stink.

11. Twitter seems like a busman’s holiday: just more writing. I have no plans to do it. I’ll just stick with my 24/7 webcam. I’m old-fashioned that way.

12. There are a couple of things I want to impart to ladies who want to be in comedy: One, you don’t have to be weird or be quirky to get your job done. And two, comedy skill is not sexually transmittable. You do not have to sleep with a comedian to learn what you’re doing. Male comedians will not like that advice, but it is the truth.

13. The part of Jack Donaghy was written for Alec Baldwin. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the courage to introduce myself to him and tell him that at the time, so for several months I met with some of the best actors in New York…it just became clearer and clearer that this part was for no-one except Alec Baldwin. And so I knew what I had to do: I got pregnant and I stalled for a year.

14. I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it’s a little unseemly for women of a certain age. But then once you pass sixty-five, you can hit it full tilt again and it’s charming. Once you’re Lauren Bacall’s age, you can be like, “What the f*ck.”

15. I’m not a mean person, but I have a capacity for it. I have the biting comment formed somewhere in the back of my head — like it’s in captivity. Sometimes people expect that I’m going to be tough. It’s not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time.

16. Amy Poehler and I have been friends for so long, we’re like Oprah and Gale. Only we’re not denying anything.

17. Tina Fey: Maybe what bothers me the most is that people say that Hillary is a bitch. Let me say something about that: Yeah, she is. And so am I and so is this one. (pointing to Amy Poehler)

Amy Poehler: Yeah, deal with it.

Tina Fey: Know what? Bitches get stuff done.

18. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. [from 'A Mother's Prayer for Her Child']

19. I regularly ate health food cookies so disgusting that when I enthusiastically gave one to Rachel Dratch, she drew a picture of a rabbit and broke the cookie into a trail of tiny pieces coming out of the rabbit’s butt.

20. I like to crack the jokes now and again, but it’s only because I struggle with math.

Today marks the birth of the United States’ 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson. A founding father alongside the virtuous Benjamin Franklin et al, he was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson’s face appears on the illusive $2 bill and the trusty nickel. He’s also been immortalised – his impressive, (literally) chiseled looks grace the face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. A wine connoisseur and book lover, he enjoyed the finer things in life – a trait he shared with Franklin.

After a long, industrious life, Jefferson died aged 83 on July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He confirmed this in his last words, “This is the Fourth?” Mere hours later, his pal, presidential predecessor and fellow Founding Father John Adams also passed away, but not before declaring – somewhat ironically – that, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.”

Jefferson is still survived by his words of wisdom, and we’ve selected some of his most quotable observations.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
— Thomas Jefferson

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
— Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
— Thomas Jefferson

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.
— Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
— Thomas Jefferson

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
— Thomas Jefferson

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
— Thomas Jefferson

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
— Thomas Jefferson

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
— Thomas Jefferson

If I am to succeed, the sooner I know it, the less uneasiness I shall have to go through.
— Thomas Jefferson

The glow of one warm thought is worth more to me than money.
— Thomas Jefferson

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
— Thomas Jefferson

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
— Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
— Thomas Jefferson

He who knows best knows how little he knows.
— Thomas Jefferson

For more Founding Father wisdom, check out our quotes from Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay.

We’re celebrating the art of writing for the screen this week at Quotables, as we salute the efforts of the industrious participants in April’s annual Script Frenzy screenwriting challenge.

Script Frenzy is an international writing event – from the folks that brought you NaNoWriMo – which sets aspiring screenwriters the challenge of writing 100 pages of scripted material in just 30 days. To keep you going as you near the mid-way mark, we thought we’d assemble a collection of quotables to motivate and inspire you crazy scriptwriting fiends! From Robert McKee’s workshop guidance and William Goldman’s practical advice, to the wit and wisdom of loads of amazing screenwriters past and present – there’s a huge wealth of quotable goodness to get those creative juices flowing. So, get writing, and remember Raymond Chandler’s famous tip: “When in doubt have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.”

1. Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
— Robert McKee

2. And that’s the goal: writing that’s ALIVE.
— Chuck Close

3. Opening your imagination to the ridiculous opens your mind to what you’re not otherwise seeing. In other words, it makes room for the genius to come through.
— Beth Brandon

4. I don’t think you can get around it: good writing’s INSPIRED. Period.
— Chuck Mondry

5. When I was really young I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a screenwriter. I wrote stories.
— John Sayles

6. All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

7. Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.
— Robert McKee

8. What you are starting out with may not be exciting or interesting, but don’t let that deter you from embracing it and making it your own. There is wonder in all things, you just have to be willing to seek it. As my favorite author, G.K. Chesterton puts it “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”
— Ethan Nicolle

9. If you want to write films become a writer director. Get yourself a video camera and construct your stories on film and go to film school. Go that route so that you are in control of your stories.
— William Nicholson

10. For the first time, I heard actors saying my lines and my partner’s lines, and it was – it was extremely thrilling because the kids — most of them — were too young to change them, so they were actually reading them as written, which was nice, and it hasn’t happened a lot since then.
— Paul Guay

11. Ideas can come from anywhere, they are the vital spark that starts the writing process. One of the best ways of deciding whether you’ve got a good idea fora movie is to ask yourself one simple question: “If someone else had written this story, would I get on a bus, go down to the cinema and pay to watch it?”
— David Griffith

12. Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.
— Anonymous

13. Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright. — Aaron Sorkin

14. A structural approach to screenwriting requires patience and discipline, but the rewards are great. You might find if you spend three weeks hammering out your story, the actual screenwriting will take only a week.
— Greg Marcks

15. The best tip for writing is just to write; to sit down and write, to begin doing it and not to be scared by the blank page.
— David Almond

16. Think of the most obvious thing, then don’t do it: It is easy to fall in love with an idea because you thought of it, but often you thought of it because it was obvious. This is not a rule, only a wise practice. Sometimes you will find that the obvious choice was the best choice, so in that case do the obvious thing, but not in an obvious way.
— Ethan Nicolle

17. Not using dialogue can give a character an extra layer of personality. Think about the people in your life and their body language, the quirks they have and how it helps define what you think of them. One defeated shrug can speak to a character’s entire philosophy of life… You’ve got the power to make your actors do anything you want, so use the hell out of that imagination.
— Curt Franklin

18. So much of good comedy comes out of strong, vivid character ideas. Creating two unique characters an audience will fall in love with and need to see united is the most important key to your screenplay’s success. All great characters have purpose and credibility, are empathic and complex.
— Billy Mernit

19. There’s absolutely no reason you can’t write in ANY genre if you are prepared to put the work in. Genre is craft. Craft can be learnt. So learn the conventions of the genre you want to write. Watch all the movies in that genre, big and small; read all the scripts. Go to events, learn about it. Read articles, blogs, soak it all up.
— Lucy Vee

20. When in doubt have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
— Raymond Chandler

21. You may have a set, a setting, world, or a physical comedy opportunity that will open up and enliven your movie. Annie Hall takes place in a fairly mundane urban world, but it’s packed with sight gags, from the cocaine sneeze to the errant lobsters, and inventive visual ideas, from split screen to animation. Make sure your script makes use of all the cinematic storytelling techniques a good movie-movie uses.
— Billy Merfit

22. Once you’ve got your character – who by then hopefully has a name – what often helps is to do some daydreaming.
— Alan Swyer

23. I love fantasy. I love horror. I love musicals. Whatever doesn’t really happen in life is what I’m interested in. As a way of commenting on everything that does happen in life, because ultimately the only thing I’m really interested in is people.
— Joss Whedon

24. Think of story as the plan and screenplay as the execution. A screenplay is a story told in scenes, each scene necessary to tell the story. At this stage you’re just testing if each scene is necessary. When planning a screenplay, I try to write the story in prose first, without dialog, with each scene represented by either a sentence or a paragraph. Then I read and revise the condensed story, omitting what is unnecessary.
— Greg Marcks

25. That’s the hard part – writing is all about the preservation of your own voice. So if you give that voice away by guessing what you think and you think and you think as you go, you’ll have less to say and then it’ll go away completely!
— Gary Ross

26. Lacking inspiration, I tried to take CONFIDENCE from adhering to “classical” dramatic form. And my writing just died.

— Chuck Mondry

27. Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.
— Barbara Kingsolver

28. When talented people write badly, it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they’re driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience.
— Robert McKee

29. We’ve all been burned by bad feedback. Rude, insensitive, bossy, arrogant, wrong-headed, cruel even.
— Julie Gray

30. I’m not very comfortable giving advice to other writers. Writing just doesn’t come easy for me. Actually, it’s pretty much constant FAILURE.
— Chuck Mondry

31. Writers awaiting feedback are in a very vulnerable position. Yes, yes, we have to have thick skin but writers are sensitive, let’s face it. This is not a new toilet we have installed; our stories are our hearts.
— Julie Gray

32. Every writer I know has trouble writing.
— Joseph Heller

33. I think living with all that failure makes us vulnerable. It makes us weak. And it explains why all those goddamn screenwriting books fill the bookstores. Don’t be fooled, friends. They can’t save you.
— Chuck Mondry

34. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. You put your heart and soul into the script, for months and weeks. And now somebody is going to pass judgment.
— Julie Gray

35. Screenwriting is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It’s about as simple as that.
— James L. Brooks

36. We don’t give feedback to be right or superior or better. We do it to be constructive and productive. Given, I do this every single day; it’s my day job. So I’m pretty good at it. But if this is not normal for you, reading a script and giving notes, just remember to give feedback in the same way you’d want to receive it.
— Julie Gray

37. What was it Nietzsche said? That which does not kill us makes us… well, depressed.
— Chuck Mondry

38. Good feedback is kind, thorough and timely. It’s professional and focused. It leaves the writer feeling challenged to do better but great about their strengths. Even if that just means the location they chose was cool. Give your feedback relative to the skill set of the writer. Never lie or obfuscate. Just serve it up gently. An upset writer isn’t going to hear your points anyway. But an encouraged one will. Trust me on this.
— Julie Gray

39. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I’m going to get through. It’s just a matter of finding a way.
— Elmore Leonard

40. Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot—the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
— Billy Wilder

41. So the writer is the only person who’s taking absolutely nothing, and 120 pages of it, and dirtying it up in such a way that it’s gonna gross hundreds of millions of dollars and make a lot of people happy.
— Paul Guay

42. The first screenplay I ever sold was something I’d written with Chris Matheson, my sometimes writing partner. It was Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. And we had a meeting with a director who had some really lame ideas. And Chris and I said, ‘I don’t think that would really work.’ And this director said, ‘Well, if you don’t think that’s a good idea, we’ll find some writers who do think it’s a good idea.’
— Ed Solomon

43. The screenplay is the child not only of its mother, the silent film, but also of its father, the drama.
— Terrence Rattigan

44. There was a great director who directed a picture that I wrote who barred me from the set—quite appropriately—and said, “I’m sorry, Jim. When you’re directing, you don’t need to know everything. You need the illusion that you do.” And, you know, and I WOULD be there—behind him trying to signal the actors in, you know, in a way I wasn’t even aware of.
— James L. Brooks

45. Well, Jack Warner may have been celebrated for calling writers “Schmucks with Underwoods,” but 20 years earlier Irving Thalberg … said, “The most important person in the motion picture process is the writer, and we must do everything in our power to prevent them from ever realizing it.”
— Steven De Souza

46. You have no idea that years later, people in cars will recognize you on the street and shout, ‘You talkin’ to me?’ I don’t remember the original script, but I don’t think the line was in it. We improvised. For some reason it touched a nerve. That happens.
— Robert De Niro

47. Speed is crucial in TV. Under the pressure of production, you have to be able to bang out good scripts on a clock. A writer who can finish a solid draft in two months? They’re easy to find. I’m interested in the writer who can write that draft in two days.
— Matt Nix

48. Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you – the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.
— William Goldman

49. Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.
— Ian McEwan

50. Now. What are you doing still reading this? You’ve got writing to do!
— Beth Brandon

Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. It’s about five o’clock in the morning. That’s the Homicide Squad – complete with detectives and newspapermen. A murder has been reported from one of those great big houses in the ten thousand block. You’ll read about it in the late editions, I’m sure…
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard

On this day in 1850, Los Angeles, California was incorporated as a city. The home of Hollywood, the film industry, Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills, the “Creative Capital of the World” is one of the world’s most diverse cities, home to people from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different identified languages. It’s the world’s 12th most populous city, and today is the 161st anniversary of its cityhood.

Love it or hate it, we’re warming up for Angeleno Bette Davis‘ birthday spectacular tomorrow with our Top 15 Quotes about Los Angeles. Hooray for Hollywood!

A big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup.
— Raymond Chandler

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
— Frank Lloyd Wright

Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city.
— Dorothy Parker

In Los Angeles, by the time you’re 35, you’re older than most of the buildings.
— Delia Ephron

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.
— Arnold Schwarzenegger

Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.
— David Letterman

I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic – but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.
— Andy Warhol

If a tidal wave hits LA, just grab a fake boob for safety.
— Sarah Michelle Gellar

People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.
— Bret Easton Ellis

Los Angeles is just New York lying down.
— Quentin Crisp

I love Los Angeles. It reinvents itself every two days.
— Billy Connolly

I’m getting a full ride to the University of Los Angeles. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s in Los Angeles.
— Jesse St-James

If Iowa is the ‘heart’ land, what part of the human body is Los Angeles?
— Pat Paulson

People cut themselves off from their ties of the old life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn’t do anywhere else.
— Tom Bradley

Roll up, roll up, come and hear from the greatest showman of all time, the legendary Harry Houdini! The a Hungarian-born American was primarily a magician and escapologist, and later a stunt performer, actor and film producer. Noted for his sensational escape acts, he is every illusionist’s hero and his name is still synonymous with lock-and-key escape acts.

I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That’s what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the ‘human fly’ who scales the walls of the same building.
— Harry Houdini

Today, the 137th anniversary of his birth, we celebrate his memory along with that of his last surviving assistant, who died earlier this week. Houdini outlined just how much trust it took to be his assistant in this quote:

Disloyalty in trusted servants is one of the most disheartening things that can happen to a public performer. But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years. Only one man ever betrayed my confidence.
— Harry Houdini

Houdini spent much of his life performing on the travelling theatre circuit – a form of variety theatre known as vaudeville – working alongside stars like The 3 Keatons (and nicknaming the young Joe Keaton “Buster”, which so happened to stick). He was a sensation, but vaudeville couldn’t last forever.

The great day of the Fire-eater – or, should I say, the day of the great Fire-eater – has passed.
— Harry Houdini

The magician soon moved into film. His most notable performance was in 1922′s The Man From Beyond.

He was also a skeptic who set out to expose frauds purporting to be supernatural phenomena and, to test spiritualist séances should he or she diem devised a secret message with his wife. In their secret stage-code it spells out the word: “BELIEVE”:

Rosabelle — answer — tell — pray, answer — look — tell — answer, answer — tell.
— Harry Houdini

Houdini with his 2 beloveds: his mother, and his wife Rosabelle.

The last words of Harry Houdini are also famous, as he bade farewell to his brother, Theo:

I’m tired of fighting, Dash. I guess this thing is going to get me.
— Harry Houdini

Check out Quotables for more quotes on escape and magic.

Who is your favourite old-time performer?

Spring has sprung, the grass has rizz, I wonder where them birdies is?

We’re delighted Spring has finally graced us with its presence here at Quotables HQ. The days are getting longer, the sun is shining, and the weather is finally consistently above freezing point!

To lighten your spirits, we’ve collected our Top 20 Spring Quotes to ease you into the new season in time for the big clock change (we know you’re way ahead of us North American quote fans!). Don’t forget to spring forward this weekend, Britons!

1. On soft Spring nights I’ll stand in the yard under the stars – Something good will come out of all things yet – And it will be golden and eternal just like that – There’s no need to say another word.
— Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

2. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
— Percy Bysshe Shelley

3. Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
— Victor Hugo

4. A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the king.
— Emily Dickinson, Poem no. 1333

5. Work seethes in the hands of spring,
That strapping dairymaid.
— Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

6. Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring.
— Emily Bronte, Remembrance

7. The dandelion’s pallid tube
Astonishes the grass,
And winter instantly becomes
An infinite alas.
— Emily Dickinson, Poem no. 1519

8. Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there.
— Robert Browning, Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

9. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
— A. E. Houseman, A Shropshire Lad

10. April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
— T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

11. It is about five o’clock in an evening that the first hour of spring strikes– autumn arrives in the early morning but spring at the close of a winter’s day.
— Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart

12. Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
— Lewis Grizzard

13. Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come.
— James Thomson, The Seasons: Spring

14. O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day!
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

15. The flowers anew returning seasons bring,
But beauty faded has no second spring.
— Ambrose Philips, Pastoral

16. Listen, can you hear it? Spring’s sweet cantata. The strains of grass pushing through the snow. The song of buds swelling on the vine. The tender timpani of a baby robin’s heart. Spring.
— Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure

17. In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
— Alfred Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall

18. A man has every season, while a woman has only the right to spring.
— Jane Fonda

19. No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.
— Hal Borland

20. Spring in verses,
Verses in spring.
— Violet Gartenlicht

What are your favourite quotes about Spring?

Featured image by Lex Sky

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Ireland dwellers, ex-pats, and Americans (just kidding)!

Shall I compare they to an Irish summer’s day? Outside of their penchant for shamrocks, short men and the colour green, they’re a verbose, cultured, musical, hilarious lot. To celebrate such cultural dexterity, we’ve compiled a ton of quotations that make us feel all filled up with Irish pride.

We also love this celebration of St Patrick’s Day with picture books from the New York Public Library blog!

Top Irish Authors

1. Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.
— Jonathan Swift

2. Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
— Oscar Wilde

3. Listen to them – the children of the night. What music they make.
— Bram Stoker

4. Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
— William Butler Yeats

5. Love (understood as the desire of good for another) is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that it can scarcely repeat itself, the soul being unable to become virgin again and not having energy enough to cast itself out again into the ocean of another’s soul.
— James Joyce

6. Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
— Samuel Beckett

7. Walk on air against your better judgement.
— Seamus Heaney

8. Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments.
— Roddy Doyle

9. …you, the privileged, the chosen, the pampered, with nothing to do but go to school, hang out, do a little studying, go to college, get into a money-making racket, grow into your fat forties, still whining, still complaining, when there are millions around the world who’d offer fingers and toes to be in your seats, nicely clothed, well fed, with the world by the balls.
— Frank McCourt

10. I look placid, you see, that’s why people think I’m fine. Inside I worry a lot.
— Maeve Binchy

Top Irish Actors

1. Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.
— Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia (Peter O’Toole)

2. Love is the answer, isn’t it? But sex raises a lot of very interesting questions.
— Alfred Kinsey, Kinsey (Liam Neeson)

3. I always enjoyed learning a new tongue.
— James Bond, Die Another Day (PIerce Brosnan)

4. We never should have bought this house. You never own things. You never own things. The things own you.
— Martin Cahill, The General (Brendan Gleeson)

5. If I wasn’t a transvestite terrorist, would you marry me?
— Patrick “Kitten” Braden, Breakfast on Pluto (Cillian Murphy)

6. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But, I didn’t. So, it doesn’t.
— Ray, In Bruges (Colin Farrell)

7. One thing is true of all governments – their most reliable records are tax records.
— Finch, V for Vendetta (Stephen Rea)

8. There is no Briony.
— Briony Tallis, Atonement (Saoirse Ronan)

9. Is this the band then? Betcha U2 are shittin’ themselves.
— Jimmy Rabbitte, Sr., The Commitments (Colm Meaney)

10. Well, Christy, that’s the nearest he’ll ever come to saying I love you.
— Mrs Brown, My Left Foot (Brenda Fricker)

Top Irish Musicians

1. Oh you look so beautiful tonight,
In the city of blinding lights.
— U2, City of Blinding Lights

2. My light shall be the moon
And my path, the ocean.
My guide, the morning star
As I sail home to you.
— Enya, Exhile

3. I can see whomever I choose
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
But nothingI said nothing can take away these blues
Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you.
— Sinead O’Connor, Nothing Compares 2 U

4. I can hear her heart beat from a thousand miles
And the heavens open everytime she smiles
And when I come to her that’s where I belong
Yet I’m running to her like a river’s song.
— Van Morrison, Crazy Love

5. In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey.
What’s in your head,In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?
— The Cranberries, Zombie

6. Tell me why?
I don’t like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.
— Bob Geldof, I Don’t Like Mondays

7. I could have been someone Well so could anyone You took my dreams from me When I first found you I kept them with me babe I put them with my own Can’t make it all alone I’ve built my dreams around you.
— The Pogues, Fairytale of New York

8. And now it’s 18 and life, you got it, 18 and life, you know
Your crime is time and it’s 18 and life to go
18 and life, you got it, 18 and life, you know
Your crime is time and it’s 18 and life to go.
— Skid Row, 18 and Life

9. You’ve got a bad reputation
That’s the word out on the town
It gives a certain fascination,
But it can only bring you down.
— Thin Lizzy, Bad Reputation

10. Stones taught me to fly Love, it taught me to lie Life, it taught me to die So it’s not hard to fall When you float like a cannonball.
— Damien Rice, Cannonball

Top Irish Comedians

1. All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.
— Spike Milligan

2. Now that’s a very, very bad idea. You should stay away from your potential. I mean that is something you should leave absolutely alone. You’ll mess it up! It’s potential, leave it! And anyway, it’s like your bank balance, you always have a lot less than you think.
— Dylan Moran

3. This is the first time that Irish people go: ‘You’re going to England? Sure it’s full of terrorists. Come to Ireland. We’ve no terrorists. They’re all playwrights now.’
— Dara O’ Briain

4. I did think about giving up smoking, but I decided not to, because I’m not a quitter. And I know that every cigarette I smoke takes five minutes off my life, but I also know it takes ten minutes to smoke it. That’s a clear five-minute net gain, I reckon.
— Ed Byrne

5. What’s my girlfriend doing right now? Checking the bin for a potentially unopened pack of McCoys. So yeah, me, Jay Z,.. similar.
— Chris O’Dowd

Have we missed any of your favourites? Let us know!