A Quote by Alain de Botton

Trying to be a sort of intellectual in the public arena is very irritating to people. They think, 'Why is this bugger on television?'

Alain de Botton

Quote Topics

Arena Intellectual Irritating People Public Sort Television Think Trying Very Why

Quote Author

Alain de Botton
English - Writer
Born: December 20, 1969

Opera on television in Europe is very important. If you think about it in the broadest sense: a lot of the dramas made in India with music are practically operas. They're not sung but they have a very big appeal. I don't know why American television people are so stupid but at the moment, they just seem to have some sort of a block. They just do what they do and they do it for a certain number of years. Then it wears out and they try something else. It's just a matter of time I think.

Robert Ashley

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena.

Charles Colson

I think the general public's response to my projects is very strong. You can be an intellectual and say that popularity detracts from architectural quality. On the other hand, you can see in the public's identification something very positive.

Moshe Safdie

I'm always sort of looking for projects that I can sort of put out into the world, into the public sphere, and to somehow cause an effect. I want to be able to create projects that sort of are going to make people think and think in this sort of magical, sort of fantastical way.

Nick Cave

Say the average arena is 20,000 people. You're in the very center of that arena, and you're playing to the worst seat in the house up there. So everything is very big, very large. It's like a very violent form of Broadway in a 20x20 ring.

Stone Cold Steve Austin

People have no idea what it's like to be that person in the arena. I know, no offense, but a lot of people on television, talking heads and analysts and consultants and strategists and they all have their opinions and they tell what a candidate ought to do, what he should have done, what he could have done. But they've never been in at arena.

Mike Huckabee

It's [Into the Badlands] something that's very, very different and I think that's why it divided critics initially because they didn't understand it or get it. They didn't understand or have a knowledge of what we were trying to do. Bringing in the Asian martial arts aesthetic to American television. For us, these are the people who will make the show a hit or a failure in future seasons. So it's for us to respect them and interact and see what they have to say.

Miles Millar

Warner Bros. got into television very early, so I did a lot of television there. In the beginning, it was sort of okay to do television. But then it became this thing where movie actors didn't do television - they certainly didn't do commercials, because that just meant the end of your career.

Dennis Hopper

In the 1960s, various parts of the population became energized and began to enter the public arena to call for the rights of women, students, young people, old people, farmers and workers. What are called "special interests" - meaning the whole population - they began to press to enter the public arena. And they said that puts too much pressure on the state and therefore we have to have more moderation in democracy and they should go back and be quiet and obedient.

Noam Chomsky

The public, obviously, they takes things in a very simplest fashion and so they should. That's why we have such wonderful television.

David Bowie

I think the record-buying public know what they like, and when people are trying to pander to them, I think they know it. They want the genuine article, so if we try to sort of "dumb down" for the mass public, I think they're too smart for that, and would recognize us as fakes. It seems like the bands that do crossover do so really on their own terms, and they just find that their terms just kind of make a big dove-tail with the masses.

Ira Kaplan

Everyone always says to me, 'Why aren't there more people of color on television?' I'm like, 'Why don't you ask a bunch of people who aren't putting people of color on television why there aren't more people of color on television?'

Shonda Rhimes

There are those superstars who refuse to give anything of themselves to the public except what they see on-screen. In movies and on records, it's easy to insulate one's self from the public; that's why I think I wouldn't care to be a television performer, particularly in the States, where TV stardom is so intimate.

George Harrison

You know, almost everyone is an irritant to me. I think people have forgotten what the word 'public' means. 'Public' means you're going to be irritated. It's a natural consequence of leaving one's home. You go outside, and there are people who are irritating. I'll be standing on the sidewalk, and someone berates me for smoking. I look at the person and think, but what about your shoes? How can you wear shoes like that and have the confidence to accost someone like me?

Fran Lebowitz

I feel that responsibility to really be authentic with people because I think that's what they deserve, especially in a time when it's very easy for people in the public eye to sort of cultivate an image.