A Quote by John C. Baez

When somebody says to me-which they do like every 5 years- "How does it feel to be over the hill?" my response is, "I'm just heading up the mountain." — © John C. Baez
When somebody says to me-which they do like every 5 years- "How does it feel to be over the hill?" my response is, "I'm just heading up the mountain."
It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
One of the things about the six sixes, which really comes over me every time somebody asks a question or says to me, 'I've just seen them,' or people always ask me about it... It makes me feel that's the only thing I've ever done in the history of cricket.
Anytime somebody shares a personal story with me during autograph signings and someone comes up to me and shakes my hand and says thank you and I'm just like, wow. The fact that I can have an influence over somebody; it is heartwarming, it is the goal.
For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself. So they were always about somebody I like, 'cause if I didn't like him, I just didn't do the story. And to have somebody else paying the bills for this tourism, to every corner of every stage, over and over again? Why, who wouldn't want a job like that?
You know who it is? It's me in 10 years. So I turned 25. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, 'So, are you a hero?' And I was like, 'not even close. No, no, no.' She said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because my hero's me at 35.' So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna attain that. I know I'm not, and that's just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.
I'm just trying to make my favorite music. That's how I work; I just do things based on the way they feel to me. I want to be touched by the music I'm making. Luckily, other people have shared that response to my work over the years.
How you feel like a unit, you feel like a team together. There's something about being married that just unites that and just bonds you. I think it does mean something, and it does feel different. Kanye has always treated me like we were that team from day one, but I've seen a change in him as a dad. He's really softened up since he's become a dad.
When you do a play, you have the kind of nightly feeling of accomplishment. But you also have the daily dread of the doing it every night. And because you're doing the whole thing every day, it's like climbing up the mountain every single night. With a movie it's like climbing the mountain very slowly, over months of filming.
I get better at playing the guitar and piano, every time we do a record because we practice more and the years go by and it's just what happens. It is just growing up, and it's cool how over the years the fans grow up and we grow up, and it just kind of works together.
A guy says, I'm so old that I forgot how old I am. An old woman says, I'll tell you how old you are. Take off your clothes and bend over. The man does this. The woman says, You're seventy four. The man says, How can you tell? The woman says, You told me yesterday.
When somebody says, 'Do you want to play Dr. Dre in a movie?' I mean, how do you respond to that? My initial response was 'no' because I don't think I can do it ,and I don't want to be the one to mess it up!
You ask everybody you know: How long does it usually take to get over it? There are many formulas. One year for every year you dated. Two years for every year you dated. It's just a matter of will power: The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.
At one point, I didn't get out of bed for, I think, three months, and I went down to the bottom of the hill one day and I had to call somebody to get me to come back up - come pick me up because I couldn't physically walk up the hill.
I can't understand how some bands are criticized for doing something different and other bands are rewarded for doing things different. At the end of the day, I throw my hands up in the air and say, "F**k it." I've come to accept that no matter what we do, there's going to be somebody out there on the Internet that says it's a piece of s**t and somebody who says they really like it. That's happened with every single album we've put out.
If somebody says or does something to me first, then I'll respond, and I go overboard with it, and it seems like I'm the one that has beef with somebody.
My standup is years and years of me working things out on the road. I'm really proud of it! A lot of it is about, well... I don't know why I feel this way, but I feel like every special or show I do is some variation on how I feel like I'm not a girl, not yet a woman.
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