A Quote by Richard Koch

What could you achieve that would make you proud, that no one else could do with the same ease? — © Richard Koch
What could you achieve that would make you proud, that no one else could do with the same ease?
I love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.
What I realized the moment I got to Oxford was that someone like me could not really be part of it. I mean, I could make a success there, I could even be perhaps accepted into it, but I would never feel it was my place. It's the summit of something else. It's distilled Englishness.
If I were black, I could say I'm proud. If I were Asian, I could say I'm proud. If I were any other ethnicity, I could say I'm proud, because that's how our culture is, but if I'm white and I say I'm proud, the media will go nuts.
I've always liked the idea of inventing stuff. My father told me, because I was naïve, I would think things could work and therefore do them, because I would have no doubt even though there was no solid foundation for this confidence. I don't think I would be a real inventor. But when I set out to do animation, which was my first step into film-making, I realised I could achieve this idea. I could take some elements, create a sort of clumsy invention, and make them work for the camera.
I would just say that I could share what served me, which was trying to find the best material that I could possibly find and make it better. When other celebrities and sports stars, or people that are successful in another area, cross over into movies, they're always encouraged to bring that same tenacity and that same relentless drive that you had to make it. You have to apply that to acting.
If I wanted to work financially, I would have made a series of different choices. I do get offered lots of movies which you could make a lot of money out of. And I always say, 'Why would I do that, when someone else could do it much better than me? Why would I want to do an action picture? Why?
If I wanted to work financially, I would have made a series of different choices. I do get offered lots of movies which you could make a lot of money out of. And I always say, 'Why would I do that, when someone else could do it much better than me? Why would I want to do an action picture? Why?'
The conscious principle in this design has been to achieve forms that could create experiences, and that could at the same time welcome everyone's experiences with the serenity of an effortless development.
I came to realize that if people could make me angry they could could control me. Why should I give someone else such power over my life?
We love and care for oodles of people, but only a few of them, if they died, would make us believe we could not continue to live. Imagine if there were a boat upon which you could put only four people, and everyone else known and beloved to you would then cease to exist. Who would you put on that boat? It would be painful, but how quickly you would decide: You and you and you and you, get in. The rest of you, goodbye.
I could fight with the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her anymore. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight. She was to strong for me.
The early evangelists recognized they could help the Jesus story make sense if Jesus was seen as someone who was chosen to appease the wrath of God - hence, the 'anointed one' who could do what no one else could do.
You could go so wrong with a 'Planet of the Apes' reboot; you could make it melodramatic, you could make it campy, you could fall into so many traps with it.
Given the way the system was, what could I do as I one person, other than devote my life to fighting to make it different? If I had allowed myself to be filled with hate, I probably wouldn't even be alive, because that hate could've killed me. That hate would've blinded me to my contributions in terms of how I could make a difference. You can't think straight when you're consumed by hate and focused on destroying someone else. Instead, I was bent on trying to destroy a system that was not fair to all of us, and I continue to do that.
A work can do many things at once, and it doesn't have to be just about the world, it could also be about photography, it could be about perception, it could be an exploration of the medium. It could be a document, it could be a visual poetry, and it could be a formal exploration all at the same time.
And the rules were so clear, you could not deviate from that all. And I think it especially damaged my sisters because there was nothing they could do to get my father's attention, to win his approval. They could not play sports. They could not do these other things. They could not be tough. They could not be macho. And so I think they suffered just from sheer neglect if nothing else.
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