A Quote by James Elkins

I'd like to understand why it seems normal to look at astonishing achievements made by unapproachably ambitious, luminously pious, strangely obsessed artists, and toss them off with a few wry comments.

James Elkins

Quote Topics

Achievements Ambitious Artists Astonishing Comments Few Like Look Made Normal Obsessed Off Pious Seems Strangely Them Toss Understand Why Wry

Quote Author

James Elkins
American - Critic
Born: 1955

I'm drawn to scenes in movies where you just see characters turning off lights in a room or putting the groceries away; it's like, 'I understand that.' We all have to get ready for bed, and we all do it in a different way, and yet it's all strangely familiar and strangely human.

Abigail Spencer

I don't understand the fashion industry and the appeal of it. I understand that there are some people who think it's important to them, and they're designers, they're artists, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of our culture that's caught up in that and the red carpet stuff. It seems like there's a disproportionate amount of attention placed on that.

Jim Gaffigan

Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing. Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing. When the world gives you a feeling of "déjà vu," when you are used to existence, you become an adult.

Eugene Ionesco

Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.

Stephen King

I have been shocked at some senior actors who made lewd comments on my body. They think it is normal, and in fact, I thought it was normal. But, much later, I failed to see how that is a normal thing.

Parvathy

I think it is very important that you like yourself for who you are and not want to look like anyone else. You also have to understand, many people have had cosmetic surgeries in order to look the way they look. So why look like them when you can just look like you? And there is nothing wrong with looking like you.

Richard Simmons

I'm obsessed with artists like Lady Gaga. I'm obsessed with artists like Lana Del Rey.

Chloe Kohanski

Start as a human being in this culture, toss in madness, toss in mystical states, toss in being gay, toss in being HIV-positive, toss in religion that assures you God hates you for all of that - and then look me in the eye and tell me you can feel ok about yourself. I dare you. I just dare you.

Ken Wilber

When we look at the astonishing material achievements of the West. we see these things as the result, not of compulsion or government action or the superior wisdom of a few, but of that system of competition and free enterprise, rewarding success and penalising failure, which enables every individual to participate by his private decisions in shaping the future of his society.

Enoch Powell

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.

Lawrence Durrell

The costs of an ignorance of science are nor just practical ones like misbegotten policies, forgone cures, and a unilateral disarmament in national competitiveness. There is a moral cost as well. It is an astonishing fact about our species that we understand so much about the history of the universe. the forces that make it tick, the stuff it's made of; the origin of living things, and the machinery of life. A failure to nurture this knowledge shows a philistine indifference to the magnificent achievements humanity is capable of; like allowing a great work of art to molder in a warehouse.

Steven Pinker

The thing I'm obsessed with is really great bad paintings. I have a storage locker full of them and I want to give them their own museum. You don't even know who these artists are - you can buy them at garage sales, antique stores and places like that. They're brilliant because they were done with the intention of being great, but the artist sort of made a wrong turn. Some of them are hilarious and I can't get enough of them.

Jennifer Coolidge

There is a pressure to look good always and look your best. But I think it is important to feel normal sometimes. Because people look up to us and they should also know we are normal. So, it is ok to have an off day.

Athiya Shetty

If we arrive at a saner world in which the maximum human potential is cultivated in every person, our descendants will not understand why our world produced only one Louis Pasteur, one Edison, one Tesla, or one Salk, and why great achievements in our age were the products of a relative few.

Jacque Fresco

Artists shouldn't be made famous. They have this huge aura of almost god-like quality about them, just because their craft makes a lot of money. And at the same time it is a forced importance... It is man-made so the press can feed off it.