Don Watson Quotes & Sayings

Hubris is an incurable American disease. As incurable as the military-industrial machine that keeps coming up with the armaments that make wars seem like slam dunks, but which last for decades; wars that are fought by a very small percentage of the population and, regular effusive acknowledgement of veterans notwithstanding, can be ignored for years. — Don Watson

Capuchin monkeys have no faith in America; they hold to no dream — Don Watson

I remember trying not to disrupt everyone else in the room, fumbling around trying to figure out how to use the medium with a beautiful model disrobed in front of me ... — Don Watson

It is part of the business of marketing to muddy the distinction between altruism and cynicism. — Don Watson

Decried every day as a feckless thing without initiative or ambition, a thing not to be mentioned in the same breath as private enterprise, government became that thing. First sequester its responsibilities, sell off its functions, grant it no respect; run it into the ground and then declare it incompetent. — Don Watson

Gift to the creative artist: positive images in, positive images out. On the other hand, garbage in, garbage out. — Don Watson

Exaggerated passion combined with enthusiasm has the ingredients to make a prolific artist. — Don Watson

Michael Young, the English sociologist who coined the term "meritocracy," despised the fashion for it: first, because it is largely a smug fantasy perpetuated by those who sit at the top of the social pyramid; and second, because it bestows on those at the bottom the slur that they are there because they have no merit. Even feudalism spared the poor that insult: their lowly station was an accident of birth. — Don Watson

Jargon is making it increasingly hard to understand what a public figure is actually trying to say — Don Watson

I ask myself, 'Do you want to sit on the sidelines of life or do you want to be on the field?' I suppose all those years of building thicker skin has made it easy to endure criticism. — Don Watson

Language is butchered by the media — Don Watson

Imagine, a First World country founded on egalitarian principles in which the top 20 per cent of households have 84 per cent of the wealth, while the bottom 40 per cent have 0.3 per cent; and one family, the Waltons, owns more than the bottom 40 per cent of US families combined; and the ratio of CEO salary to unskilled worker is 354 to 1 (fifty years ago it was 20 to 1). A minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which is 34 per cent less than workers on the minimum were getting in 1968. More than 20 per cent of children in the United States live in poverty, more than twice the rate of any European country. With a quarter of totalitarian China's population, democratic America has about the same number of people in jail. — Don Watson

Pictures rule, but words define, explain, express, direct, and hold together our thoughts and what we know. — Don Watson

When I opened the curtains in the morning I saw the intersection of two six-lane highways. It was a comfortable, well equipped, practical sort of place, as Holidays Inns tend to be. You can be happy at a place like this so long as you stay away from the coffee. And the restaurant, if you want to be sure. Perhaps not happy, but not unhappy. Or if unhappy, at least not threatened. A good motel creates a kind of stasis for the soul in transit. One should leave no worse than one arrived: that is the minimum requirement. — Don Watson

I like having my own style; love my work or hate my work, it's my own. — Don Watson

The managerial class has forced on us a public language that makes no sense — Don Watson

Crockery has been withdrawn from American culture below a certain level. — Don Watson