1961 Quotes & Sayings

Nobody can easily bring together a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese' (Charles de Gaulle, 1961 speech) — Mark Kurlansky

I came into advertising in 1961. I had been turned down for jobs on the Ford account in the late Fifties as 'not their type.' If it hadn't been for Bill Bernbach, I would now be sitting in some luncheonette, continuing my life as a messenger. — Jerry Della Femina

Culture can only be produced, it can only be created - not conserved, not saved or rescued. Culture arises without our really being aware of it; in the deepest sense culture is innocent and unconscious. When an Egyptian potter turned a pot on the wheel, he didn't sit there thinking that now he was producing Egyptian Culture - he was working for a living. That what he made was also lovely, is due to his professional skill - but also to something extra which came of itself, like love. That can't be rescued either, when it ends. It comes and goes of itself. Neither culture nor love can be saved, not even by the police.
- "The Traitor" (1961) — Jens Bjorneboe

The publishing industry stopped having new ideas out of respect for the untimely death of Ernest Hemingway in 1961 and has been doing everything the same way ever since. — Adam Mansbach

I looked and looked but I didn't see God.
[Speaking about, in 1961, becoming the first human to enter space.] — Yuri Gagarin

I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961. — Bernice Johnson Reagon

Repetition sometimes works in poetry, but rarely in prose. The musical provocateur John Cage once wrote a lecture in which a single page was repeated fourteen times, with the refrain "If anybody is sleep let him go to sleep" (Cage, 1961). Midway through, the artist Jean Reynal stood up and screamed, "John, I dearly love you, but I can't bear another minute. — Gary F. Marcus

Bear Market Begin Bear Market End Max DD Sept 1929 June 1932 -86.25 July 1933 March 1935 -33.9% March 1937 March 1938 -54.5% Nov 1938 April 1942 -45.8% May 1946 June 1949 -29.6% July 1957 Oct 1957 -20.6% Dec 1961 June 1962 -28% Feb 1966 Oct 1966 -22.2% Oct 1968 May 1970 -34% Jan 1973 Oct 1974 -48.2% Sept 1976 March 1978 -19.4% Nov 1980 Aug 1982 -27.1% Aug 1987 Dec 1987 -40.4% July 1990 Oct 1990 -21.2% Mar 2000 Oct 2002 -49.1% June 2008 Mar 2009 -54% Average Bear Market: -37.3% Buy and Hold since 1942 Compounded Annual Rate of Return: 8.03% Maximum Draw down: 54% Prior to this decade's two severe bear markets, most investors believed that only that the stock market can go up. — Andrew Abraham

From 1961 to 1965 Barney and I had not seen another UFO. — Betty Hill

I first met Jimmy Page in London in 1961, and he was listening to James Burton, Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup with Gene Vincent, as was I ... these were the rock and roll guys who really sparked our interest in the guitar, and later we delved into other things and went different directions ... during my time with Eric Clapton, we talked about what we'd listened to early on, and he was a huge fan of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis — Albert Lee

According to the Gallup Poll, 24 percent of American adults exercised regularly in 1961, and 50 percent after 1968. The peak was 59 percent in 1984, dropping off to 51 percent last September. — Kenneth H. Cooper

I was occupied so entirely by each day, I felt detached from anything so large as a month or a year. History didn't cross my mind. Now it does. Now I know, whatever your burdens, to hold yourself apart from the lot of more powerful men is an illusion. On that awful day in January 1961, Lumumba paid with a life and so did I. On the wings of an owl the fallen Congo came to haunt even our little family, we messengers of goodwill adrift on a sea of mistaken intentions. — Barbara Kingsolver

'To Kill a Mockingbird' appeared to highly favorable reviews and quickly climbed to the top of bestseller lists, where it remained for more than eighty weeks. In 1961, the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. A film adaptation was released in 1962, starring Gregory Peck, and received three Academy Awards. — Charles J. Shields

I don't know how old I was when I started writing books. But, I was born in 1931, and I wrote my first book in 1961. — Ed Emberley

Flavor-wise, chicken started moving in the wrong direction when the high-energy diet appeared, so much so that Julia Child sounded the alarm in 1961. — Mark Schatzker

Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.
[News conference, April 21 1961] — John F. Kennedy

In January 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations in response to Cuban nationalisation of U.S.-owned sugar plantations, banks and businesses. — Tariq Ali

The Birmingham campaign was a repeat of SCLC's 1961 campaign in Albany, Georgia, which turned out a complete failure. King was banking on being able to fill up the jails and still have recruits willing to engage in civil disobedience, shutting the system down, but the authorities simply made their jails "bottomless" by shipping detainees elsewhere. A couple years later, black residents of Albany rioted, suggesting what they thought about their experience with nonviolence (these riots are not mentioned in most chronologies of the movement). — Anonymous

I was never able to convince myself that there was a cost-free alternative course, as from 1961, or that any of the different strategies since proposed, especially those involving stronger military action, would have made sense. — William P. Bundy

In America, Rousseauism has turned Freud's conflict-based psychoanalysis into weepy hand-holding. Contemporary liberalism is untruthful about cosmic realities. Therapy, defining anger and hostility in merely personal terms, seeks to cure what was never a problem before Rousseau. Mediterranean, as well as African-American, culture has a lavish system of language and gesture to channel and express negative emotion. Rousseauists who take the Utopian view of personality are always distressed or depressed over world outbreaks of violence and anarchy. But because, as a Sadean, I believe history is in nature and of it, I tend to be far more cheerful and optimistic than my liberal friends. Despite crime's omnipresence, things work in society, because biology compels it. Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium. Films like Seven Samurai (1954) and Two Women (1961) accurately show the breakdown of social controls as a regression to animal-like squalor. — Camille Paglia

Arsenal have class. I remember when I was at Spurs, the Arsenal players would arrive for matches in their navy blazers with the gold gun emblem sewn into their pockets and grey slacks. We couldn't match their ground with that beautiful main entrance, marble halls and spiral staircase. Even in 1961 when we won the Double, we were never as big a club as Arsenal. — Jimmy Greaves

I blame my generation for having neglected to teach our children that in life there are no safe places, that safety is an illusion. "Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark," Baldwin said in an interview in 1961. — Azar Nafisi

Dave Van Ronk, for those who don't know him - probably most don't know - was a folk singer. He's kind of the biggest person on the scene in 1961 in the folk revival in Greenwich Village, biggest person on the scene until Bob Dylan showed up. — Ethan Coen

It is long settled in California that a landlord who resorts to self-help [such as removing a tenant's personal belongings and changing the locks, even though the tenant is still in legal possession of the property] instead of invoking the unlawful detainer procedure commits a forcible entry and detainer, and is liable for actual and, sometimes, punitive damages (see Jordan v Talbot (1961) 55 C2d 597), regardless of any lease provision giving the landlord the right to reenter on default (55 C2d at 604) or any lien the landlord may wish to exercise (55 C2d at 609). — Myron Moskovitz

I came to political consciousness with John F. Kennedy's magnificent 1961 Inaugural Address. It seemed the start of something fresh and exciting, and it was. — Joe Klein

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
[Inaugural Address, January 20 1961] — John F. Kennedy

Haagen-Dazs (a clever Scandi-sounding name invented by Americans in 1961) was bought for its Euro-sounding sophistication by the kind of Americans who first bought those Mercs and Beemers, while Ben & Jerry's (now owned by Unilever) brought a post-hippy sensibility to bear. Buyers saw the brand as saying 'all-natural, organic and Fairtrade.' — Peter York

The 1935 Social Security Act established 65 as the age of eligibility for payouts. But welfare state politics quickly becomes a bidding war, enriching the menu of benefits, so in 1956 Congress entitled women to collect benefits at 62, extending the entitlement to men in 1961. — George Will

You know, the history of California art doesn't start until about 1961, and that's when these photographs start. I mean, we have no history out here. — Dennis Hopper

Let me make it clear that the Youth Employment Opportunities Act of 1961 is not primarily concerned with delinquency prevention. Rather, it is designed to help all types of young men or women who suffer deficiencies of training or opportunity which keep them unemployed. — Robert Kennedy

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn't much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn't even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments. — Lou Holtz

I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo [space program] in 1961. — Neil Armstrong

By 1961, when I got my first copywriting job, 'my kind' were suddenly in demand. The creative revolution had begun. Advertising had turned into a business dominated by young, funny, Jewish copywriters and tough, sometimes violent, Greek and Italian art directors. — Jerry Della Femina

Organizational theorists, at least since Burns and Stalker, 1961 and Joan Woodward, 1965 in what came to be called the contingency school, have recognized that centralization is appropriate for organizations with routine tasks, and decentralization for those with nonroutine tasks. — Charles Perrow

It is not always easy. Your successes are unheralded
your failures are trumpeted. I sometimes have that feeling myself.
[Speech at CIA Headquarters, November 28, 1961] — John F. Kennedy

In 1961, when Maris broke Babe Ruth's record, he wasn't intentionally walked once. Mickey batted after Roger, and nobody was going to put a man on base with Mantle coming up to the plate. — Mel Allen

I remember when in the early days of rock'n'roll, when everything sounded totally different, all amazing and blah blah blah blah blah. Now you can play me one second of any record from that time, and I'll say "1959" or "1961." I can hear precisely. It's like it has a huge date stamp on it. — Brian Eno

There is no city on Earth quite like Charleston. From the time I first came there in 1961, it's held me in its enchanter's power, the wordless articulation of its singularity, its withheld and magical beauty. Wandering through its streets can be dreamlike and otherworldly, its alleyways and shortcuts both fragrant and mysterious, yet as haunted as time turned in on itself. — Pat Conroy

I've just completed Mike's [Mann] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's [Briffa] to hide the decline. — Phil Jones

I still connect with original emotions. 'Night Moves' was written about 1961 or 1962 when I was in high school, and it was about what my friends and I did in that period. — Bob Seger

In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba. — Gore Vidal

I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back. — Elmore Leonard

As for comics, one has only to turn to the characteristic output of Marvel Comics, for the period from about 1961 to about 1975, to find not an expression of base and cynical impulses but of good, old-fashioned liberal humanism of a kind that may strike us today, God help us, as quaint, but which nevertheless appealed, in story after story, to ideals such as tolerance, technological optimism, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. — Michael Chabon

The world is a little more diverse in 2015 than when the Fantastic Four comic first came out in 1961. — Michael B. Jordan

At a book festival in Fort Lauderdale, I met David Eisenhower, Ike's grandson, who was promoting his book 'Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower,' in which he describes attending the Yankees' 154th game in 1961. The whole family had been following Mantle and Maris chase Babe Ruth's home run record across the country. — Jane Leavy

The first time the Kirov ballet was seen in America was on Sept. 11, 1961. The ballet was 'Swan Lake.' The ballerina was Inna Zubkovskaya. The place was the old Met, on what must have been one of the hottest nights of the year, and there was no air-conditioning. — Robert Gottlieb

In 1961, the United States began chemical warfare in Vietnam, South Vietnam, chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock. That went on for seven years. The level of poison - they used the most extreme carcinogen known: dioxin. And this went on for years. — Noam Chomsky

I joined the People's Armed Forces in 1961 to 1984, and I was also a soldier in the southern battle of Vietnam during the resistance against the Americans. I went to the battlefield in order to regain national independence. — Nguyen Tan Dung

I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Ride in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7th, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a State Trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence. — John Lewis

We've had every official in Hawaii, Democrat and Republican, every news outlet that has investigated this, confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital. — Barack Obama

Anticommunism in its modern form was invented by liberals like Harry Truman, the architect of the national security state. The proportion of the voting population that was not anticommunist in 1961 was miniscule. — Rick Perlstein

[Her life with Tony Curtis in 1961:] We were beginning the climb to a higher plateau. Acceptance. Recognition. Status. Security. We only had to hold on and hope the thin air didn't make us dizzy and cause a tumble. We also needed to remember that the inside had to ascend together with the outside. — Janet Leigh

Kandinsky in Munich uttered the well known words: 'Everything is permitted!' In 1961; we still live by this heritage, which in truth is inexhaustible. — Michel Seuphor

Honestly, at one time I though Babe Ruth was a cartoon character. I really did, I mean I wasn't born until 1961 and I grew up in Indiana. — Don Mattingly

The current Michigan Constitution was written in 1961 and '62. — John Engler

In 1961, before the container was in international use, ocean freight costs alone accounted for 12 percent of the value of U.S. exports and 10 percent of the value of U.S. imports. — Marc Levinson

My first record came out in 1961 and then I had one come out in 1962 and then I had two that came out in 1964. — Hasil Adkins

I had more or less abandoned the idea of an electroweak gauge theory during the period 1961-1970. Of the several reasons for this, one was the failure of my naive foray into renormalizability. — Sheldon Lee Glashow

I was born in 1961. Now I think the 16 years that elapsed between 1961 and the end of the wars is nothing. To a child growing up it felt like an eternity, an entirely different world. — Jeremy Northam

In 1961 you usually didn't hear the word shit from teachers, even if they had a mouthful. But — Stephen King

I attended the University of Louisville my freshman year, transferred to what was then Western Kentucky State Teachers College for my sophomore and junior years, and then graduated from the University of Louisville in the summer of 1961. — Sue Grafton

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.
[Writer's Digest, September 1961] — Harper Lee

I like the distance that Europe gives me. Also if I stayed in America I'd be a full-time politician and have no time for writing, which is why I went to Europe to live in 1961. — Gore Vidal

Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind.
[Address before the United Nations, September 25 1961] — John F. Kennedy

I think we're going to have to do better. Mr. Nixon talks about our being the strongest country in the world. I think we are today, but we were far stronger relative to the Communists 5 years ago. And what is of great concern is that the balance of power is in danger of moving with them. They made a breakthrough in missiles and by 1961, '2, and '3, they will be outnumbering us in missiles. — John F. Kennedy

I went to Europe to live in 1961. I'd never have written Julian if it hadn't been for the sequestered life that I led in Rome and the classical library at the America Academy. — Gore Vidal

I met Howard Zinn in 1961, my first year at Spelman College in Atlanta. He was the tall, rangy, good-looking professor that many of the girls at Spelman swooned over. — Alice Walker

Astronomy may be revolutionized more than any other field of science by observations from above the atmosphere. Study of the planets, the Sun, the stars, and the rarified matter in space should all be profoundly influenced by measurements from balloons, rockets, probes and satellites ... In a new adventure of discovery no one can foretell what will be found, and it is probably safe to predict that the most important new discovery that will be made with flying telescopes will be quite unexpected and unforeseen. (1961) — Lyman Spitzer

And Venus must be hot if the history of the solar system is not the history of no change for billions of years. And Venus was found hot, not room temperature as was thought until 1959. In 1961 it was detected with radio means that it is like something like 600 Farenheit and Mariner 2 was sent out to find out true or not true? It was found that even more it is full 800 [degrees Farenheit]. — Immanuel Velikovsky

From the moment he took office in January of 1961, Kennedy had been eager to settle the Cuban problem without overt military action by the United States. — Robert Dallek

Manchurian Candidate work was done under MKULTRA Subproject 136, which was approved for funding on August 23, 1961. — Colin A. Ross

In some parts of the world, what you are doing is already apparent. According to the World Health Organization, the warming of the planet caused an additional 140,000 deaths in 2004, as compared with the number of deaths there would have been had average global temperatures remained as they were during the period 1961 to 1990. This means that climate change is already causing, every week, as many deaths as occurred in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. — Peter Singer

I would like to see whoever is our next president dedicate a significant part of their inaugural address to this challenge. We have to ignite the nation's energies and passions on this to make this happen. I think we do need the same kind of inspiration we had from Kennedy in his inaugural address in 1961. — Jay Inslee

For a black student to work in southwest Mississippi for example - or in the Delta in 1960, 1961, 1962 - was high-risk work. — John Doar

Why did Park Chung-Hee launch his political career in 1961 by lambasting Korean history? Why did he follow up two years later by saying, "Our five thousand years of history was a continuation of degeneration, crudity, and stagnation" and "We should set ablaze all our history that was more like a storehouse of evil"? — Chong-Sik Lee

I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake. — Bob Hudson

So I was forced to go to school wearing a menstrual pad belt that had been in our first aid drawer since approximately 1961. If you've never seen one of these things, because you haven't been to the antiquities museum, it is a literal belt that goes around your waist, with two straps that dangle down in your front and back cracks, ice cold metal clips holding a small throw pillow in place over your shame canyon. — Lindy West

When I got back into show business in 1961, I felt - for obvious reasons - that nothing in my life went right, and I realized that millions of people felt the same way. So when I first came
back my catch phrase was "nothing goes right." Early on, that was my setup for a lot of jokes. — Rodney Dangerfield

Take just one well-known event: The Beatles' 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This has been depicted with astonishing regularity as a pivotal cultural moment; in fact an entire movie -- I Wanna Hold Your Hand -- was built around it. And that Sullivan episode was indeed a major event in popular culture. But did you know that in 1961, 26 million people watched a CBS live broadcast of the first performance of a new symphony by classical composer Aaron Copland? Moreover, with all the attention that sixties rock groups receive, it may come as a surprise to learn that My Fair Lady was Columbia Records' biggest-selling album before the 1970s, beating out those of sixties icons Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and The Byrds. — Jonathan Leaf

In early 1961 a new president, John F. Kennedy, was told by military leaders and civilian officials that the Kingdom of Laos - of no conceivable strategic importance to the U.S. - required the presence of American troops and perhaps even tactical nuclear weapons. Why? Because if Laos fell, Asia would go red from Thailand to Indonesia. — Jeff Greenfield

We cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.
[ The Berlin Crisis: Radio and Television Address to the American People (The White House, July 25, 1961)] — John F. Kennedy

Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard's epoch flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive government efforts. By contrast, our program involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable. — Burt Rutan

Working with Marilyn Monroe on The Misfits (1961) nearly gave me a heart attack. I have never been happier when a film ended. — Clark Gable

Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation" - a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
Inaugural Adress, January 20, 1961 — John F. Kennedy

The beginnings of the hacker culture as we know it today can be conveniently dated to 1961, the year MIT acquired the first PDP-1. — Eric S. Raymond

In the fall of 1961, I went up to Clare College Cambridge to read Natural Sciences, with the intention of becoming a biochemist in the end. — Tim Hunt

My first scientific paper in 1961 reported an additivity rule for substituent-induced shifts of proton NMR signals in steroid derivatives. — Jean-Marie Lehn

The red library is Sui's tribute to fashion maven Diana Vreeland, who served as editor for Harper's Bazaar (1939-1962) and Vogue (1963-1961). My most precious collection is my bound Vogue magazines, .. and they're kind of like my Bible. I look at them all the time when I'm trying to inspire myself for a collection. — Anna Sui

The ordinary American - as far as I can tell - knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961. — Ben Stein

Then the Angels came in 1961, and I fell in love with them. — Leigh Steinberg

The first outbreak of America's 11-year skyjacking epidemic occurred in the summer of 1961, when four planes were seized in the nation's airspace. The last of these incidents, involving 16-year-old Cody Bearden and his father, Leon, is the one that finally forced the federal government to pay attention to the escalating crisis. — Brendan I. Koerner

On the existence and threat of modern-day secret societies: We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence . . . building a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. - JOHN F. KENNEDY, FROM A SPEECH GIVEN AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL ON APRIL 27, 1961 — James Rollins

In 1961 somebody could've hit a home run to win the game and the next day the headline was about the M&M boys not hitting a home run. But everyone was real good about it. Instead of getting mad they joked about it. — Mickey Mantle

From 1961 to 1964, I was fortunate enough to work at a think tank in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. As a writer and editor, I reported in a publication about the thinkers. Our offices were in a former mansion; I worked in what had been the ballroom. As I sat typing my copy, I imagined the dancers waltzing. — Karen DeCrow

I was born in Palo Alto, California in 1961. — Eric Allin Cornell

In 1961, at age seventy, standing just four feet ten inches tall and weighing ninety-eight pounds, Kline became Disneyland's first Tinker Bell. — Jim Korkis

Oh, my goodness, when we came to the farm in 1961, I mean, it wouldn't even support one salary. — Joel Salatin

My cousin Joey played the drums. We used to go to his house, I liked beating on his drums. I beat the hell out of 'em, you know? Finally in 1961, I don't know, I guess I was about 15, I got serious about it. My parents bought me a little drum set and I was playing for about 6 months when I started doing gigs. — Carmine Appice

I missed so much of the Swinging Sixties by working. From 1961 to 1969, I got up at 4.30 A.M., a car came for me at 5.30 A.M., and I was taken to our studio at Teddington or Elstree, and we filmed until I got home at 9.30 P.M., five days a week. — Patrick Macnee

In summer 1961, Rose-Marie Egger became my wife, and her stabilizing influence has kept me on an even keel ever since. Our honeymoon trip led us to the United States where I spent two post-doc years working on thermal conductivity of type-II superconductors and metals in the group of Professor Bernie Serin at Rutgers University in New Jersey. — Heinrich Rohrer