1979 Quotes & Sayings

The thing you don't realize, my dear girl, is that I have been forced by the economic realities to start taking publishing very seriously. For example, it has been brought to my attention that our ability to continue to pay the hordes of people employed by M&S (God knows how many mouths have to be fed) depends directly on the number of copies of your new book [Life Before Man] that we are able to sell between September and Christmas. In past I have been able to treat this whole thing as a fun game. I have never been troubled by the cavalier explanations about lost manuscripts and fuck-ups of various sorts. Now I have learned that this is a deadly serious game. I don't laugh at jokes about the Canadian postal service. I cry. (in a letter to author Margaret Atwood, dated February, 1979) — Jack McClelland

The conventional way of understanding taste, according to Distinction, is to view it as a capacity for aesthetic judgments in areas such as music, art, and literature. Though rarely made explicit, it is well understood that taste can be found only among the elite, and that the lower classes lack it. Bourdieu argues that it is imperative to break with this concept of taste and replace it with one that is sociological in nature. In order to do so, Bourdieu expands the concept of taste from including only "aesthetic consumption" to including "ordinary consumption," that is, the consumption of clothing, furniture, and food ([1979] 1986:100). He also extends the concept of taste to all social classes, and shows that what constitutes "good taste" is very much part of the struggle for domination in society. — Richard Swedberg

When I left the Senate in 1979, there were several publishers who had approached me about writing an autobiography, and I knew that politicians write books for many reasons, but at that time, I just thought I wasn't ready and my story wasn't over, and I knew I had a new life ahead of me. — Edward Brooke

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the land question in Zimbabwe is the single most decisive one. — Christopher Hitchens

In 1979, I moved to England and photographed Joy Division and Bowie and Beefheart. At that time I got images that I felt had that special, well - power is a big word to say - more like intimacy and ambition that outlasted the photo shoot. I felt that they would have a longer life. — Anton Corbijn

He's heard Unitarianism called a featherbed for falling Christians, but his mother doesn't seem like a woman who has fallen anywhere. (Where is the featherbed for falling Unitarians, he wonders? Such as himself.) [From "Life Before Man," 1979) — Margaret Atwood

The only club I have ever belonged to is the James Bond fan club. Member since 1979. — Michael Weatherly

Then, in 1979, VisiCalc became the very first massive software hit. VisiCalc was a relatively simple financial modeling spreadsheet, and its existence suddenly gave nongeeks a concrete reason to own a computer, as they realized how much time they could save handling accounting chores, managing inventory lists, and trying out business scenarios. Suddenly Apple enjoyed an unprecedented, meteoric rise. — Brent Schlender

SO NOW IT'S 1979. Year of the Goat. The Earth Goat. Here are some things you might remember. Margaret Thatcher had just been elected prime minister. Idi Amin had fled Uganda. Jimmy Carter would soon be facing the Iran hostage crisis. In the meantime, he was the first and last president ever to be attacked by a swamp rabbit. That man could not catch a break. — Karen Joy Fowler

Biden likes to be candid in such settings. In 1979, on one of his first trips to the Soviet Union, he listened to an argument from his Soviet counterpart, and replied, "Where I come from, we have a saying: You can't shit a shitter." Bill Bradley, then a fellow-senator on the delegation, later asked the American interpreter how he had translated Biden's comment into Russian. "Not literally," the interpreter said. — Anonymous

What is applicable is to understand that first of all China has undergone a huge revolution in the last years. Anyone who saw China as I did in 1971 - and for that matter even in 1979, because not much had changed between 1971 and 1979 - and sees China today, knows one is in a different economic system. — Henry A. Kissinger

In truth, I barely knew my father at all. He was 53 when I was born, and when I was ten he contracted cancer. Eight years later, in 1979, he died. — Rory Bremner

I did the 1972 Sapporo Games, and I was also the Reds announcer and was folded into the NBC coverage for the 1972 World Series. I also did the 1979 World Series for ABC. — Al Michaels

After the revolution of 1979, Iran embarked on a policy of sectarianism. Iran began a policy of expanding its revolution, of interfering with the affairs of its neighbors, a policy of assassinating diplomats and of attacking embassies. Iran is responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, it is responsible for smuggling explosives and drugs into Saudi Arabia. And Iran is responsible for setting up sectarian militias in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, whose objective is to destabilize those countries. — Adel Al-Jubeir

I love the Japanese director Shohei Imamura. His masterpiece in 1979 called, the English title was 'Vengeance is Mine.' — Bong Joon-ho

I was a little punk rocker and was pregnant with Sarah when I went to university. I had her in the Christmas holidays of the first term. It was 1979, and UCL was very proud of its reputation as a liberal university, so they were very helpful. — Alison Owen

Take a chance and step outside. Lose some sleep and say you tried. Meet frustration face to face. A point of view creates more waves. - JOY DIVISION (1979) — Jaime Levy

While this has been a private part of my family's life, it is now clear a media story will soon emerge. My father tragically ended his life while battling terminal cancer in 1979. — Bill De Blasio

We moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1979, when I was five. The funny thing is that, even though Baltimore had one of the top murder rates in the country in those days, I grew up hearing about how dangerous New York was. — Philipp Meyer

Dick Moss, my agent. Dick became my agent in 1979 when I signed my contract with the Houston Astros. — Nolan Ryan

I finally returned to Iran in 1979, when I got my degree in English and American literature, and stayed for 18 years in the Islamic republic. — Azar Nafisi

As recently as 1979, neither panic attacks nor panic disorder officially existed. — Scott Stossel

By 1979, Chinese people were poorer, on average, than North Koreans. I mean, your average per-capita income in China that year was one third of sub-Saharan Africa's. — Evan Osnos

On the day I started college in 1979, no woman had ever been on the United States Supreme Court or served as the Speaker of the House. None had been an astronaut or the solo anchor of a network evening news broadcast. Not one had been president of an Ivy League college or run a serious campaign for president. — Dee Dee Myers

From 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population. — Loung Ung

The trial organized with U.N. participation of some kind will be for crimes committed by Khmer Rouge leaders from 1975 to 1979. That's it. — Hun Sen

1979. Coming to America after a childhood spent in the Soviet Union is equivalent to stumbling off a monochromatic cliff and landing in a pool of pure Technicolor. — Gary Shteyngart

I first visited the Toronto fest in 1979, its fourth edition, when it was known as the Festival of Festivals and had an audience of about 40,000. I happily returned to the 10-day skein nearly every year thereafter, as attendance swelled to 400,000 and it grew into the most influential film festival in North America, perhaps the world. — Richard Corliss

I first arrived in New York in 1979. I was 19 and I was going to University in Houston, Texas, and I decided that I knew what I wanted to do and it was time to go and do it. I literally ran away from college. — Candace Bushnell

I spent most of my adult life as someone's mother and the rest of my life trying to make sure that children are safe. So this to me is - we wrote Hell Is For Children in 1979. — Pat Benatar

Medicine in 1979, he declared: Some people say there is no such thing as progress. The fact that human beings are now the only animals left on Earth, I confess, seems a confusing sort of victory. Those of you familiar with the nature of my earlier published works will understand why I mourned especially when the last beaver died. — Kurt Vonnegut

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders. — Noam Chomsky

The way we have been playing, I might tell my players not to cross the picket line (umpire strike of 1979). — Whitey Herzog

In 1979, we thought it would be easier to take power. The intervention of the United States has changed the circumstances. — Mario Lopez

When I began visiting Bordeaux in 1979, only a handful of writers were there to taste the wines in the spring (and nearly all were British). — Robert M. Parker Jr.

My first album came out in 1979. — Teena Marie

In 1979, when I was toddler, the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and my whole family fled to Vienna, Virginia. Far from home, my parents were determined to raise my two sisters and me according to Afghan traditions. — Azita Ghanizada

[in 1979] You must have - besides intuition and sensitivity - a cutting edge that allows you to reach what you need. Also, you have to know life - bastards included - and it takes a bit of one to know one, don't you think? — Laurence Olivier

unequally; rarely do they assign equal weights to attributes when performing categorization (Goodman, 1955; Medin & Schaffer, 1978; Nosofsky, 1984; Ortony, 1979; Sutherland & Mackintosh, 1971; Trabasso & Bower, 1968: A. Tversky, 1977). — Lawrence W. Barsalou

Elaine and I got married in summer 1979, we went on our honeymoon and came back for the premiere of 'Scum.' All of sudden my face was on billboards in Leicester Square and people were crowding outside the cinema, going mad about the film. It was a complete shock. — Ray Winstone

In 1979, when I was 39, I had such a bad year, I thought it was all over. Thankfully it wasn't. — Jack Nicklaus

I started selling insurance in 1979 and continued doing that until 1985 when I opened my own insurance firm. — Kay Granger

However, FDA attempted to reverse this clear congressional intent in March, 1979, by proposing to regulate vitamins and minerals as 'Over-The-Counter' drugs.. — Orrin Hatch

[T]he full and complete development of a country, the welfare of the world and the cause of peace require the maximum participation of women on equal terms with men in all fields.
[Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)] — United Nations

IN THE YEAR 1979, the Psy race made the decision to embrace Silence and condition all emotion out of their young; to become without hope or despair, anger or fear, sorrow or joy. — Nalini Singh

In 1979 Susan Sontag wrote, "Today, everything exists to end in a photograph." Today, does everything exist to end online? — Sherry Turkle

Tried on daddy's 1979 rookie firesuit a while back. Smelled every bit of 36 years old. — Dale Earnhardt Jr.

I was always interested in music, I felt it was time to do it, coming out of the punk scene [1979]. I thought it was ideal that anyone could just put together a group and make it work. Then, of course, it became a little more detailed after starting it and realizing that it was something serious, not just a one-off situation. I had to put a lot more into it. Also I did it to get a lot of things out of my system, things that had been put there while I was growing up in my family. A sort of exorcizing of demons. — Rozz Williams

When I first saw China, there were no automobiles. There were no supermarkets. There were no high-rise buildings. There were no consumer goods. There were no restaurants that were at least accessible that foreigners could see. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector in the economic system is now the dominant sector. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. — Henry A. Kissinger

I was fortunate that I came out to the Valley in 1979, when I came out to go to Stanford Business School, and my very first assignment as a teaching assistant for an investments professor was to - he told me go down to this computer company in Cupertino called Apple. — Frank Quattrone

By early 1979, the border area is a dead-eyed, stinking hell. He signs on as an aid worker with the Red Cross and they give him a stipend and a room. In January, the Vietnamese Communists crossed the Cambodian border, swept the Khmer Rouge aside, and took Phnom Penh in less than two weeks. The refugees wash up in their black clothes, so debilitated and disturbed that Hiroji thinks he is walking through an exhumed cemetery, they are more soil and sickness than human beings. — Madeleine Thien

In 1979 I teamed up with my friend and business partner, Bill DeWitt, and together we formed an oil and gas company that invested through limited partnerships in oil and gas exploration. — Mercer Reynolds

I've been rapping since 1979. — Coolio

Seth can get irritated/frustrated with Jane and me. This exerpt is from the private session of November 11, 1979: " ... the same kind of reaction, however, are involved in all activities, and it is sometimes frustrating for me that you cannot perceive the fascinating facets of any event. You still - and I do not simply mean you two alone - do not feel the unsurpassable force that thoughts have. You do not understand that they do form events, that to change events you must first change thoughts. You get what you concentrate on." — Jane Roberts

the American essayist Lewis Thomas on the semicolon: The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added [ . . .] The period [or full stop] tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with the semicolon there you get a pleasant feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer. The Medusa and the Snail, 1979 — Lynne Truss

In 1979, certain leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention began a concerted effort to address what they saw as a theological drift in some of that denomination's seminaries and agencies. Over a fifteen-year period, they were able to bring about a remarkable change in the direction of those seminaries and agencies, such that one writer has called it "the Baptist Reformation."- — John S. Hammett

Jim returned from his journey in 1979 and wrote a confidential paper for his superiors. The first line read, "The U.S. army doesn't really have any serious alternative than to be wonderful." A disclaimer at the bottom read, "[This] does not comprise an official position by the military as of now." This was Jim Channon's First Earth Battalion Operations Manual. — Jon Ronson

Elam is one of the ancient names of Iran, just like Persia. The passage tells us that in the last days, God will scatter the people of Iran all over the earth. For many centuries, this seemed impossible because we Persians are such a proud and nationalistic people. But as incredible as it was, this prophecy actually began to come to pass in 1979. — Joel C. Rosenberg

According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979. — George Will

For the first time since 1979, we are talking to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Obama says talking to him is probably pointless, but it's a hell of a relief from Mitch McConnell. — Bill Maher

Pretty much from 1979 through 1988, the backbone of my career was the theater. Working on Broadway a couple of times, working off-Broadway, and also doing a lot of regional theater. Make no mistake, I lived very frugally. I had an apartment that was real cheap. I would get two or three jobs per season, and in between I'd be on unemployment. — Delroy Lindo

My favorite record shop was called Recommended Records, in South London near where I lived - they did all the original Faust reissues that came out in 1979, and they also did a lot of Sun Ra stuff. They were a great record shop. — Tim Gane

Proof? You got it! Did the devil himself pay a visit to Brooks and her sister to reinforce a message? In 1979 my sister, me, and two friends played with the Ouija. We were children and it was just another board game to play. We asked it if the Devil was real. At that point the doorbell rang so we all went to the door. Through the door chain we could see a very well-dressed man. The only thing he said was, "Is this proof enough?" He then left. After that my sister and me have never touched one since. A demon named Sebaliel — Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Some historians trace the start of the War on Terror to November 4, 1979, the day the hostages were taken in Tehran. — Stephen Rodrick

Women are superior to men in decoding nonverbal cues (Rosenthal and DePaulo 1979). — David B. Givens

I've been down in Florida since 1979. When you're born in Nebraska you really can't explain it. — Larry The Cable Guy

I looked at 73 climate models going back to 1979 and every single one predicted more warming than happened in the real world. — John Christy

In 1979, for example, Microsoft gave Boeing Commercial Airplane Co. the right to buy any Microsoft product for $50 per copy, until the end of time. Today most Microsoft applications sell in the $300 to $500 range, ten years from now they may cost thousands each. — Robert X. Cringely

In 1928, the top 10 percent of earners captured 46 percent of national income. That was the highest share that the top tenth captured for nearly eighty years, until 2007, when we returned to the wealth distribution of the country on the eve of the Great Depression. The top 1 percent did even better. Between 1979 and 2007, nearly 88 percent of the entire economy's income gains went to the top 1 percent.49 One — Christopher L. Hayes

When the Islamic revolution began in 1979 under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, it aroused considerable admiration in the Arab street. It presented a model of organised popular action that deposed one of the region's most tyrannical regimes. The people of the region discerned in this revolution new hope for freedom and change. — Wadah Khanfar

Pushing the boundaries of my golden cage, searching for new ways of expression and freedom, unveiling the ambiguities between music and art, friendship and love - that was my summer of 1979. — Ella Leya

When in situations of stress, we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capabilities perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and were found equal to our tasks; and therefore, let us continue but with a more determined discipleship. (Ensign, Feb. 1979, 73.) — Neal Maxwell

Before Volcker's speech, bonds had been conservative investments, into which investors put their savings when they didn't fancy a gamble in the stock market. After Volcker's speech, bonds became objects of speculation, a means of creating wealth rather than merely storing it. — Michael Lewis

Place in the fall of 1979, with Drs. Geisler, Hoehner, Nicole, and Radmacher in attendance. It was the consensus of those present that we should not undertake to modify a statement that so many people had signed, both at the summit meeting and afterward. But
in order to ward off misunderstandings and to provide an exposition of the position advocated by the ICBI, it was thought desirable to provide a — R.C. Sproul

If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire. — Edmund White

A commonality among factitious disorder is a lack in bonding personal relationships, providing alternative supports. Mr. McIlroy a skilled patient would receive over 200 hospital admissions in Britain subjecting himself to hundreds of painful treatments and procedures (Pallis & Bamji, 1979). The strength of compulsion of being viewed in the patient role becomes ever more obvious through the individual's willingness to submit to such rigors. Munchausen's syndrome may be rare yet continues to be a consistent disorder at the same time. The characteristics of Munchausen syndrome include physiological complaints presented by a dramatic patient. The patient exaggerates the illness exhibiting Pseudologia Fantastica. To minimize communication a patient will make use of hospital networks within different geographical locations. — Steven G. Carley

Had Volcker never pushed through his radical change in policy, the world would be many bond traders and one memoir the poorer. — Michael Lewis

The simple fact is that, since the beginning of this century, the average global temperature has flatlined; indeed, over the past 18 months it has fallen back, and according to the satellite measurements of temperature, it is now basically back at the level it was in 1979, when such measurements started to be taken. — Peter Lilley

For my first week as a new boy at Radley College, back in the summer of 1979, I was followed around by a film crew. — James Lovegrove

Playing for Arsenal at any level is something to be proud of so being in the squad when they won the double and winning the Cup in 1979 was special. The boys were a terrific bunch. — Sammy Nelson

I had left school at 16, gone to stage school - and, until I was 22, I hadn't really played anyone but myself. Then in 1979, I made a film with Mike Leigh called 'Grownups,' which went out on the BBC, and overnight this new career opened up. — Lesley Manville

There's a fine line between fiction and non-fiction and I think I snorted it somewhere in 1979 — Kinky Friedman

Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve (1979-87): The worst financial investment I ever made was spending so much time in government. The most satisfying personal investment I ever made was spending so much time in government, frustrating as it could be. — Anonymous

Surprisingly, the Eisenhower Memorial design contains almost none of the known Gehry-box of tricks. His giant etched chain-link curtain, first applied in 1979 to hide an ungracious parking garage at Santa Monica Place, is resurrected for Eisenhower to screen the equally graceless facade of the Department of Education. — Leon Krier

When I did my first price guide in 1979, publications weren't interested in mentioning it. Now I get phone calls weekly if not daily from publications and television shows who want to know what's hot, how to get started in antiques, and the best way to buy antiques. — Judith Miller

I keep telling my Tory colleagues: don't have any policies. A manifesto that has policies alienates people. In 1979 the manifesto said nothing which was brilliant. — Michael Heseltine

As far as the world was concerned, from 1979 to 1996, I didn't publish any original material; it just wasn't there. — Alan Garner

Carter's renowned 1979 "malaise speech" [ ... ] is little remembered for what it actually was: a call to arms for fixing our nation's dire energy future. "Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977
never" [ ... ] Carter was going to use all the weapons at his disposal: import quotas, public investment in coal, solar power, and alternative fuel, and [ ... ] "a bold conservation program" where "every act of energy conservation ... is more than just common sense; I tell you it is an act of patriotism. — Rachel Maddow

Roller Boogie is a relic from - when else? - the '70s. This is a tape I made for the eight-grade dance. The tape still plays, even if the cogs are a little creaky and the sound quality is dismal. It's a ninety-minute TDK Compact Cassette, and like everything else made in the '70s, it's beige. It takes me back to the fall of 1979, when I was a shy, spastic, corduroy-clad Catholic kid from the suburbs of Boston, grief-stricken over the '78 Red Sox. The words "douche" and "bag" have never coupled as passionately as they did in the person of my thirteen-yer-old self. My body, my brain, my elbows that stuck out like switchblades, my feet that got tangled in my bike spokes, but most of all my soul - these formed the waterbed where douchitude and bagness made love sweet love with all the feral intensity of Burt Reynolds and Rachel Ward in Sharkey's Machine. — Rob Sheffield

The Chinese government since 1979 has been very successful in economic development, and successful enough, simply by surviving, in the realm of political development. — William Kirby

Normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1979, combined with economic reforms and opening, transformed the Chinese people's lives. — Rebecca MacKinnon

gluten has been implicated in mental illness since at least 1979, — Julia Ross

Private listening really took off in 1979, with the popularity of the Walkman portable cassette player. Listening to music on a Walkman is a variation of the "sitting very still in a concert hall" experience (there are no acoustic distractions), combined with the virtual space (achieved by adding reverb and echo to the vocals and instruments) that studio recording allows. With headphones on, you can hear and appreciate extreme detail and subtlety, and the lack of uncontrollable reverb inherent in hearing music in a live room means that rhythmic material survives beautifully and completely intact; it doesn't get blurred or turned into sonic mush as it often does in a concert hall. You, and only you, the audience of one, can hear a million tiny details, even with the compression that MP3 technology adds to recordings. You can hear the singer's breath intake, their fingers on a guitar string. That said, extreme and sudden dynamic changes can be painful on a personal music player. As — David Byrne

Butler's novel 'Kindred' may be the book most widely read by readers outside science fiction; it has been assigned as a text in classrooms and has sold steadily since its publication in 1979. — Karen Joy Fowler

By the time I joined the 'Washington Post' sports staff in 1979, Red's Runyonesque notion of sports writing was obsolete. — Jane Leavy

Pope John Paul II himself was kind of a rather independent, creative man. I remember being told by somebody who worked very close with him in preparation for his first visit to the United States in 1979, he studied our normative documents, Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the Constitution. And he was amazed. He called his priests first
thing in the morning and he said, he said, I thought America was a pagan country. — Chris Matthews

Weapons systems the U.S. sold to the Shah of Iran wound up in the hands of Islamic militants who seized power there in 1979; a comparable scenario in Saudi Arabia is hardly impossible. — Stephen Kinzer

In 1979, just after I became governor, I asked Hillary to chair a rural health committee to help expand health care to isolated farm and mountain areas. They recommended to do that partly by deploying trained nurse practitioners in places with no doctors to provide primary care they were trained to provide. — William J. Clinton

I started DJing, breakdancing and MCing in the '70s and I got my record deal in 1979 with 'Christmas Rap.' — Kurtis Blow

grow in Texas, several as common weeds. Next time you are weeding your garden, instead of throwing the
wood sorrel in the garbage, toss the leaves into a salad or use them to flavor a soup. The fresh leaves and tender green fruit pods add a zingy sour flavor to vegetable dishes. Wood sorrel is high in vitamin C and was used in the past to prevent and treat scurvy, which is caused by a vitamin C deficiency. Wood sorrel is available year-round (Gibbons and Tucker 1979; Fleming 1975; Zennie and Ogzewella 1977). — Delena Tull