30 Second Quotes & Sayings

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING FOR RED VELVET SURPRISE CUPCAKES 4 ounces cream cheese (I used Philadelphia Brand in the rectangular silver package - half a package was 4 ounces) ¼ cup salted butter (½ stick, 2 ounces, pound) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups powdered sugar (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) Place the cream cheese and the butter in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl. (I used a quart measuring cup.) Microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds. Stir. If you can stir the cream cheese and the butter smooth, take the bowl out and put it on the counter. If it's still not soft enough to stir, microwave on HIGH in 20-second intervals until it is. Add the vanilla extract to your bowl and stir that in. Add the powdered sugar, a half-cup at a time, stirring after each addition. Continue to add powdered sugar until the frosting is spreadable, not runny. — Joanne Fluke

The best memorizers in the world - who almost all hail from Europe - can memorize a pack of cards in less than a minute. A few have begun to approach the 30-second mark, considered the 'four-minute mile of memory.' — Joshua Foer

Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without a doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you're into the 30-second digital mode. — Ken Pugh

How could 30 years be the blink-of-the-eye it felt? It was the difference between black-and-white footage of the Second World War and David Bowie on 'Top of the Pops' singing 'Life on Mars.' — Ali Smith

In fact, second lieutenants were primary-school teachers. Sure, teachers with guns, but a platoon commander was, nonetheless, the guy who sorted out the working day for 30 men under his command, taught their lessons, helped them with their homework, sorted out their petty squabbles and put plasters on their knees when they fell over in the playground. — Patrick Hennessey

Twelve years ago me and Allanah became really sick of writing pop songs, ... Eventually we dug a grave for the Thompson Twins, pushed them in there, and then moved to New Zealand. Before that I'd lived for a long time in south London where reggae was the music of the streets around me. You'd hear it booming out of people's windows and shops, and you could buy great old reggae singles for 50p (NZ1.30) in second hand shops. I'd always loved that sound, so soon after we got here I started making electronic dub records with my mate Rakai Karaitiana as International Observer. — Tom Bailey

Atrocities are now shown in 30-second bites. Hardcore artistic horror is an expression of hating your neighbour. The gruesome imagination feeds on vanity, lust, self-indulgence and despair, rather than the hope of the Holy Spirit. The Body of Christ needs to look and repent of our own fallenness ... Whatever arena Christians withdraw from goes to hell. — Calvin Seerveld

I order six shots.
I drink the first shot with lemon and salt and talk about Isha for 120 seconds.
I drink the second shot with lemon and salt and talk about Isha and our love for 90 seconds.
I drink the third shot with lemon and talk about future plans with wedding for 60 seconds.
I drink the fourth and blabber for 30 seconds.
I drink the fifth, I speak in a language no one can understand for ten seconds or less. I fall down.
When I open my eyes, I see Diwa helping me sit in the car and put on the seat belt. I am knocked out. — Saravana Kumar Murugan

Probably saying a 30-second prayer at a key moment has done more good than any psychotherapy or drugs I've prescribed. — Harold George Koenig

The Ancestral Trail was split into two-halves of 26 issues each. The first half takes place in the Ancestral World and describes Richard's struggle to restore good to the world. After the initial international run, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide, Marshall Cavendish omitted the second part of the trilogy and used the third part (future) for the second series that followed. This part of the series, written up by Ian Probert and published in 1994, takes place in the Cyber Dimension. It deals with Richard's attempts to return home. Each issue centered on an adventure against a particular adversary, and each issue ended on a cliffhanger.
The Ancestral Trail was illustrated by Julek and Adam Heller. Computer-generated graphics were provided by Mehau Kulyk for issues #27 through #52. — Frank Graves

We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it. — Dave Barry

I wrote six versions of a 30-second tease for an NBA game. You never get it right on the first try. — Mike Tirico

Second, the other person is not the object of intentionality, strictly speaking; the self is not conscious of the other person as Other.[30] — Michael L Morgan

To work effectively in a film, you have to repeat and work consistently. Basically, you shoot a big master then you do close-ups. You're supposed to be in the same moment, the same 30-second moment, for a day. — Colin Firth

Polls that have been taken by kindergarten, first- and second-grade teachers indicate that 30 percent of the kids have been deprived in some way so that they are physically unable to keep up with the class. — C. Everett Koop

We live in a society that is based on 30-second sound bites. We have
technology that puts all of the information of humankind at our fingertips,
but we have the attention span of a three-year-old at a carnival
midway on the Fourth of July. We throw around a lot of words like
democracy, federal, republic, nationalist, socialist, liberal, and right-wing - but
do we really know what they mean? — Ziad K. Abdelnour

No longer dependent on 30 second spots, today's marketers need a never-ending stream of content. — David Louis Edelman

Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time," Pamuk said then. "I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years I worried about money and no one asked me how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking me about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do. — Orhan Pamuk

Certainly we're going to continue to see those commercials that I call 30-second drive-by shootings. And they're going to have a lot of money to do it. But we're going to combat it. — Tom Barrett

Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one. — Dan Bern

I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. — Tony Campolo

He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30 — John Flavel

Out of 30 years of Second City I was probably the third African-American with the main stage cast. I was surprised when I first heard that. I think part of the reason that improvisation has never been popular with African-Americans is that it isn't popular in the inner cities. — Tim Meadows

WHEN I WAS 25 I THOUGHT MY DAD WAS A FOOL NOW THAT IM 30 ITS AMAZING HOW SMART HE HAS GOTTON OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS.MY SECOND FAVORITE IS A MAN PREACHING TO ANOTHER ABOUT HOW HE BELIEVES THAT FAMILY COMES FIRST AND HOW HIS FRIEND SHOULD REMEMBER WHAT HIS PARENTS DID FOR HIM BEFORE HE DISRESPECTS THEM. WELL LETS JUST SAY I UNDERSTAND. — Peter Fryer

30 Pushups 50 Sit-ups 10 Tricep Dips 20 Split Jumps 30 Second Burpees — Steve Plitt

Dear John - It will be many years before you understand fully what a great man your father was. His loss is a deep personal tragedy for all of us, but I wanted you particularly to know that I share your grief - You can always be proud of him - Affectionately Lyndon B. Johnson The second was a little longer. Himself the father of two girls, he had been particularly fond of the President's daughter. THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON Friday Night 7:30 November 22, 1963 Dearest Caroline - Your father's death has been a great tragedy for the Nation, as well as for you, and I wanted you to know how much my thoughts are of you at this time. He was a wise and devoted man. You can always be proud of what he did for his country - Affectionately Lyndon B. Johnson — William Manchester

To The Critics

Suicide has made more than one mediocre author glorious before he's able to achieve that sobering "second edition" making his a suicide that waits until it's justified. But I've taken more precautions against to Suicide which is to survive in the face of failure. Success is mostly editing, that's what makes things nice. To edit is the other great Power; thus this novel started at age 30, continued at 50 and its 73, has finally achieve supremacy: a person of Good Taste as the third author and as a result the editor of all three. In the end I'll be the author of a letter to the critics a sort of "open letter" but for the living: suicide is not something you can edit out. — Macedonio Fernandez

I actually like doing commercials. I don't like doing them to the exclusion of everything else, but I like doing them. The 30-second format is very hard. I sometimes call it American Haiku. And I think some of the commercials I've done are not so bad. — Errol Morris

This is called work simplification. To get leverage this way, you first need to create a flow chart of the production process as it exists. Every single step must be shown on it; no step should be omitted in order to pretty things up on paper. Second, count the number of steps in the flow chart so that you know how many you started with. Third, set a rough target for reduction of the number of steps. In the first round of work simplification, our experience shows that you can reasonably expect a 30 to 50 percent reduction. — Andrew S. Grove

What's the job of the candidate in this world? The job of the candidate is to raise the money to hire the consultants to do the focus groups to figure out the 30-second answers to be memorized by the candidate. This is stunningly dangerous. — Newt Gingrich

The complexity of the resulting signalling network in the brain is almost unimaginable: one hundred billion neurons each with one thousand synapses, producing a machine with one hundred trillion interconnections! If you started to count them at one per second you would still be counting 30 million years from now! — Michael O'Shea

Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did. — Mary Oliver

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. — Carl Sagan

In 2009 Southwest Airlines was the largest airline in the world based on the number of passengers that fly the airline each year,30 and in 2011 it was not only America's leading low-cost carrier but was also rated America's favorite airline by Consumer Reports.31 Joe Harris, a labor lawyer for Southwest, explains that the company's harmonious employee relations are no accident. "At Southwest, our employees come first; our customers come second; and our stockholders come third," he said. "The rationale is pretty simple. If we treat our employees right, they're going to treat our customers right. If our customers are treated right, they will come back and our stockholders will benefit."32 — Douglas Van Praet

Seeing is looking at something in saturation. But we tend to look at something for, say, 1/30 of a second. — Guido Molinari

I coached against Dave the last couple of years, and I was very proud to be the first time a father ever coached against his son. He beat me for 30 minutes the first time and 59 and a half minutes the second time. — Don Shula

At about 3:30 on May 9, 2013, then, I was puttering around when Pavel came over to say, "There is something interesting you might want to see. Little sparks and fireworks outside." Pavel's English isn't the greatest, so it took me a second to figure out what he was talking about. Then I got it: fireworks, Russia, Victory Day - made sense, though it was surprising that he could see them from space. I floated over to the Russian segment to look out the window: no, it wasn't happening on Earth - it looked like fireflies were coming off the left side of the Station. — Chris Hadfield

Commercials are art, too; they're 30-second movies starring people like me. If you look down on the medium, you're never going to book. If you don't love it, do not bother. Find another job you like. — Geneva Carr

Crossroads is second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates. In 2010 and '12, we spent over $30 million for Senate candidates who were Tea Party candidates. We spent almost $20 million for House candidates who were Tea Party candidates. — Karl Rove

When I was in the army, there were four times that I was wounded. I also got more than 30 wounds on my body, and my injuries were ranked on the second rank of invalids. The first rank is the most severe. So, that means that I had lost more than 60 per cent of working capability. — Nguyen Tan Dung

I had always loved cartoons, especially 'Bugs Bunny,' and I found I enjoyed making animated films. Even a 30-second commercial involved drawing and painting, storytelling, not to mention actors, music, and sound effects. — Mordicai Gerstein

Here's what we [Americans] need: a 30 second you tube video of some guy at a party constantly checking out everyone else at the party, while he pretends to be speaking to the other person. We're the other person. The guy are the politicians. And the distraction is the corruption: We need a Congress that can afford to talk to us. For at least one drink or so. — Lawrence Lessig

In 1939, Hitler expanded the German Navy and, in violation of the Munich Agreement, occupied parts of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Germany then established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This protectorate included those portions of Czechoslovakia that had not already been incorporated into Germany. On August 30, 1939, the German Reich issued an ultimatum to Poland concerning the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. On September 1st, without waiting for a response to its ultimatum, Germany invaded Poland. Much to Hitler's surprise, England honored its treaty with Poland. Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany, thereby ushering in another World War. Officially, "The Second World War" in Europe was started by the German Reich when it attacked Poland, although at the time Germany blamed the Treaty of Versailles. — Hank Bracker

It was 9:30 P.M., just an hour from deadline for the second edition. Woodward began typing:
A $25,000 cashier's check, apparently earmarked for the campaign chest of President Nixon, was deposited in April in the bank account of Bernard L. Barker, one of the five men arrested at the break-in and alleged bugging attempt at Democratic National Committee headquarters here June 17.
The last page of copy was passed to Sussman just at the deadline. Sussman set his pen and pipe down on his desk and turned to Woodward. 'We've never had a story like this,' he said. 'Just never.'
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

The second disk was taped at our all-night anniversary show. And some of those sets are taped at like 4:30 or 5 in the morning, when people are a little groggy and not doing what they would do if they knew it was being recorded. That said, that disk has an entirely different flavor. It's more experimental. It has more of the newcomers on it. It has people doing stuff that you won't see on Comedy Central or HBO specials. — B. J. Porter

There are only two kinds of employees that I've run across in 30 years. There are ones that get results, and ones that make excuses. If you're in that second camp, you're not going to like Dish. — Charlie Ergen

Do you not comprehend this in America, how your unions have been all but destroyed in the last 30 years? Do you not understand why your local US Postal Service offices are cracked, neglected, and almost derelict buildings, with their staffs downsizing and limiting their days of service? The corporately owned US Congress is destroying the postal service as part of its act, playing you for a fool while wearing a two-party (two-headed) monster mask. One sadistic party acts as a wrecking ball hurled at a wall of political inertia that is the second and masochistic party. — John Hogue

I wake at 5 or 5:30 most mornings, make myself a latte and grab a cookie, write until 10 or 11, go have my favorite meal, 'second breakfast,' or grab coffee with friends, or play basketball. Then, around noon, I begin apologizing via email for the manuscripts I can't get to. — Jess Walter

I had not met Tina Fey before I auditioned for '30 Rock'. Some people think we're old friends from 'Second City' days. I had always been a fan of Tina's. But I actually never planned on being in a sitcom. — Judah Friedlander

Nobody can write a good 30-second commercial. — Jerry Della Femina