Condon Quotes & Sayings

I do feel like my music, in some weird way, is probably better suited for cinema than for anything else - I can't really explain, other than I think that music has been mostly inspired often by soundtracks. — Zach Condon

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be. — Bill Condon

I write one step at a time, always finishing off the part I'm working on before even thinking about the next part. I need to hear it all together before deciding what goes next. I even mix before moving on ... in other words, I write by recording. — Zach Condon

That day I think we really saw each other for the first time. I mean, saw beyond the bag of bones on the outside. You take away her pretty and my plain and what you get underneath is about the same: a couple of lost girls looking to be found. — Bill Condon

Kinsey was six foot five, and he had this leader of men quality. — Bill Condon

In short, the greatest contribution to real security that science can make is through the extension of the scientific method to the social sciences and a solution of the problem of complete avoidance of war. — Edward Condon

You always know when a real inspiration is behind the melody, arrangements, even lyrics. And I know that's really vague, but it's true. — Zach Condon

I think it's become much harder because I'm more afraid of every step I take. I'm more aware of its ramifications, I'm more aware of the less creative aspects of music - like the business-side of things for example. — Zach Condon

But you really - I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal. You know he comes out of stand-up. He comes - it's all about capturing the moment - in the moment, you know. — Bill Condon

Kinsey kick started a lot in shocking people with how much homosexual activity there is. — Bill Condon

As a teenager and a young adult, I never felt like my own story was interesting enough to tell, so I always wrote lyrics from someone else's perspective - told someone else's story. — Zach Condon

Bull stares into the hazy distance as though the right words are out there somewhere and all he has to do is claim them as his own. Sometimes it gets so quiet in Gungee you can hear conversations from a hundred years ago breathing on a gust of wind. — Bill Condon

Made by General Motors, on order from Sears Roebuck. — Richard Condon

I dropped out of high school and I tried to go to community college for a little while. I can't be a student. I always hated that lifestyle. — Zach Condon

As it enters the ear, does it come in like broken glass or does it come in like honey? — Eddie Condon

I'm writing songs about New York. A lot of them carry the names of neighborhoods in Long Island. Maspeth, Montauk. I'm getting into the idea of a F. Scott Fitzgerald-esque Long Island back when New York was ... New York. — Zach Condon

There is a beauty to touring - to be honest, there's a way that music connects and you really feel the actual reaction of people to the music that you're making, and I feel like if I didn't do that I just wouldn't know, and I don't think my music would be the same. — Zach Condon

I smile at the phone, wishing Reggie could see me.
'You're alright then, luv? No dramas?'
'Not a one.' I reach the kitchen. 'Thanks for thinking about me.'
'Gotta look after my girl. Only one I got.'
My smile gets even bigger. — Bill Condon

About two months after this photo was taken I was born and my mum died - clean swap. Caring about someone I never knew doesn't make sense, but that's how it is. This photo means a lot. There must be some invisible mother-daughter wiring that runs from her image in a straight line to my heart. — Bill Condon

I like to think that location, travel, etc, is a launching point for purely imagining. — Zach Condon

I spent my entire life working with the smallest budget I could get. Just working with old, junky, donated equipment. The only things I bought myself were the trumpet and the $9 ukulele. — Zach Condon

What, more petitions! Won't you be, and stay, intimidated? You must really annoy Sen. Dodd. Here it is [my signature], and I hope it does some good. — Edward Condon

From its inception by Michael Bennett, 'Dreamgirls' has always been an epic story with an ensemble cast. I didn't change that. The screen version remains, really, a group story. — Bill Condon

Brought before HCUA, Miller was chastised for the suggestion that Congressional investigations might have something in common with witch trials; he replied, "The comparison is inevitable, sir." Thomas was shortly afterwards thrown in jail for fraud. — Carl Sagan

It's not a bit strange,' I tell her. 'Davey's thinking of taking up shooting as a hobby, so he wants to go check out the rifle range and he asked me if I'd like to go with him.'
Kayla snorts. 'Are you kidding me? He should be checking you out - not the rifle range! No way is that a date.'
I go to the one person I know I can depend on.
'It is a date, isn't it, Reggie?'
'S'pose it all depends on how it goes,' he says. 'If you have a good time, come home happy, then it's a date.'
'Okay.'
'But if he shoots yer, it wasn't a date - it was an ambush.'
'Reggie! That's mean!'
'You know I'm only kiddin', Tiffy. He puts his arms out and I gladly fall into them. 'Don't worry about what anyone says, luv. It's a date. — Bill Condon

All horses are different - sometimes they have a long neck - so you don't ride the same way on every horse. It depends on their body, and your body, but the object is to get down low so you're aerodynamic, so you call pull from the horse through the head. The best jockeys do that really well, and know how much to push. — Kerry Condon

As much as I try to grow as a lyricist, I tend to laugh at even calling myself that, because I think that my actual talents lie more in arrangements than they do words. — Zach Condon

Raymond stood as though someone might have just opened a beach umbrella in his bowels. — Richard Condon

Like many of you, I've always been slightly obsessed with vampires, dating back to the prime-time series 'Dark Shadows,' which I followed avidly as a kid. — Bill Condon

She's an old, close-to-the-ground, jelly-belly woman with bald patches showing through her wispy grey hair. It doesn't seem like she's got a lot going for her, but she's still smiling. Been around the sunflowers too long, I'd say. — Bill Condon

I think that within the world of music that we work in, which is so not perfect, I think that you really do have to learn to accept your own mistakes as part of the beauty of music itself. — Zach Condon

The region is altogether valueless. After entering it, there is nothing to do but leave.
-Lt. Edward Beale, Congress report on Arizona, 1858 — Sean Condon

I have nothing to regret, to retract or take back ... I can only say; God Save Ireland! — Edward Condon

There were moments on the set when the depth of the cast of 'Dreamgirls' was almost overwhelming to me. — Bill Condon

Kinsey was trying to study sex scientifically, get rid of the overlay of culture and religion. — Bill Condon

There's no question that Whale's movies are classics. They were wonderful, and successful. — Bill Condon

By an incredible coincidence, Gamow and Edward Condon, who had discovered simultaneously and independently the explanation of radioactivity (one in Russia, the other in this country), came to spend the the last ten years of their lives within a hundred yards of each other in Boulder. — Stanislaw Ulam

We knew that there was a certain kind of interest in Whale among a genre crowd. — Bill Condon

In the age of the mp3, you gotta make the package special, something that's worth owning. — Zach Condon

Krupa's drums went through us like a triple bourbon. — Eddie Condon

It's in the nature of television to restrain the spontaneity of a live event. Things become more and more prepackaged. — Bill Condon

First of all, just knowing people who grew up in the movie business at that time, no one had Mexican maids. — Bill Condon

In Mexico the gods ruled, the priests interpreted and interposed, and the people obeyed.In Spain, the priests ruled, the king interpreted and interposed, and the gods obeyed. A nuance in an ideological difference is a wide chasm. — Richard Condon

You think when you start getting jobs that it'll get easier, but that's the biggest lie ever. It gets harder. You have to put in more work. I wish it were the casting couch days because it'd be a lot easier! — Kerry Condon

For a bad hangover take the juice of two quarts of whisky. — Eddie Condon

Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story. — Melissa Rosenberg

On May 15, 1957 Linus Pauling made an extraordinary speech to the students of Washington University ... It was at this time that the idea of the scientists' petition against nuclear weapons tests was born. That evening we discussed it at length after dinner at my house and various ones of those present were scribbling and suggesting paragraphs. But it was Linus Pauling himself who contributed the simple prose of the petition that was much superior to any of the suggestions we were making. — Edward Condon

I'd been living out of a suitcase since I was 17 years old, and it just got to the point where it was ridiculous. Besides, it was really hurting everything I was trying to do in music; to feel so consistently homeless was no way to endure touring and stress. — Zach Condon

Because his basic idea that he got from the study of gall wasps is that everyone's sexuality is unique. — Bill Condon

[Louis Armstrong] could play a trumpet like nobody else, then put it down and sing a song like no one else could. — Eddie Condon

After so many years of whispery, DIY vocals, there's this new generation of voices that are really starting to burst through the seams. — Zach Condon

I know it's superficial, and you can't measure art, which is supposed to be up to the individual, but I've watched the Oscars since I was a baby with my mother. — Kerry Condon

When I was a Hollywood press agent, I learned how the Hollywood casting system worked. There was a roster of actors who were always perfect as doctors or lawyers or laborers, and the directors just picked the types they needed and stuffed them into film after film. I do the same [with
my characters], book after book. — Richard Condon

There's nothing quite as good as folding up into a book and shutting the world outside.If I pick the right one I can be beautiful, or fall in love, or live happily ever after. Maybe even all three. — Bill Condon

I wouldn't go against Reggie and actively encourage Zoe to move in, but I think she and I would do okay together. If nothing else she could help me in my never-ending campaign. Some people want to save the rivers or save the whales, even save the entire planet - I just want to keep the toilet seat down. — Bill Condon

Often when I find myself listening to music, at least 60 to 70% of it is foreign, so I don't understand a word of it. Melody to me will always be a million times more important than words. — Zach Condon

I'm seeing a guy now who has nothing to do with films. It's so much nicer with somebody who isn't an actor. Two crazy people in one house would be too much. It's better there's one crazy person, and one nice person who looks after that crazy person. — Kerry Condon

Soon after I'd had my son I really wasn't planning on going back to work for a while. I will walk over hot coals to work with Bill Condon on anything, the experience that you have with him is just too good.I've certainly never worked with him before so the trio of Bill [Codon], Ian [ McKellen], and Sherlock Holmes, and England: it was too much to say "no" to. — Laura Linney

While that wasn't first and foremost in my mind, you can't get into this without being struck, on one side, by how far we've come, and then the other side, by how little things have changed. — Bill Condon

The way Jacques Brel writes a story, getting into the character, bringing out all his faults and qualities in the same song ... Not that I could ever write in such an epic way, but it really is a different way to go about writing lyrics ... and I find that quite inspiring. — Zach Condon

I'm pretty shy when I go home because I was pretty shy growing up, and I think I go back to that person. — Kerry Condon

Writers are too self-centered to be lonely. — Richard Condon

I'm not panicking any more or worrying about the next job. It was exhausting and making me very unhappy, and I was missing out on life. — Kerry Condon

What is art is not likely to be decided for decades or longer after the work has been producedand then is often redecidedso we must not think badly if we regard literature as entertainment rather than as transcendent enlightenment. — Richard Condon

I'm a horrible public speaker. — Bill Condon

Problems emerge and some people try to sweep them under the rug. — Bill Condon

I tend to hear rhythm and melody, chord-progressions, long before I hear words. — Zach Condon

I am an animal rights campaigner myself, and I donate money and time to those charities, but I think sometimes the problem with animal rights campaigners, including myself, is that we don't think about people's feelings, too. — Kerry Condon

Ted Lewis could make the clarinet talk. What it said was put me back in the case! — Eddie Condon

I was a very good student until about sophomore year, and that's when I just became so disillusioned with the whole thing that I just became an awful student. I was still making good grades. But I was cutting class three days a week and faking papers that I got off the internet. — Zach Condon

In some ways, I feel like I've been such a dilettante for so many years, just picking up instruments and stretching myself so thin. — Zach Condon

A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie. — Bill Condon

When I came back to America, I realized that world music is no joke, it really has a lot to it. — Zach Condon

I have found there are real objects under in intelligent control being seen on the ground and in our skies worldwire. The unknowns have varied over the decades from 22 percent in my own civilian files, 30 percent in the University of Colorda Condon Committee scientific studies, to at least 40 percent recently revised found in the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book military investigations. This is not acceptable, no matter who is doing the investigations. — George Fawcett

No piece of writing is ever finished. It's just due. — Bill Condon

I've always wondered about Stop-and-Go guys. Do you like it if drivers wave and say thanks as they go past? Or is it better if they ignore you? Most times when I'm out in the car with Bull, I give a wave and a "thanks". Usually the guy with the sign stares at me as if I've just escaped from an asylum. So what's the right thing to do?'
'I've never met anyone like you before, Tiffany.'
'Really?'
'No - never.'
'Then you just haven't been to enough asylums. — Bill Condon

I think, if I had my choice, I would spend all my time in the studio writing, and creating music. — Zach Condon

Tiff like in Breakfast at Tiffany's,' he says. 'Right?'
I couldn't be more shocked. 'Um ... yes, that's right - it's an old movie.'
'Is it? Don't watch that much TV. I've only heard of the book - got it at home. I bought it 'cause Truman Capote wrote it. I was stoked by In Cold Blood. He wrote that, too. You read it?'
'No.'
'Aw, you gotta. It rocks.'
I look away as if I've been suddenly distracted by something out the window. It's my version of the pause button. There's a lot of information to process. Here's a boy my own age; he shakes my hand, he talks to me - not just to ask directions to the toilet - and he reads books.
Heathcliff? — Bill Condon

They flat their fifths, we drink ours. — Eddie Condon

I think I spent more time on the mellotron than on any other instrument in the studio, and it got to the point where I was like, "Well, you can't write an entire album on this instrument." But maybe I would! — Zach Condon

I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. 'Richard Pryor,' I wrote for - gosh - over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that. We're still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it's like, 'God, five years have gone by.' — Bill Condon

If you can't get a boy, get a book. — Bill Condon

You can't expect to win the war if you send archers into battle armed with only a bow and an empty quiver. — Diane Condon-Boutier

But the imposition of morality onto science, - where it does not belong - has become rampant in recent years. — Bill Condon

I think the most important part of storytelling is tension. It's the constant tension of suspense that in a sense mirrors life, because nobody knows what's going to happen three hours from now. — Richard Condon

When it comes to two of the big social earthquakes in the last fifty years - which are the gay movement and the women's movement - I think there is a direct line from Kinsey to those. — Bill Condon

I'm not an amazing trumpet player. It's mostly smoke and mirrors. You shake the trumpet and it starts to vibrate in a ridiculous drunken way, or you flop notes at the right time and you don't have to play stuff that would take seven years to learn. — Zach Condon

People grew up on the animated movie. Bill Condon is Bill Condon. And nobody does those movies better than Disney does. — Todd Lieberman

Did you go to the the theatre last time you were here?
'No, it's too expensive.'
'What did you do?'
'What tourists always do in New York City. Empire State, Statue of and all the galleries. There's a million galleries.'
'Where'd you stay?'
'The first two nights, I slept in an abandoned car. A Pontiac Grand Am.'
Weren't you scared?'
'Not really. It had a doorman. — Sean Condon

Paul Desmond sounds like a female alcoholic. — Eddie Condon

Also, to get to work with serious filmmakers on this kind of a movie, has elevated these movies. We were so lucky, as actors, that the crew of directors that we've gotten to work with are totally really super high-end filmmakers. But, Bill Condon had a vision and it was so specific. He's really passionate. I think he's taken the story to another level. — Elizabeth Reaser

The thing I've noticed about life is that it just keeps coming at you. And it can be a real bummer. What you need to remember is that you're not alone. You've got friends and family. That's how we get by. We talk and share and eat cake and giggle in the dark, even when we're scared - no, especially when we're scared. — Bill Condon

There has come about a general public awareness that America is not automatically, and effortlessly, and unquestionably the leader of the world in science and technology. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have watched and tried to warn against the steady deterioration in the teaching of science and mathematics in the schools for the past quarter century. It comes as no surprise to those who have known of dozens of cases of scientists who have been hounded out of jobs by silly disloyalty charges, and kept out of all professional employment by widespread blacklisting practices. — Edward Condon

Raucous drunken trumpets and instrumentation tend to guide the way you think. They can give you a path to follow lyrically. — Zach Condon

Another voice rages.
I hate that boy! I hate me! I am so incredibly stupid!
A sunflower leans over the fence, smiling
How dare you!
I rip off its head and throw it in the gutter.
The smart thing to do is to keep going on. Walk away quickly and no one will know what I've done. But I can't move because my eyes are locked on the slowly opening front door - locked on Mrs Muir.
'I'm sorry.' My tiny voice sounds so pathetically lame, but I've still got more lameness for her. 'I never do this sort of thing. I like sunflowers. I was just angry about something - nothing to do with you or the flower. I'm really, really sorry.'
'Oh, you are upset! Well, never mind'. Mrs Muir comes closer to me. 'Goodness, we all get cross. The main thing is: did it make you feel any better?'
'No. Yes. Maybe. A little bit.'
'Would you like to do another one? There's more out the back, too. You go for your life dear. I don't mind at all - they need a good pruning. — Bill Condon

I'm not interested in the mad race. I just like working with good people. — Kerry Condon

I'm a man of the marketplace as well as an artist. I'm a pawnbroker of myth. — Richard Condon

Actually, I loved Chucky. It's one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. — Bill Condon

My idea of a beach holiday is going to New York for two weeks, just going and hanging out. — Bill Condon

It's a natural tendency of mine to not even listen to lyrics. — Zach Condon