Contestants Quotes & Sayings

There is also the less-well-known double standard of testing for steroids and other strength-enhancing drugs. "Because they think women can't get hard and muscular without drugs - which is wrong, some women can - " Bev said, "they started by testing all the contestants at every Olympia. Then they substituted random testing, which means you can be tested at any time during the year, without warning. But it's only for the women. The men, they don't test. They did it one year, and everyone looked so crappy they stopped it. — Gloria Steinem

Despite its dislike of fame and its evasiveness, the Chronicler's virtual persona was loved on the psychic network. The Champions Alter-ego was an exhibitionist personality who fearlessly put its wits to the test against rather bizarre creatures, calling themselves human, in a form of combat based on interview with the contestants. — Rachel Armstrong

'Minute to Win It' is a variation on a game show from the 1950s called 'Beat the Clock,' in which contestants won washing machines and fox stoles by doing such pointless stunts as catching a tennis ball in a paper cup or knocking a hat off one's wife's head with a whipped-cream spritzer. — Tom Shales

My Selection wasn't a farce, but it wasn't that far off. My father chose all the
contestants by hand, picking young women with political alliances, influential families, or enough
charm to make the entire country worship the ground they walked on. He knew he had to make it
varied enough to seem legit, so there were three Fives thrown into the mix but nothing below that.
The Fives were meant to be little more than throwaways to keep anyone from being suspicious."
I realized my mouth was gaping open and shut it immediately. "Mom?"
"Was meant to be gone almost immediately. Truth be told, she barely made it past my father 's
attempts to sway my opinion or remove her himself. And look at her now." His whole face changed.
"Though it was hard for me to imagine, she is even more beloved as queen than my mother. She has
made four beautiful, intelligent, strong children. And she has been the source of every happiness in
my life. — Kiera Cass

They always say the Miss America Pageant isn't a beauty contest, it's really a scholarship program. If that's the case, why don't we just put all the contestants on Jeopardy! and pick Miss America that way? At least you get the smartest one. — Jay Leno

As Jeopardy devotees know, if you're trying to win on the show, the buzzer is all. On any given night, nearly all the contestants know nearly all the answers, so it's just a matter of who masters buzzer rhythm the best. — Ken Jennings

Loyalty is an asset, independent and scarce, parceled out among different contestants for power. No ruling government or nonruling group enjoys absolute loyalty - no contestant can have the whole pie. — Yossi Shain

Peeta smiles and douses Haymitch's knife in white liquor from a bottle on the floor. He wipes the blade clean on his shirt tail and slices the bread. Peeta keeps all of us in fresh baked goods. I hunt. He bakes. Haymitch drinks. We have our own ways to stay busy, to keep thought of our time as contestants in the Hunger Games at bay. — Suzanne Collins

I'd like to teach kids how to write songs. This will be my first year so I'm just as green as some of the rest of the folks. It's like a music camp and I get to hang out with some of the past contestants. — Bo Bice

As if our happiness, our good fortune, might rub off, contestants ask us for a light: they brush up against us in the halls, pull strands of hair off our clothing. Whenever we leave our bed, our room
not often
two or three are sure to be lurking just outside our door. — Kelly Link

We have very professional, amazing chefs that are contestants. Most of them have their own restaurants and are settled, recognized chefs in Mexico. That gives the show [Top Chef] a different level completely; the gastronomic level is very high. It makes it all more interesting and the competition is just harder and harder. — Ana Claudia Talancon

It's an interesting thing, Top Chef. Some of the contestants will make you one great dish, and then make you something on the next show that will make you say, "Is that the same person?" — Wolfgang Puck

So between critiques, the camera flew around on its arm like some sort of drunk helicopter, getting reaction shots from each contestant, and then from the judges. They asked us to hold our reactions as best we could until they got to us. Ever smile for a photograph for someone who doesn't know how to work their camera? Twenty times longer than that. My mouth started to tremble from trying to hold a smile. During one of these awkward frozen moments, one of the contestants grinned at me and mouthed the words "I love you," and I tried as best I could to communicate my thanks while also maintaining my frozen face. — Lauren Graham

The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges. — Salman Rushdie

I never get bored, because there's always different puzzles, I'm wearing different clothes, there's different contestants, there's different prizes. — Vanna White

Since people, in a competitive or any other society, are by no means always just to each other, some regulation by the state in its capacity of umpire is unavoidable, What must be kept in mind is that the greatest in of all is done when the umpire forgets that he too is bound by the rules, and begins to make them as between contestants in behalf of his own prejudices. — Felix Morley

So, in the first round, we have an expandable duck versus a useless metal cylinder. Our contestants are running very close indeed."
...
"Judging has been difficult. We have weighed the merits of Junior's boiling sludge, slag heap and useless metal cylinder against the chain-mail waistcoat, bulletproof tie and Expando-Duck. It was a close call. — Rick Riordan

On the Bowery, in the ornate carcass of a formerly grand vaudeville theater, a dance marathon limps along. The contestants, young girls and their fellas, hold one another up, determined to make their mark, to bite back at the dreams sold to them in newspaper advertisements and on the radio. They have sores on their feet but stars in their eyes. — Libba Bray

There's five cameras, I don't know how many people in the audience ... depending on where we're taping, there can be anywhere from 300 to 5,000 people, so the contestants are nervous. — Vanna White

I wasn't the typical pageant girl - I was a little more nerdy, and they gave me a voice. I created the Queen of the Universe pageant, which is charity-based, to benefit UNESCO. For me, the most important thing is that contestants have a charity-based platform or charity ambition. — Joyce Giraud

Ordering pizza and jamming out with the contestants in our hotels and traveling the country together brought me so much joy. — Rayvon Owen

It was a lesson she was still learning. When she had first started nursing, she had taken every death personally, like she was losing her father all over again. Every patient lost under her care was a little piece of death she would carry around with her until the end of her own life. But the alternative seemed so unfeeling. Tina and the other nurses could crack jokes and banter back and forth about contestants on American Idol before the body of a deceased patient was even cold. It was a coping mechanism, she knew, but not necessarily one she thought she would ever adopt. There had to be something in between. Olive had been called a bleeding heart before, but her heart no longer had the same plasticity and tenderness - it was scarred and worn beyond repair — Andrea Lochen

The future battle on the ground will be preceded by battle in the air. This will determine which of the contestants has to suffer operational and tactical disadvantages and be forced throughout the battle into adoption compromise solutions. — Erwin Rommel

However, I think that sometimes when shows do, you know, have a good season or a bad season, it comes down to something as simple as the crop of contestants that year, and do they break through in a way that makes the audience excited. Those are the kinds of things that tend to make a difference, more so than tweaks to the format and that sort of stuff, as much as we, obviously, would all like to try to assume that it's in our power. — Dan Cutforth

How about a new game show called 'Battle Begala?' Contestants would pick any obscure bad thing that happened anywhere in the world, and Paul would have 10 seconds to explain why it is President Bush's fault, — Ann Coulter

My job is to provide the atmosphere and assistance to the contestants to get them to perform at their very best. And if I'm successful doing that, I will be perceived as a nice guy, and the audience will think of me as being a bit of a star. — Alex Trebek

Whether you want to lose 20 pounds or 200, what the contestants on 'The Biggest Loser' have learned - and taught me - holds true: You've got to make a break. You've got to divorce yourself from the past and find a different way of living. And you can never go back. — Bob Harper

I want us all to face our fears and stop behaving like our goal in life is to merely survive. "Surviving" is for wimps and game show contestants stranded in the jungle or on a desert island. You are not stranded. You own the store ... You deserve better. — Michael Moore

I take issue with those who criticize 'The Biggest Loser' for pushing contestants too hard. The whole point is to push them hard. Otherwise, there's no change. — Alison Sweeney

And the issue is never the merits of the evidence but always the jealous rivalry of the contestants to see which would be the official light unto the world. Right down to the present day we have been the spectators of a foolish contest between equally vain and bigoted rivals. — Hugh Nibley

Now, I normally do not like it when people sing near me, much less at me. I don't care if they're good, bad, or mediocre. It's all the same. Unless you're signed to a major label with music I can find on iTunes, I don't want to hear your live performance. It's why I can't watch American Idol. I keep worrying the contestants will mess up and be embarrassed, and then I'll be embarrassed for them. — Lauren Morrill

'Deal or No Deal' works nicely with my ADD/ADHD symptoms. I show up, meet the contestants, and move around the set. I'm not stuck behind a pedestal reading trivia questions. I've always had problems sitting still and listening for long periods of time. The show spares me these challenges. I can live in the moment. It's like a standup act. — Howie Mandel

Each season I find myself constantly inspired by 'The Biggest Loser' contestants. Their tenacity and willingness to learn new, healthy habits is tremendous and the results speak for themselves. I am honored to be part of such an inspiring program that helps inspire positive change in so many lives. — Curtis Stone

A lot of the people who have been on 'American Idol' have unfortunately not been very successful after the show is over. I would be one of the most successful contestants to not make it to the Top 12. So that would be a good statistic to throw into the show. It's what you make of it. — Todrick Hall

After two undefeated seasons of 'Worst Cooks in America,' I'm ready for a third. Going against Bobby Flay takes the challenge to another level, but I'm ready to whip these contestants into shape and the winner is sure to be from Team Burrell. — Anne Burrell

As a singer and songwriter, I have great admiration for many of the budding stars who come to try their hand at performing and can relate to the hopes and aspirations of all the contestants, no matter how good or bad. — LeAnn Rimes

'American Idol' is sometimes lumped with reality shows and it has that element - folks-next-door battling it out in a contest. But instead of fighting leeches, bugs, parasites and each other, as on CBS's 'Survivor' and other shows that imitate it, the 'American Idol' contestants, of course, sing. — Tom Shales

She had witnessed a conflict between two men who held her liberty in their hands, her very life and that of her child; one had sought to drag her deeper into darkness, the other to restore her to light. The two contestants, in the heightened vision of her terror, had seemed like giants, one speaking with the voice of a demon, the other in the tones of an angel. The angel had won, and what caused her to tremble from head to foot was the fact that this rescuing angel was the man she abhorred, the abominable mayor whom for so long she had regarded as the author of her troubles. He had saved her after she had most outrageously insulted him! — Victor Hugo

In my new IFC comedy game show, 'Bunk,' we actually use our intern Patrick as a human timer - giving contestants the time it takes for him to wade through a bag of broken glass for a razor blade, to get gum out of his hair, to pick up every strand from a box of spaghetti I spill on the floor, etc, etc. — Kurt Braunohler

All reality TV shows are a triumph of voyeurism. They choose contestants who are ill-suited and slightly freakish. — Terry Wogan

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both *may* be, and one *must* be, wrong. God cannot be *for* and *against* the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true - that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either *saved* or *destroyed* the Union without human contest. Yet the contest began, And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. — Abraham Lincoln

I don't go into my dentist and say, 'Are you gay?' I don't say to contestants on 'So You Think You Can Dance,' 'Are you gay?' What does it got to do with me? What does it got to do with anybody? — Nigel Lythgoe

When we were on 'The X Factor,' we didn't realize how overnight the fame thing was. We didn't really understand it until we went on a shopping trip. It was like Week 7 or 8 of the show. We went with a few other contestants and there were loads of people, packed. — Zayn Malik

The brutalities of a fight with bare hands, the crushed nasal bones, maimed lips, and other disfigurements, which call for the utter abolition of boxing in the interests of humanity, at once disappear when the contestants cover their hands with large, soft-leather gloves. — John Boyle O'Reilly

Most people use Twitter to meet girls, and I use it to meet 'American Idol' contestants! — Chris Jericho

Among the women, a spontaneous cheer went up, which Liz was surprised to find herself joining, and this was when (she was on her fifth drink) she realized both that she was completely drunk
not just tipsy, not merely buzzed
and also that she was much happier than she'd been an hour or two before. She felt a retroactive remorse for all the Eligible contestants she'd deemed trashy and idiotic from the comfort of her living room; apparently, like teriyaki pizza and bee venom facials, getting wasted on a reality-TV show was not to be knocked until tried. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Many movie stars or American Idol contestants sort of fall into theater ... and say, 'Oh, yeah, I would love to do theater.' And then they get here and say, 'Oh, wait a minute, this actually is a craft!' It's not just show up one day and do it. It's show up eight times a week, twice on Wednesdays and twice on Saturdays. — Billy Porter

We are constantly reminding them that they are in a competition. I had a word with all my contestants and I know Kelly Rowland had a word with hers. It's reality check time. — Gary Barlow

I think I can sing, but that does not mean I can actually sing. I fear that I'm like one of those 'American Idol' contestants who truly believe they are good and are actually dreadful. — Kenneth Choi

I suppose you want me to give certificates to all the contestants? Little plastic trophies to every single athlete or soldier for participation? Should we all line up and shake hands and tell each other, Good game? No! — Rick Riordan

I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on 'Top Chef,' whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It's a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them. — Padma Lakshmi

When I saw contestants fighting for their lives on 'The Biggest Loser,' I realized I just wanted to be healthy - to have fun playing soccer with my son or teaching my daughter to shoot hoops. Then it was so much easier to say no to carbs, soda, or dessert, and the weight just came off. — Alison Sweeney

I had been taking various lessons. I've also had a lot of incredible singers give me a ton of great advice. From Cyndi Lauper, who kind of taught me the basics, and I've also worked with Bird. She's a tremendous coach and she often coaches the contestants on American Idol. I've had a great amount of support. — Margaret Cho

People slice up tree trunks, nail the pieces together into boxy shapes, and then go inside to sleep. Trees use the wood in their trunks for a different purpose - namely, they use it to fight with other plants. From dandelions to daffodils, from ferns to figs, from potatoes to pine trees - every plant growing on land is striving toward two prizes: light, which comes from above, and water, which comes from below. Any contest between two plants can be decided in one move, when the winner simultaneously reaches higher and digs deeper than the loser. Consider the tremendous advantage that wood confers to one of the contestants during such a battle: armed with a stiff-yet-flexible, strong-yet-light prop that separates - and connects - leaves and roots, trees have dominated the tournament for more than four hundred million years. — Hope Jahren

When you are in the 'American Idol' bubble, a lot of contestants want to go as far as they can and wish to be on point with ready-to-go songs. — Jessica Sanchez

Two contestants would sit either side of a table, with a glass in front of each of them. — Douglas Adams

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right. — Dale Carnegie

If you had a personal trainer, you would probably eat him. I know that in every fat person, there's a skinny person inside, but you could have all the season's contestants of America's Next Top Model in you. I hope I get reincarnated as your feet. That way, you'd never see my face again ... Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have insulted you. Because in my country, cows are sacred. — George Lopez

Singing for royalty is a dream of mine - I'd absolutely love to sing for the Queen at the Royal Variety Show. All the contestants are very good. I will just have to do my best and see what happens. — Susan Boyle

Contestants, whether it be for an army or a posse, we must be strong. We must face our fears, if only to save me and my worldly possessions. So reapply your lipstick, we're going to the Fearnasium, Mrs. Wellington announced stoically before exiting the dining room. — Gitty Daneshvari

I've had people come up to me, as home viewers, and tell me they were screaming at the TV, yelling at each other, yelling at the contestants. — Howie Mandel

Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character. It is true, of course, that a genius may, on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical strength may overcome weakness, even though the puny body may have in it the heart of a lion. But, in the long run, in the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against that assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities, which we group together under the name of character; and if between any two contestants, even in college sport or in college work, the difference in character on the right side is as great as the difference of intellect or strength the other way, it is the character side that will win. — Theodore Roosevelt

Storytelling still matters in the digital age, because commencing in adolescences and continuing through adulthood, people receive training in using stories to describe the human contestants, organize the facts, communicate the moral message behind the messy human conflict, evaluate competing ethical issues, and render a final value judgment. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The interviews have been a little tough due to the fact that we're interviewing dogs. We see a lot of contestants licking themselves, but we're used to that from covering the Grammys. — Melissa Rivers

When an opponent in the gymnasium gashes us with his nails or bruises our head in a collision, we do not protest or take offence, and we do not suspect him ever afterwards of malicious intent. However, we do regard him with a wary eye; not in enmity or suspicion, yet good-temperedly keeping our distance. So let it be, too, at other times in life; let us agree to overlook a great many things in those who are, as it were, our fellow-contestants. A simple avoidance, as I have said, is always open to us, without either suspicion or ill will. — Marcus Aurelius

When most people sing karaoke, they think of themselves as contestants on American Idol, and they sing and perform their hearts out. But I really think people should be thinking of themselves more as temporary DJs for the party. It's kind of a responsibility. It's up to you to sing a kick-ass upbeat song that sets the mood for your friends to have fun, drink, and pick up girls and guys. — Mindy Kaling

New Rule: Stop asking Miss USA contestants if they believe in evolution. It's not their field. It's like asking Stephen Hawking if he believes in hair scrunchies. Here's what they know about: spray tans, fake boobs and baton twirling. Here's what they don't know about: everything else. If I cared about the uninformed opinions of some ditsy beauty queen, I'd join the Tea Party. — Bill Maher

This is a strange pocket of the western world where it is still deemed utterly acceptable to take smart, successful women and reduce them to beauty pageant contestants, — Hadley Freeman

We now have contestants who will not let anything get in their way of victory. Some contestants have thrown each other under the bus this season. — Ryan Seacrest

What I'm interested in watching is to make sure that they give the right advice now to the contestants who are going forward because, you know, it's one thing just to criticize but you've got to also give, you know, good advice which is going to help them. Overall, I think they're a good panel. — Simon Cowell

After all, advocates, including advocates for States, are like managers of pugilistic and election contestants, in that they have a propensity for claiming everything. — Felix Frankfurter

Making a wrong choice in the leadership would be the end of mankind when run by the immature contestants, but from the divine's glory it is to verify if the mankind is really serious of keeping the planet earth by apprising and enhancing the consciousness. — Vishal Chipkar