Cynical Optimist Quotes & Sayings

I am a cynical optimist. Big opening weekends are like cotton candy. The films you will remember over time are the films that stick in the consciousness of the audience in a good way. — Robert Redford

Ever since it formed, the Tea Party has struck me as a kind of weird generational echo, forty years on, of the young leftists of the late 1960s. The 1960s leftists, like the Tea Party now, had unrealistic goals and were hostile to compromise. Both saw themselves as cultural forces up against a shadowy establishment. Both treated politics as street theater and had a curious fondness for using violent rhetoric and making apocalyptic pronouncements. Generationally speaking, the 1960s Left and the Right of today are the same group... p. 232 — Mike Lofgren

A lot of people have asked me whether I am a cynic or take a cynical view of politics and are often surprised when I say that I consider myself an optimist, but an optimist dressed in the robes of a realist. — Beau Willimon

With the founding of Denishawn, Ted Shawn stated the artistic creed which was to guide the school, the company and, indeed, his whole life in dance. — Walter Terry

All writing is pigshit. — Antonin Artaud

I'm a realist all the way. I'm too cynical to be an optimist. But I've lived too much of a charmed life so far to ever be a pessimist. — Anthony Jeselnik

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?"
"I can't remember. Which?"
"Do you know what those words mean?"
"Not really."
"An optimist is positive and hopeful. A pessimist is negative and cynical."
"I'm an optimist."
"Well, that's good, because there's no irrefutable evidence. There's nothing that could convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I am an optimist even though I am told everything I do is negative and cynical. — Armando Iannucci

I'm an optimist and my heroines seem to be that way, too. It's too much work to be cynical and distrusting. That doesn't mean I create perfect stories and perfect people, however. What this means is that my stories are resolved in a manner that leaves the reader with a feeling of hope and happy expectation ... and wanting to reach for another one of my books. — Debbie Macomber

I love who you were before. I love who you are right now. I'm gonna love you ten years from now. I hope you're not the same, because it means we've grown. I just want to be the one who gets to do it with you. — Scarlett Cole

Being just a little cynical will make you a much safer optimist. — Lisa Kleypas

Because most people ain't people. — Arthur Miller

The longer she stared at him now, the more she could actually feel her intelligence waning. — Tessa Dare

Food has been my career, my hobby, and, it must be said, my escape. — Nigel Slater