Hagen Quotes & Sayings

I don't have to come back, because I am still here! And I'm not an '80s thing. I already worked with my first band back in East Germany and that was soooo '70s, young man. I'm a '70s thing. If I'm a thing at all ... and an exciting thing. — Nina Hagen

If you point out the moon to a cat, she probably won't look at the sky; she'll come up and sniff your finger. — Steve Hagen

Now, the Wyrm rises
To eclipse the Moon
Devouring all within its grasp,
Hunting the hunters.

There is no garden to which we can flee.
There is nowhere to hide.
The end is upon us.
- When will you rage? — Mark Rein-Hagen

You're my best friend. Why should I be happy to see you go? — George Hagen

I wanted to bathe myself in that burn, to let the radiation take my skin and flesh and bones until I was nothing but charged particles dancing in space. — Bethany Hagen

Trouble shots are surprisingly easy if you activate your imagination. You simply must be able to imagine exactly what flight the ball will take before you can play any shot well. — Walter Hagen

When you find the person who sees you clearer than you see yourself, you know you've found true love. — Layla Hagen

Awards don't really mean much. — Uta Hagen

It's called enlightenment. It's nothing more or less than seeing things as they are rather than as we wish or believe them to be. — Steve Hagen

Jack Woltz: Now you listen to me, you smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch, let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is! Johnny Fontane will never get that movie! I don't care how many dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork!
Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.
Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kraut-mick friend, I'm gonna make so much trouble for you, you won t know what hit you!
Tom Hagen: Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I have not threatened you. — Mario Puzo

I need you in a way I never thought I could need anything. It's like air. You don't notice how much you need it until you don't have it. I love you, Aimee. — Layla Hagen

What makes human life
which is inseparable from this moment
so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again. — Steve Hagen

Reality is not going to change with your perception of it. — Steve Hagen

Why would anyone want to awaken to the Reality that they're not even here in the first place? — Steve Hagen

Give your mind a lot of space and it quiets down; try to control, quiet, or restrict it, and it goes wild. — Steve Hagen

I meet many people, I talk with them, like a TV show host. I show what's going on with Greenpeace, interesing political things, I have artists, musicians and bands. — Nina Hagen

One day, soon after the Buddha's enlightenment, a man saw the Buddha walking toward him. The man had not heard of the Buddha, but he could see that there was something different about the man who was approaching, so he was moved to ask, Are you a god? — Steve Hagen

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well. — Steve Hagen

Love has an effect few other things have: to empower you with happiness, and at the same time, strip you of all power, making you a prisoner of fear. — Layla Hagen

To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist. — Uta Hagen

Uta Hagen is our greatest living actor; she is, moreover, interested and mystified by the presence of talent and its workings; her third gift is a passion to communicate the mysteries of the craft to which she has given her life. There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by her. — Fritz Weaver

No one remembers who came in second. — Walter Hagen

The biggest mistake we make in confusing a concept with Reality is in ... the separation of self and other. — Steve Hagen

There can be no moral authority to tell you what to do, for no such authority can lie outside your own will. — Steve Hagen

All tedious research is worth one inspired moment. — Uta Hagen

It pleased the public to think I lived the easy, carefree life - the playboy of golf. — Walter Hagen

No work of art is ever finished, nothing is ever static, no performance is for keeps. — Uta Hagen

[W]hen we speak about people based on what we think, feel, or hope rather than on what we observe or experience, we deprive them of their humanity. We have replaced what they are, in all their fluid vitality, with our own crystallised ideas, opinions, and beliefs. — Steve Hagen

Mindfulness of the body is awareness of ... the taste and smell of this moment. — Steve Hagen

We pass by the joys of life without knowing we've missed anything. — Steve Hagen

Liberation of mind is realising that we don't need to buy any story at all. It's realising that before our confused thought, there actually is Reality. We can see it. All we have to do it to fully engage in this moment as it has come to be. — Steve Hagen

I have disassociated myself from that book. — Uta Hagen

Socrates pointed out that we carry on as though death were the greatest of all calamities - yet, for all we know, it might be the greatest of all blessings. — Steve Hagen

Buddhism is not a belief system. It's not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's about examining the world clearly and carefully, about testing everything and every idea. Buddhism is about seeing. It's about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It's also about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our own personal agendas. — Steve Hagen

I was traveling on our tour bus through Europe and I was thinking I want to have long blonde hair. — Nina Hagen

It's still weird seeing you with a guy," Vick said. "Not that I'm against two wieners tucking into each other's buns. To each his own. — Lynn Hagen

I never played a perfect 18 holes. There is no such thing. I expect to make at least seven mistakes a round. Therefore, when I make a bad shot, I don't worry about it. It is just one of the seven. — Walter Hagen

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds. — Steve Hagen

What a shame to waste those great shots on the practice tee. — Walter Hagen

He may have gone to bed three hours ago, but he knows who he is playing. You can rest assured that he hasn't slept a wink. — Walter Hagen

As Uta Hagen would say, there's the representational actor and the presentational actor. My sister [Maggie Gyllenhaal] came up to me recently after she saw this movie, Southpaw, the movie I did, and she thought there was this exploration of that type of presentation, and a bit of representation as well, if I could be totally honest, where she was deeply moved. — Jake Gyllenhaal

This desire to hold on, to somehow stop change in its tracks, is the greatest source of woe and horror and trouble in our lives. — Steve Hagen

This moment is complete unto itself. There's nothing lacking in this moment — Steve Hagen

We all know the maxim "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It's because we want the horse to drink that we become frustrated, because it's literally not in our power to accomplish the job we've set out to do for ourselves. — Steve Hagen

My peace carries her smell and sounds like her voice. — Layla Hagen

Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers. — Mario Puzo

The course is playing the players instead of the players playing the course. — Walter Hagen

Politicians and bureaucrats are the new upper class in Norway. It is an upper class that is growing by an increasing number of top-paid politicians in municipalities and counties. They let the people suffer, but let themselves go free. — Carl I. Hagen

We commonly see things 'out there' and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation. — Steve Hagen

The immigration must be limited, that is, first and foremost the foreign cultural one. — Carl I. Hagen

[W]e're caught by our concepts ... [C]oncepts are not Reality. — Steve Hagen

Do some selfless service for people who are in need. Consider the whole picture, not just our little selves. — Nina Hagen

Every atom, every minuscule part of the universe is nothing other than movement and change. — Steve Hagen

It doesn't matter how old people are. It matters if they love each other and have fun with each other. It has nothing to do with age. To get old is a mental disease. Everything is in the head. — Nina Hagen

As long as karma exists, the world changes. There will always be karma to be taken care of — Nina Hagen

Keep pace with the present. Take a trip to the moon. envision the future. — Uta Hagen

We live in a democracy and I do not understand why highly respected scientists from top international branches are not able express themselves! — Nina Hagen

When I have a match to play, I begin to relax as soon as I wake up. Everything I do, I do slow and easy. That goes for stroking the razor, getting dressed, and eating my breakfast. I'm practically in slow motion. By the time I'm ready to tee off, I'm so used to taking my time that it's impossible to hurry my swing. — Walter Hagen

I have a wish for world peace and the truth. I would like to see a society that will bring happiness to all life forms. Of course, to the Nazis, I appear a rebel, but to the rebels, I appear like a normal person from Venus. — Nina Hagen

They still had the Lord Chamberlain, so we had this idiotic censorship. We were allowed three Jesus Christs instead of 10. Why three were OK, I don't know. — Uta Hagen

The old SV (Socialist Left Party) were useful idiots for the communists in Moscow. Today's SV are useful idiots for Saddam Hussein. — Carl I. Hagen

My daughter Cosma is a very popular actress in Germany. She also organizes these wonderful open-air parties. She has a wonderful teacher, she's very smart. And I sometimes perform at her festivals. — Nina Hagen

For some strange reason, we believe that anyone who lived before we were born was in some peculiar way a different kind of human being from any we have come in contact with in our own lifetime. This concept must be changed; we must realize in our bones that almost everything in time and history has changed except the human being. — Uta Hagen

Lady Gaga is a pop prostitute, a satanic b
with her fascist and demonic secret signs! Her pop prostitution has more to do with bikini advertising than with warmth, — Nina Hagen

We must overcome the notion that we must be regular ... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre. — Uta Hagen

Jesus Christ will be the leader of an intergalactic earth evacuation. We're getting some earth leaders up there to check the mother ship. The Bible says that the sky will be glorious and Christ will come back to us all. — Nina Hagen

[W]hen you practise right meditation, you 'cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. — Steve Hagen

And here we are with our improved human world that we've spent a great deal of time and energy working on. We've improved the rivers and the lakes and the land and our society and our ways of living to the point where we now wonder if the human race will survive. — Steve Hagen

we face the woeful prospect that we're intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world. — Steve Hagen

All three of them stood for a moment gazing at the stars.
'And all these are worlds,' said Hagen.
'Or else,' said Clements with a yawn, 'a frightful mess. I suspect it is really a fluorescent corpse, and we are inside it. — Vladimir Nabokov

I never wanted to be a millionaire. I just wanted to live like one. — Walter Hagen

I won't go to England because they won't let my dog in. — Uta Hagen

Prescott's life was changed from the accepted norm of a proper Bostonian by that crust of bread. While in his junior year at Harvard,the students one day,while eating in the Commons, turned the room into pandemonium by bombarding each other with food;in the midst of it Prescott, who turned at the call of his name, was struck by a crust of bread accurately thrown. It hit him in the open left eye,striking the unprotected pupil;it had the effect usually attending a brain concussion. When he recovered he was made instantly aware that he had lost sight of his left eye. — Victor W. Von Hagen

Your breath is a unique object to meditation because it resides right at the boundary between inside and outside, between you and the outside world. — Steve Hagen

We cannot. . .begin any real inquiry into Truth, with any assumption or belief whatsoever. We must be willing to see things as they are, rather than as we hope, wish, or expect them to be. — Steve Hagen

Immigrants in Norway must learn Norwegian. The same should Spaniards in Spain do, if they want to work with Norwegians. — Carl I. Hagen

We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories. — Steve Hagen

As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation. And we become wise, with no sense of having to straighten anyone out. — Steve Hagen

The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don't have to look "over there." You don't have to figure anything out. You don't have to acquire anything. And you don't have to run off to Tibet, or Japan, or anywhere else. You wake up right here. In fact, you can only wake up right here.
So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be. — Steve Hagen

Usually we hold a frozen view of ourselves as well as of the world 'out there.' ... We identify with groups, behaviours, habits, and beliefs. — Steve Hagen

[W]hen we come up with any concept at all, we simultaneously create one or more opposite concepts. — Steve Hagen

After ... all the philosophy and science that we've laboured on for centuries, it's becoming very hard to find a story we can buy. — Steve Hagen

Buddhist writings (including this book) can be likened to a raft. A raft is a very handy thing to carry you across the water, from one shore to another. But once you've reached the other shore, you no longer need the raft. Indeed, if you wish to continue your journey beyond the shore, you must leave the raft behind. Our problem is that we tend to fall in love with the raft. — Steve Hagen

Hagen said that no-one remembers who finished second. But they still ask me if I ever think about that putt I missed to win the 1970 Open at St. Andrews. I tell them that some times it doesn't cross my mind for a full five minutes. — Doug Sanders

[T]houghts will arise. Don't be bothered by them. Don't think they're bad or that you shouldn't be having them. ... If you leave them alone, they'll depart of their own accord. This is how to 'cease all movements of the conscious mind.' You cannot do it by the direct application of your will. — Steve Hagen

A child's name is his portal to the world. — George Hagen

The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion. — Steve Hagen

You see, you learn from all your bad experiences, so they're really positive. It's all part of the cosmic knowing. — Nina Hagen

[B]ecause of change, what we love continues to appear, and what we hate never lasts forever. — Steve Hagen

You don't have the game you played last year or last week. You only have today's game. It may be far from your best, but that's all you've got. Harden your heart and make the best of it. — Walter Hagen

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality. — Steve Hagen

I have my own strength. — Nina Hagen

Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting intensely); a vivid imagination as well as a grip on reality; the desire to communicate one's own experience and sensations, to make one's self heard and seen. — Uta Hagen

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain. — Steve Hagen

[W]ith the sense of self gone, ... actions naturally become uncalculated and free. — Steve Hagen

Hagen Koch: 'There was no other transport. People on bikes could evade checkpoints, they could have secret meetings — Anna Funder

I used to believe that the experiences life throws at us shape us. Now I think that it's the way we cope with what life throws our way that shapes us. — Layla Hagen

Neatly packaging everything gives us the illusion we ... know something. — Steve Hagen

There is no tragedy in missing a putt, no matter how short. All have erred in this respect. — Walter Hagen

I never have a bad night, bad day, bad moment. — Nina Hagen