Interesting Idea Quotes & Sayings

There is an interesting idea: almost everybody's fascinated by the perpetrator of a crime; very few people study what happens to people for the rest of their lives, and how it affects not only that particular character but other characters around him as well. — Clint Eastwood

I mean I don't think it got me interested in acting. I think it might be what makes it so that I can have the idea of the variety of people in the world, different incomes. That helps. When you're going to play someone it's interesting and nice to see experiences that aren't like yours. But there's always the remarkable similarity of all people. — Peter Sarsgaard

And so it's interesting to remember that when Mahatma Gandhi, the father of an earlier freedom movement, came to England and was asked what he thought of English civilization, he replied: 'I think it would be a good idea. — Salman Rushdie

You guys must use some interesting parenting techniques."
"You have no idea," Liam said dryly. "You have no idea. — Deborah Blake

The life of the mind is always more interesting than the real. The idea is often more interesting than the actual. — Rob Chapman

It is a curious fact, and makes life very interesting, that, generally speaking, none of us have any expectation that things are going to happen till the very moment when they do happen. We wake up some morning with no idea that a great happiness is at hand, and before night it has come, and all the world is changed for us; or we wake bright and cheerful, with never a guess that clouds of sorrow are lowering in our sky, to put all the sunshine out for a while, and before noon all is dark. Nothing whispers of either the joy or the grief. No instinct bids us to delay or to hasten the opening of the letter or telegram, or the lifting of the latch of the door at which stands the messenger of good or ill. — Susan Coolidge

Whoa," Becky said, because the baby kicked her hard in the bladder.

Felix startled, backing up and nearly falling over a chair.

"Sorry, I was whoa-ing because right when you came in, the baby kicked, not because you're Felix Callahan. Oh, you know what it reminded me of ? When Elisabeth's baby kicks just as Mary greets her? Isn't that funny? As if I had some spiritual sign when I saw you."

Annette smiled, her eyebrows raised. Felix glared handsomely. Becky stamped down a desire to squirm.

"No, it's not terribly funny," Felix said, "particularly as I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Elisabeth, wife of Zacharias, cousin to Mary, mother of Jesus? No? Nothing?"

Felix looked at her with a careful lack of amusement.

"Oh, maybe you don't have the Bible in England. See, there's this guy named Jesus and his mother is named Mary, and well, it's a really interesting read if you don't mind parables. — Shannon Hale

I liked the idea that my character was not gonna be the typical dumb guy that I play, typically. I also loved the fact that it was dealing with kind of adult-extended adolescence, which I think is always interesting
a bunch of people that don't wanna grow up. — Jim Gaffigan

We live in the world of images, but we also live in the world of the Internet, of zapping and where people move. You can make little videos on your phone. I love very composed images, but the idea of moving pictures with a story, with a plot is quite interesting, too. — Karl Lagerfeld

Even today I keep a Dream Journal. It's whatever's going on in my subconscious, or things from dreams or even interesting items that pop into my head. I have thousands of pages of notes which I hope someday will turn into stories, or movies ... Being on the road gives me breathing time and the opportunity to think about what to do next. In fact right before I came down for lunch today, I was writing down notes about my feelings. Things that I need to do to keep motivated. I need to be motivated if I am to going to devote fifteen months to writing another book. And I couldn't write a book just because it's a commercial idea. I need to have a compelling reason. — Clive Barker

I didn't really start building my own stuff until I was 24, 25 or so, and even then, I ran into a lot of resistance from, like, older folks, like my bosses at other companies or people in the industry that were like, 'Oh that's an interesting idea, but it will never work.' And, I don't know, I kind of believed everything that they told me. — Dennis Crowley

The most interesting to me were Doctor Strange, because he was so mystic, and Thor, because that was really cool. I mean, I had never been able to relate to the idea of a bearded guy in the sky, you know, and I'd always really liked mythology, and with Thor, it was like Stan Lee was actually saying, "Yeah, it's okay, there really is this Nordic god, there really is something besides the bearded guy in the sky". So I loved that! — Trina Robbins

I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. — Steve Jobs

I use dull colors in my drawings because I started out using a root beer base because it seemed like an interesting idea and when it turned out that it worked quite well as an ink I started using other colors that would compliment it. — Marcel Dzama

I've always been afraid that if I played Sim City I'd just get virtual junk mail for occupant/resident since it is so much like real life!!! It would suck to be invisible in two worlds at once, as always that gives me an interesting story idea.
Have to run someone, no doubt a solicitor, is at my door ... — Neil Leckman

I remember, when I was in university I studied history, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic. — Sacha Baron Cohen

The mark of an intelligent and educated man is one who does not really accept the idea of "work". That is to say; he does not accept the process of doing chores every day, that aren't in the least bit interesting to him, just in order to go on living. — Alan W. Watts

The thing that is really hard about adaptation is that I try to only pick things I love because if it is something where you think, "Oh, that sounds like an interesting idea but I don't love it," then I can't do my job well. — Andy Weir

You know when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener! — Steve Martin

At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, after as much success as you can get, is really interesting. — Ira Glass

What I find most interesting about the U.S. is this idea of equality. — Jorge Ramos

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

I gather you weren't keen on going back to Scotland with your brother at this time of year. I don't say I blame you. Terribly bleak and cutoff in the winter."
"Oh no, Mom," I said, as her words sunk in. "My brother is not going back to Scotland. He and my sister-in-law are going to the Riviera."
The Riviera? I had no idea."
"For my sister-in-law's health. She's feeling rather frail at the moment."
"I don't think that frail would ever be a word to describe your sister-in-law," the Queen said, looking up with a half smile on her lips as a tray of coffee was reeled into the room.
"I managed to have six children without making a fuss. One just got on with it. — Rhys Bowen

Each big idea like that is an operating system upgrade," she says, smiling. Comfortable territory. "Writers are responsible for some of it. They say Shakespeare invented the internal monologue."
Oh, I am very familiar with the internal monologue.
"But I think the writers had their turn," she says, "and now it's programmers who get to upgrade the human operating system."
I am definitely talking to a girl from Google. "So what's the next upgrade?"
"It's already happening," she says. "There are all these things you can do, and it's like you're in more than one place at one time, and it's totally normal. I mean, look around."
I swivel my head, and I see what she wants me to see: dozens of people sitting at tiny tables, all learning into phones showing them places that don't exist and yet are somehow more interesting ... — Robin Sloan

I think the greatest thing we give each other is encouragement ... knowing that I'm talking to someone in this mentoring relationship who's interested in the big idea here is very, very important to me. I think if it were just about helping me get to the next step, it would be a heck of a lot less interesting. — Anne Sweeney

I don't keep a record of the parts I've played, and I don't compare characters, but maybe I should? I could construct a graphic that grades badness and madness levels? Interesting idea. — James Frain

The idea was not to make a huge business, because the bigger you get, the more restraints I thought I might get. Number one was to do what I set out to do: make new and interesting things within the size of the business that is possible to do without restraints. The second goal was to do the business in order to achieve the first goal. That's what many people don't understand. — Rei Kawakubo

Sadness such as mine is not depression; it can be blown away by an interesting conversation, a welcome telephone call, or a compelling idea for an essay or piece of fiction. It returns without evident cause, however obvious the cause of its banishment, and it belongs, I have come to suspect, to both youth and age, less frequently to the years between.[pp.177-178] — Carolyn G. Heilbrun

My idea of an interesting person is someone who is quite proud of their seemingly abnormal life and turns their disadvantage into a career. — John Waters

We say, "That's a very interesting idea," when we have no intention of taking the idea seriously. — Peter M. Senge

Scary in the idea it could be a little overwhelming to have 70 or 100 clowns in a public space. Intriguing in that it could be something interesting. I'm up for any kind of public art. — Carole King

I can't remember ever being really bored. I find life very interesting, actually. I think some other musicians are always looking for something to give them an idea, but I find I have to reject 90 percent of my ideas because they don't live up to some self-imposed standard. That's also why I don't make a record once a year. I throw so many things out, and I have to have something to say. — Tom Verlaine

'Ghost City' began as a idea. I felt that I hadn't read or heard a great deal about the sort of life that I thought I had, and I just thought that it would be interesting to sit down and see if I could put it down onto paper. — Ronald Frame

I think about how truly interesting and odd it is that when a woman marries, traditionally she loses her name, becoming absorbed by the husband's family name - she is in effect lost, evaporated from all records under her maiden name. I finally understand the anger behind feminism - the idea that as a woman you are property to be conveyed between your father and your husband, but never an individual who exists independently. And on the flip side, it is also one of the few ways one can legitimately get lost - no one questions it. — A.M. Homes

I think to make your home as comfortable as possible is so important. There's something really interesting about that as a trend, that whole idea of lifestyle and being happy in your surroundings. — Aerin Lauder

'Look at Me' started with Rockford, Illinois and New York and the question of how much image culture was changing our inner lives. That's an abstract idea; you don't think that's going to be a rocking work of fiction, but it seemed to fuse in a way that was interesting. — Jennifer Egan

When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I love that the idea of examining memory, and the way memory is edited was made more interesting because it was being filtered through a writer. — James Franco

What is interesting is that the term Aryan was adopted by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler in the early 20th century to describe a people group they deemed as purely Germanic (must be of one people group) and more "evolved" than the rest of European peoples and the rest of the world. And yet, the true Aryans were one of the most famous groups of people who were of mixed descent. Hitler and the Nazis were playing off of Charles Darwin's model of higher and lower races. This idea, claimed by this humanistic religion, has been a cause of terrible atrocities in WWI, WWII, and mass exterminations of people by leaders like Stalin (Soviet Union) and Mao (China), among others. — Bodie Hodge

We have this false idea in our culture that if you haven't made it by 30, then you're never going to do anything interesting. My 40s have been the most incredible time of my life. — Tracy McMillan

Conservative values aren't really reflected in the radical values of the NRA. And the other idea was that the NRA is not what you think it is: It's an evolving, ever-changing organization, and it has not always been this radical, right-wing arm of the Republican Party, and that the history of the NRA is in fact really interesting. — Abigail Disney

It will be interesting to see if they accept the idea that not only actual corruption in politics needs to be addressed, but the appearance of corruption as well, ensuring public confidence and all that. — Larry Noble

Now, let's look again at the partial reflection of light by a layer of glass. How does it work? I talked about light reflected from the front surface and the back surface. This idea of surfaces was a simplification I made in order to keep things easy at the beginning. Light is really not affected by surfaces. An incoming photon is scattered by the electrons in the atoms inside the glass, and a new photon comes back up to the detector. It's interesting that instead of adding up all the billions of tiny arrows that represent the amplitude for all the electrons inside the glass to scatter an incoming photon, we can add just two arrows-for the "front surface" and "back surface" reflections-and come out with the same answer. Let's see why. — Richard Feynman

But my quarrel with the concept of maternal instinct isn't why I never had kids myself. I was never particularly opposed to the idea of having kids - let no one say that I don't love kids! It always seemed like an interesting future possibility, the same way that joining the Peace Corps someday seemed like an interesting future possibility. — Laura Kipnis

I do think that in order for a company to be interesting to the investment community, there needs to be a plan; there needs to be a bigger retail footprint. There needs to be this idea - DNA, lifestyle, words I hate. — Marc Jacobs

Truth is one of the realities covered in the eclectic religion of our fathers by the idea of God. Awe very properly hangs about it, since it is the immovable standard and silent witness of all our memories and assertions; and the past and the future, which in our anxious life are so differently interesting and so differently dark, are one seamless garment for the truth, shining like the sun. — George Santayana

It isn't a good idea to force young girls to marry," Stabo lectured, looking from one man to the other. "Marriage, in general, isn't a particularly desirable institution. It causes all sorts of trouble, from what I have observed over the centuries. In any case, a Princess shouldn't marry this young, the issue of the advisability of marriage aside. She should be free to grow up and spend time with more interesting creatures than prospective husbands. Dragons, for instance. We're much more interesting than you, Laphroig. Or you, Craswell. So be warned. If I hear any further attempts at forcing this girl to marry either one of you or anyone you know or even anyone I think you know, I will not be so lenient. — Terry Brooks

I haven't thought about making a music film, but if I did, that would be a very interesting idea. — Lenny Kravitz

I tend to be a subscriber to the idea that you have everything you need by the time you're 12 years old to do interesting writing for most of the rest of your life - certainly by the time you're 18. — Bruce Springsteen

I've played a lot of cops and a lot of bad guys, so I would like to play a regular person and just live a regular life with something interesting about it. I love the idea of television and kind of infiltrating that. — Reggie Lee

"Motherboard," for me, has four different levels: the bottom part is the water, vegetation, and growth. The second part is the world with figures and animals; there's chaos and civilization. The third part is the digital zone - these red things are turning into really loud digital sounds. Then the fourth level is like ether and things turning into air. This idea of how we're becoming partly digitalized is really interesting to me. — Ali Banisadr

Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the possibility that evil can be defused by talking. The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of fairies, and more truly fantastic. — Terry Pratchett

Well, obviously I was excited by the idea that Woody Allen was going to direct it. But at the same time, the script itself and the character was really interesting. — Radha Mitchell

Everything is an idea for something, something that touches the imagination, a fact that seems relevant or maybe just a statement I find interesting - either because it resonates or because I disagree. All of it is fodder for continued work or thinking on the topics. It's also important to me to record the ideas that my instincts tell me are bad. — Elizabeth Spiers

In principle, I think the idea of rewarding a good effort is interesting, but movies are generally different from each other as are performances and the conditions on how the performances are given and how they're edited and so forth. — Viggo Mortensen

This idea of imposing an order is very interesting to me. Photography is in essence an analytic medium. ... In photography, you start with the whole world and every decision you make imposes an order on it. The question is to what extent it's an idealized order I'm imposing or is it an order that grows out of what the world looks like. — Stephen Shore

One of the big misapprehensions about mathematics that we perpetrate in our classrooms is that the teacher always seems to know the answer to any problem that is discussed. This gives students the idea that there is a book somewhere with all the right answers to all of the interesting questions, and that teachers know those answers. And if one could get hold of the book, one would have everything settled. That's so unlike the true nature of mathematics. — Leon Henkin

Prophet finally breathed when the forceps came off - how long he'd been holding it, he had no idea, but fuck, everything was reduced to the feeling of the piercing, the burning throb in his nipple, and that made it hard to focus on anything else. A long moment later, the ring was locked firmly in place, and Tommy was sinking to his knees in front of him, unzipping his pants and taking his hard cock down his throat. Prophet shot immediately - and Tom had to know that would happen. Prophet knew he'd no doubt have come as he was being pierced . . . if he'd had Tom sucking him while Ray did the piercing. But that was interesting as a fantasy only. Because this wasn't about sharing. Or payback. This was Tom showing him that he understood. That, no matter what, no matter how pissed they got, how much they fucked up . . . Prophet was his. Which was Tom's way of assuring that he wasn't going anywhere. — S.E. Jakes

I've never cared for the idea of a career path, or where a film might 'take me.' My love is for acting not money, so I only take on roles that I find challenging, in stories I find interesting. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting. — Edward De Bono

Video is the most interesting and engaging way to share an idea with others. — Chad Hurley

Actresses talking about characters they've played often use the phrase "strong woman", which kind of irks me. Firstly, the description appears to be reserved for two kinds of female: the gun-toting chick in tiny-vest-and-shorts combo, or the tough-talking businesswoman who secretly longs for a man to bring out her softer side. So obviously, our idea of strength is pretty narrow and one-dimensional. Secondly, why isn't Brad Pitt ever asked about how much he enjoys playing a "strong man"? Is it automatically assumed that men's roles will be complex and interesting? — Rosie Blythe

I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go. — Jonathan Demme

One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious. — Hiroshi Sugimoto

Now that I finally have the time for it, this web surfing stuff turns out to be as interesting and fun and addictive as you've all been telling me. Zipping from link to link, chasing an idea across the noosphere, sucking up information like a killer whale - way cool. — Spider Robinson

The idea of trust-fund guys who live in Brooklyn in their 30s is really interesting to me. There's a time and a place where that kind of bohemian lifestyle is appropriate, soon after college, in your 20s. But there are people still living that many years later; they haven't evolved to the next phase. — Tim Heidecker

I don't work as a conceptualist. Let's say the conceptual art model is that you have a project idea, or a set of concerns, and then you illustrate those concerns in whatever manner you see appropriate. For me, it has always been that the world suggests far more subtle and interesting variations than I could ever come up with. — John Gossage

What was really interesting to me about 'The Telegarden' was this idea of connecting the physical world, the natural world, and the social world through the Internet. — Ken Goldberg

What makes the food that we do at Alinea so interesting on the outside is that we really don't let ourselves say no to an idea. — Grant Achatz

If it was not a good idea, it was at least an interesting one. — Candice Millard

I don't know anything but the simplest rules of English grammar, and I seldom consciously apply them. Nevertheless, I instinctively write correctly and, I like to think, in an interesting fashion. I know when something sounds right and when it doesn't, and I can tell the difference without hesitation, even when writing at breakneck speed. How do I do this? I haven't the faintest idea. — Isaac Asimov

I'm always interested in playing different people, in different situationsIt doesn't matter to me whether someone is in love with a man or a woman. I find the idea of love and romance interesting. I'm a sucker for it. I like playing someone who's falling in love because I like the sensation of it. People do extraordinary things when they're falling in love. — Ewan McGregor

I think the idea is when you're on your death bed to say you did a lot of different, interesting things, not just that you have a more expensive lining in your coffin. — Matt Frewer

But, she knew, you didn't have to marry your soulmate, and you didn't even have to marry an Interesting. You didn't always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or made everyone want to sleep with you, or be the one who wrote and starred in the play that got the standing ovation. You could cease to be obsessed with the idea of being interesting. — Meg Wolitzer

We have quite a large area, and that makes it more fun for us - certainly more satisfying, because it doesn't restrict us to one particular idea or one particular style. The result, I think, is pretty interesting ... we don't expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped or hit The Ed Sullivan Show or the circuses or the big top. As long as we can play, we'll play, regardless of what it's for, who it's for or anything. It's fun for us - that's the important thing. — Jerry Garcia

I don't particularly like the idea that there's an arc to the story and that therefore in this scene you have to convey this bit of information or emotion. I like more the feeling that, of course, there is a shape to the story, but that each scene should feel right, should be true at that moment, and that gradually you accumulate these moments of truth until you get enough of them together that it becomes a story that's interesting. — Michael Winterbottom

I'm not an artist, and I want to take risks, and when the possibility of failure occurs, it's because the idea is all exciting or interesting as a high wire act, and sometimes you've got to fall off, just by virtue of the fact that you're constantly trying to evolve and do new things. — Peter Morgan

Perhaps whatever there is in my work that may be really interesting to others and surely what is interesting to me, is the result of a sometimes successful effort to free myself from any idea that what I produce must be art ... — Robert Henri

It's always dangerous to prescribe an idea on other people. I think people's interactions with art are their own, and will be far more interesting and sophisticated than anything that I could come up with. — Tom Sturridge

How old is Old? It is interesting how, as we advance in years, we push the boundaries of what we consider "old age."
"I am so depressed." my friend Irma told me the other day.
When I asked why, she put her hands up in despair and answered, "I am turning thirty next week. I never thought I would get there."
No, none of us ever thinks that we will get "there."
What? Becoming thirty or forty or fifty? Or even older? No way! That happens to others - not me! But as the years pile up, you'll find yourself kicking the idea of "old" farther and farther down the road. — Brigitte Nioche

The idea that 'Life' contains situations more interesting and more romantic than all the romances ever written. — Marcel Proust

Considering the 'Tomorrow People' are supposed to be the next step in human evolution, I think it's a fascinating idea that they can't kill. They've evolved in all these other ways, and they have these special abilities, but they can't kill. It's a very interesting concept. I really like it. I like the idea of it. — Luke Mitchell

Look, we can stand out here and argue about it for the next ten minutes, but you're getting in this truck."
My eyes narrowed. "Let me remind you of something. I don't know you. Like at all."
"And I'm not asking you to get naked and give me a private show." Pausing, his gaze seemed to drift down my body again. "Although, that is way interesting. A bad idea, but way interesting. — J. Lynn

Question (from a reader) : Will the Wise Goddess Athena overthrow Zeus and become the ruler of Olympus?
Athena's answer : What an interesting idea ... No, just kidding, Dad. Put away the lightning bolt. — Rick Riordan

I have always been absurdly, ridiculously tall. To give you an idea- when we went on school trips to Interesting and Improving Places, the form-master wouldn't say "Meet under the clock tower," or "Meet under the War Memorial," but "Meet under Adams. — Douglas Adams

I think the corruption of power is very interesting, and I think the idea that power is something that ... You know, when people want power, they're a certain individual. When people acquire power by accident, they're different again. — David Morrissey

A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. — Walter Bagehot

We have taken Herodotus as an interesting specimen of what we have called the free intelligence of mankind. Now here we are dealing with a similar overflow of moral ideas into the general community. The Hebrew prophets, and the steady expansion of their ideas towards one God in all the world, is a parallel development of the free conscience of mankind. From this time onward there runs through human thought, now weakly and obscurely, now gathering power, the idea of one rule in the world, and of a promise and possibility of an active and splendid peace and happiness in human affairs. From being a temple religion of the old type, the Jewish religion becomes, to a large extent, a prophetic and creative religion of a new type. Prophet succeeds prophet. — H.G.Wells

Further, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter
it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up independently, for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that they should not be the source of any idea. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Perhaps the most energetic and persistent advocate of the claim that time is illusory is the British physicist Julian Barbour. Impressively, Barbour has managed to do interesting research in physics for decades now without any academic position, publishing dozens of papers in respected journals. He has supported himself in part by translating technical papers from Russian to English - in his spare time, tirelessly investigating the idea that time does not exist, constructing theoretical models of classical and quantum gravity in which time plays no fundamental role. — Anonymous

Defenders of the prosecution seem to think that anyone charged with a felony must somehow deserve punishment. That idea can only be sustained without actual exposure to the legal system. Yes, most of the time prosecutors do chase actual wrongdoers, but today our criminal laws are so expansive that most people of any vigor and spirit can be found to violate them in some way. Basically, under American law, anyone interesting is a felon. The prosecutors, not the law, decide who deserves punishment.

Today, prosecutors feel they have license to treat leakers of information like crime lords or terrorists. In an age when our frontiers are digital, the criminal system threatens something intangible but incredibly valuable. It threatens youthful vigor, difference in outlook, the freedom to break some rules and not be condemned or ruined for the rest of your life. — Tim Wu

We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE! — Erasmus Darwin

If you directly try to write about an idea, it will never be what you imagined. But if you're imagining through the building of sentences, through the characters, and paying attention to avoid ease and comfort yet still thinking about making the sentences work, you will get a shot at some real interesting stuff. — Dana Spiotta

What I find interesting as a 40-year-old is the idea of trying to be a part of a pronounced, continuing independent culture. The basic tenet of America is that you rebel and then you get real. — Ian MacKaye

I had always spoken about the space between the art object and the person looking at it as this dynamic space, which I referred to over and over. So the idea of the space between two things was sort of interesting to me. — Robert Barry

For me, at some point, the idea of struggling through the process was not as interesting as doing tests and executing the painting after I figured out all of its elements and how they were going to work together. — Laura Owens

I've always found the idea of 'saving' your virginity intriguing: it's not as if we're packing our Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks. But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting - and dangerous - idea at play here is that of 'morality. When young women are taught about morality, there's not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined - think 'virginity' and 'chastity'): if we have them, when we'll lose them, and under what circumstances we'll be rid of them. — Jessica Valenti

Authentic interest is generated when students are given the opportunity to delve deeply into an interesting idea. — Kelly Gallagher

I love science fiction but I don't like fantastic [cinema]. For example, if you have a magical ring and you can explode the world with it. What are we talking about? You know, it's not interesting. I don't like Lord of the Rings. Even Star Wars, for me, I don't understand this kind of story. But Alien, because the rules of the game are very precise, it could happen. I love science fiction. I have an idea about robots in the future. — Jean-Pierre Jeunet

So, the whole idea, you see, is that everything's falling apart, so don't try and stop it. when you're falling off a precipice, it doesn't do you any good to hang onto a rock that's falling with you. see? but everything is doing that. and so, again, this is another case of our completely wasting our energy in trying to prevent the world from falling apart. don't do it. and then you'll be able to do something interesting with the free energy. — Alan Watts