Mcphee Quotes & Sayings

I make a habit of setting aside some time each evening to take out my knitting and work quietly on it, happily relaxing. I believe that it prepares me for sleep and washes away the cares of my day.
I will consider that intarsia, or Fair Isle with three or more colors in a row, prepares nobody for sleep and cursing loudly while flinging knitting around the living room is about as far away from soothing as you can get. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

If I don't like the way something unfolds, I reimagine it the way I'd rather have seen it happen.Memory doesn't dictate truth. — Martha McPhee

Catch and release fishing may be cruelty masquerading as political correctness — John McPhee

The sea is not all that responds to the moon. Twice a day the solid earth bobs up and down, as much as a foot. That kind of force and that kind of distance are more than enough to break hard rock. Wells will flow faster during lunar high tides. — John McPhee

I love the spirit of Halloween and the energy that comes with it. — Katharine McPhee

You know you knit too much when ... You take knitting to a wedding, in case there's a little time before the bride comes down the aisle. Double points if you are the bride. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Your average knitter, obsessed as we are with the art form, is quickly going to begin producing far more in the way of warm things than are needed by even an arctic-bound knitter. Knitting breeds generosity, true ... but perhaps in a hurry to avoid burying ourselves in hand-knits. There are only so many scarves one knitter can use. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I've been joking that 'On the Road' is the prequel to 'The Road.' I don't know if that's a very good joke. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

She has the sort of body you go to see in marble. She has golden hair. Quickly, deftly, she reaches with both hands behind her back and unclasps her top. Setting it on her lap, she swivels ninety degrees to face the towboat square. Shoulders back, cheeks high, she holds her pose without retreat. In her ample presentation there is defiance of gravity. There is no angle of repose. She is a siren and these are her songs. — John McPhee

Nonfiction-wha t the hell, that just says, this is nongrapefruit we're having this morning. — John McPhee

I haven't done a lot of studio movies, but studio movies and independent films are always just as fun as each other. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I think everyone has been different once in their life. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

By understanding the meaning of common dreams, you can identify issues that want your attention in your waking life. — Charles McPhee

'Slow West' is a film that I did with Michael Fassbender in New Zealand and Scotland. The director was John McLean. It's a film set in the 1800s. I play a young Scottish boy brought up in the royal family. I fall in love with someone who works on our land. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

The rules of Canadian engagement say that if we encounter a celebrity, we have to pretend we're not encountering a celebrity. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I thought that 'Twilight' would be a kind of girl movie, but it was cool. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I'm so unprofessional on set it's not even funny. — Katharine McPhee

You know I don't have any gimmicks really. I don't have any silly things that I say; I don't know, I guess I'm just going to have a really hot dress and a nice pair of shoes and just go out there and look fabulous and try to sing my best. — Katharine McPhee

You shouldn't fight change. You should be absolutely open to change. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Taking things from one source is plagiarism; taking things from several sources is research. — John McPhee

When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the seafloor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone. — John McPhee

I love listening to classical music. — Katharine McPhee

100 years ago, buying something you could make was considered wasteful; now making something you could buy is considered wasteful. I am not convinced this is a step in the right direction. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

'The Road' was my first American film, my first film in the snow. The first of everything. So, I was jumping into it, and that was pretty grueling. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

In Australia, I can just say to my mom, 'I'm going down the street.' And I can walk around pretty much all the places I know. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Mother like son' is a saying so true, the world will judge largely of mother by you. — John McPhee

It is a peculiarity of knitters that they chronically underestimate the amount of time it takes to knit something. Birthday on Saturday? No problem. Socks are small. Never mind that the average sock knit out of sock-weight yarn contains about 17,000 stitches. Never mind that you need two of them. (That's 34,000 stitches, for anybody keeping track.)
Socks are only physically small. By stitch count, they are immense. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

It's only knitting and it's one of the few times in your life when there are no bad consequences to a mistake. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

It feels good to be strong. — Katharine McPhee

In L.A., I live right across from Universal Studios. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

John McPhee's 1989 book The Control of Nature, for — Douglas Brinkley

I have always loved the Summer Olympics. — Katharine McPhee

Only once in the historical record has a jump on the San Andreas exceeded the jump of 1906. In 1857, near Tejon Pass outside Los Angeles, the two sides shifted thirty feet. — John McPhee

I'm geeky about video games. I don't stay inside a lot and just play them 24/7, but if I had the chance, I probably would. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Attitudes towards menstrual blood in contemporary Western culture still circle around the subject with a mixture of denial and horror, advertisements for sanitary products typically use blue liquid in an attempt to sanitize the reality of blood, weary old jokes circulate about not trusting anything that bleeds for seven days and does not die. Menstrual blood is constructed either as something that requires a hygienic makeover or as something unnatural and obscene, a further indication of the horrors of sexual difference and the threatening 'secrets' of the female body. — Ruth McPhee

I can understand why guys wouldn't be into 'Glee.' You know, that's a pretty heavy musical show. That show does, like, six songs in an episode. — Katharine McPhee

There is practically no activity that cannot be enhanced or replaced by knitting, if you really want to get obsessive about it. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I don't have to be a 'gazillionaire;' what's important to me is to just being able to work. — Katharine McPhee

If you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years, you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time. And then in a way you do not live at all, but in another way you live forever. — John McPhee

Many years ago, when I used to smoke, my lighter was often easier to find than my scissors. If I couldn't find the scissors, or was feeling too lazy to get up, I used the lighter to burn the yarn in one place to break it. Other than the smell, this worked fairly well. Later, when I found my scissors, I would cut off the little charred bits.
One day, I was knitting a cotton facecloth and needed to cut the end. I flicked my lighter, expecting to singe the one spot, thus breaking the yarn.
I will remember that cotton is highly flammable, and that the knitting Fates punish laziness. I will also remember that a flaming facecloth can be extinguished with a cup of coffee ... in a pinch. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Even if I weren't in Hollywood, I would feel pressure to look a certain way. — Katharine McPhee

The thing that influenced me most in relation to 'Nanny McPhee' were the Westerns I watched with my father. All the Spaghetti Westerns; all the Virginians; all the High Chaparrals. Because if you think about the form, it's a stranger from out of town. — Emma Thompson

I was a competitive swimmer in middle school and high school. — Katharine McPhee

There are twice as many knitters as golfers in North America. Still, if you walk into any airport in North America, you can find a golf magazine but not a knitting magazine, even though you can't golf on a plane. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

For those who want to understand the issues of the environmental crisis, Encounters with the Archdruid is a superb book. McPhee reveals more nuances of the value revolution that dominates the new age of ecology than most writers could pack into a volume twice as long. I marvel at his capacity to listen intently and extract the essence of a man and his philosophy in the fewest possible words. — Stewart Udall

We pass the billboard and I console myself in two ways. First, I know that most photographs taken are a gamble at best. Second and more important: I remind myself to find the pleasure in this moment, a time in which the red sky passes to black, children create unanticipated rhymes, and the stars fall closer to earth. — Laura McPhee

Christmas is a time of year that's so romantic. — Katharine McPhee

Advice for New Knitters
When choosing a pattern, look for ones that have words such as "simple", "basic", and "easy". If you see the words "intriguing", "challenging", or "intricate", look elsewhere.
If you happen across a pattern that says "heirloom", slowly put down the pattern and back away.
"Heirloom" is knitting code for "This pattern is so difficult that you would consider death a relief". — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I am just the person who didn't want to settle for not having everything I dreamed of. — Katharine McPhee

I still have to count on my hands! I'll be in a restaurant doing a tip and I'll be like, 'What's 20% of this?' — Katharine McPhee

[Jules] slides into a seat beside me with her hot lunch tray, sighing. "Four hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds till we're out of purgatory for the weekend."
"Maybe later," I murmur, still distracted by the day's previous events.
"So, let me show you how a conversation works. I say something, and then you say something back that actually relates to what I was talking about, as if you were even the least bit interested."
"Huh?" I say. — Jodi Picoult

I truly believe that God provides. — Katharine McPhee

If basketball was going to enable Bradley to make friends, to prove that a banker's son is as good as the next fellow, to prove that he could do without being the greatest-end-ever at Missouri, to prove that he was not chicken, and to live up to his mother's championship standards, and if he was going to have some moments left over to savor his delight in the game, he obviously needed considerable practice, so he borrowed keys to the gym and set a schedule for himself that he adhereded to for four full years - in the school year, three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day. — John McPhee

The best reason for a knitter to marry is that you can't teach the cat to be impressed when you finish a lace scarf. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

The essay is one of my favourite forms of writing, and I feel like what's inside is really personal, more so than with shorter pieces. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I think, obviously, everyone has a lot of favorite movies, but I really for some reason just love Quentin Tarantino's writing and directing style. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I will always buy extra yarn. I will not try to tempt fate. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I will continue to freak out my children by knitting in public. It's good for them. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Everyone has that inner voice, the one that's a Negative Nancy. I'd say to ignore that voice and to be confident and follow your heart. — Katharine McPhee

I will not let the non-knitters of the world decide how normal I am. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Knitters use knitting to value-add to the world. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

It took me years and years of trial efforts to work out that there is absolutely no knitting triumph I can achieve that my husband will think is worth being woken up for. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I've got to write about my character every day. I've got to find out where he lives, what bus he catches to school, and stuff like that. You've got to know every little thing about him so when you do it, it feels natural. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Dreams are self-created, but dreamers often do not understand the images that their own minds produce. Therein lays the essential paradox of dreams; dreams reveal that we all possess subconscious ability. Furthermore, our subconscious mind, as it is revealed through dreams, proves itself to be talented, artistic, insightful, perceptive and intelligent. — Charles McPhee

My dad teaches me. He teaches me everything. He's been acting for over 30 years, so he knows a lot. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Doves coo in the rafters above us as she sits down on the blanket, her loathed dress whispering around her. She pops a grape into her mouth and sighs. "This is so unreal. I feel like a princess."
She couldn't have given me a better opening for the conversation I've been hoping to have.
"Funny," I say. "I was thinking the same thing."
Delilah frowns. "You feel like a princess too? — Jodi Picoult

Knowing that Tom had a lot of connections in the television industry, I took the opportunity to pitch my sitcom idea to him that I had floating around in my head for years. According to Tom's frank assessment, a comedy about an Eastern Mediterranean peasant flying to America to live with his distant cousin and getting into crazy hijinks was a terrible idea. — Stuart McPhee

the editor-in-chief of Screw Machine Engineering, a magazine whose name a hyphen would have improved. In — John McPhee

I don't really like simple characters too much; it's too easy. I like a challenge, and I like characters you connect with on screen. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I think 'Paranorman' was a great adventure. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I love my body when I'm in the best shape I can be in. — Katharine McPhee

I'm not a perfect human being. — Katharine McPhee

He (Dave Brower) is an emotionalist in an age of dangerous reason. — John McPhee

It's kind of a Peter Pan thing: I want to stay a kid. I love it. But I guess you have to grow up someday. Everybody does. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

SABLE- A common knitting acronym that stands for Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

My friends in Australia, they grew up with me acting, so they're used to it. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I think indie films have more of a fresh, experimental vibe about them, whereas studio films know what they want and can basically get it. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

I like everything from hard-style techno to rock n' roll. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

The chances of running out of yarn on a project are directly related to the difficulty that you will have getting more. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Some miners' wives take in washing and make more money than their husbands do. In every gold rush from this one to the Klondike, the suppliers and service industries will gather up the dust while ninety-nine per cent of the miners go home with empty pokes. — John McPhee

New Orleans is awake all night, and every night is a party. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

On a certain scale, it does look like I do a lot. But that's my day, all day long, sitting there wondering when I'm going to be able to get started. And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that's the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket's going to have some water in it. — John McPhee

Travel by canoe is not a necessity, and will nevermore be the most efficient way to get from one region to another, or even from one lake to another anywhere. A canoe trip has become simply a rite of oneness with certain terrain, a diversion off the field, an art performed not because it is a necessity but because there is value in the art itself. — John McPhee

When D's cabin caught fire, D was out of the country. Half the town-Christians and drinkers alike-came out to fight the fire and loot the cabin. There were individual piles of loot, and fights over the piles. "That's my pile." "The hell it is, it's mine. — John McPhee

I enjoy going to church. — Katharine McPhee

America is a country with so much opportunity. I'm living the blessings of what this country offers. — Katharine McPhee

As usual, the sock yarns have no idea what is going on. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

When you are knitting socks and sweaters and scarves, you aren't just knitting. You are assigning a value to human effort. You are holding back time. You are preserving the simple unchanging act of handwork. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I'm always working with amazing people. They're just kind of put in my path. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Outside the basement door was a covered pen that housed a rooster and a seagull. The rooster had been on his way to Colonel Sanders' when he fell off a truck and broke a drumstick. Someone called Carol, as people often do, and she took the rooster into her care. He was hard of moving, but she had hopes for him. He was so new there he did not even have a name. The seagull, on the other hand, had been with her for years. He had one wing. She had picked him up on a beach three hundred miles away. His name was Garbage Belly. --John McPhee, Travels in Georgia (1973) — David Remnick

Five things I'd rather do than swatch for my new project
1. Get a spinal tap.
2. Scrub the bathtub after all three of my daughters have come home from "Sandbox day" at the park.
3. Babysit two-year-old triplets while simultaneously diffusing a bomb.
4. Bathe a cat.
5. KNIT MY NEW PROJECT. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

We are surrounded with people who think that what we have been doing for that one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely. They are considered normal, but they are stark, raving mad. — John McPhee

You don't knit because you are patient. You are patient because you knit. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

There is no wrong way to knit ... We should all agree to stop correcting each other and deal with the more important issue. How wrong crochet is. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

When I know I'm not doing any auditions, I go to the skate park on my scooter or my bike. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

Dreams are practical reflections of feelings and concerns that were present in your mind at the time you had the dream. You are smart and practical. So are your dreams. — Charles McPhee

Since I became a knitting humor writer, I seem to be understood a little better - at least for the purposes of social discourse. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

The goal of dream study is to increase one's contact with and access to the abilities of their subconscious mind. I became interested in dreams as an avenue to increase my knowledge of the subconscious mind, and increase my psychological and emotional effectiveness. I have been recording my dreams since I was seventeen. — Charles McPhee

On this scale, according to John McPhee in Basin and Range, the distance from the fingertips of one hand to the wrist of the other is Precambrian. All of complex life is in one hand, and in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history. — Bill Bryson

Sweaters need to be imagined, dreamed over. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee