Patten Quotes & Sayings

The Giant rested back in his chair. "You've some stories left," he said. " I can smell them on your skin. — Brian Patten

The new morality does not consist in saving but in expanding consumption. — Simon N. Patten

We donate a lot of food to rescue organizations. — Dick Van Patten

The only honest reaction and true loyalty we get is from our animals. Once they're your friends, you can do no wrong. — Dick Van Patten

Havens reached into his ear and pinched enough of the latex with his fingernails to withdraw the device. He dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his foot. He didn't care if it was found. It was French-made. Procured for that very purpose.
F*** overwatch. Screw the French. — J.T. Patten

I've been to more racetracks than any other person I've met. Almost every track, missing only a few of the newer ones. — Dick Van Patten

I got what they called a diabetic stroke. Here's what it is, my left hand and my left leg. You know when your leg falls asleep? It's like that constantly. It's not painful, but it's so annoying. My leg is all tingly and my arm is all tingly. — Dick Van Patten

I was a child actor in radio, and there's not many of us left. — Dick Van Patten

It behaves more like a tribe than a democratic institution ... responding to custom rather than reason and using its own liturgy and language for the conduct of its domestic affairs. — Chris Patten

I believe in trying to get a balance between individual freedom on the one hand and social responsibility on the other. — Chris Patten

Throwing young men out of work, throwing people into poverty and ending business life don't promote stability in the Palestinian territories,. — Chris Patten

I never thought radio would fizzle out. — Dick Van Patten

All parts of the society need to feel that the police service is their police service, and that does not happen unless all parts of society are represented in the police — Chris Patten

You don't have to wait until people say they accept everything you say until you are actually prepared to sit down and discuss matters with them. — Chris Patten

I've probably had more jobs than any other actor living. — Dick Van Patten

We're very lucky people, doing something that we really love to do. I feel privileged to have been an actor all my life. — Dick Van Patten

However, the fact that American forces continued to work with the warlords and pay them gave them new power in their communities. They intimidated local people by telling them they could call in airstrikes on their satellite phones. And to the horror of many of the Europeans, Rumsfeld and other US officials would visit them as if they were important leaders. 'There is a certain illogic in trying to boost the authority of the central government on one hand and in conniving with local warlords on the other,' complained Chris Patten, the European Union Commissioner, when he visited Kabul in May 2002. 'There are things done in the short term which are unhelpful in the long term. — Christina Lamb

It's hardly the time for sense, I should think, since nonsense
has been serving us so well — E.J. Patten

Anyone who supposed that when Margaret Thatcher left Number Ten she was going to take a Trappist vow did not know that formidable politician. — Chris Patten

So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations. — Chris Patten

You have a laugh line; don't accentuate it. You get a bigger laugh. — Dick Van Patten

You're working with the same people, and there's a lot of recognition. I like to do series best. I really do. — Dick Van Patten

I was in 27 Broadway plays in a row as a kid, and in between, I learned how to play the horses from the stagehands. — Dick Van Patten

Sometimes, literally within a few minutes, you'd be off this amazing roaring scene and back at your hotel room, staring at the patten of the wallpaper. It's very surreal. You're back in your room, and it's dead quiet and really weird. — Andy Summers

We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue. — Chris Patten

I appreciate Eight is Enough. It made me recognizable. — Dick Van Patten

I've seen people that don't treat their animals well and yet their animals are still just as loving to them even though they're not treated that well. It's very hard to find that kind of loyalty and love and affection in human beings. — Dick Van Patten

I like to do TV series. I think they're so comfortable. You're doing the same part every week. — Dick Van Patten

To be hungry must be awful. — Dick Van Patten

If I was good each week, my father would take me to a different pet store each Saturday. I had a snake, horny toads, turtles, lizards, rabbits, guinea pigs ... I kept my alligator in the bathtub until it got too big. — Dick Van Patten

I look back with a mix of emotions: sadness for the people who are gone, nostalgia for times that have passed, but immense gratitude for the wonderful opportunities that came my way. — Dick Van Patten

A good
trap, like a good story, has to arise naturally from the environment.
It has to be seamless. If the prey suspects what's coming,
they'll bolt. — E.J. Patten

There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder. — Chris Patten

Hong Kong represents the kind of Asia with which both West and East are comfortable, ... It offers, in that sense, a vision for the future of Asia. — Chris Patten

We're feeding all these zoos. And that's getting bigger and bigger. — Dick Van Patten

I'm always working on our home, but I want to keep the old look to it. — Dick Van Patten

I've hit the Pick 6 for a hundred thousand a couple of times. A few more for 60, 70 thousand. — Dick Van Patten

I suppose I've always carried what is regarded as a bit of unnecessary baggage in Britain. I've always carried the charge that I am an intellectual in politics. — Chris Patten

And power without compassion is the worst kind of evil there is. — E.J. Patten

In life, the first act is always exciting but it is the second act - that's where the depth comes in. — Joyce Van Patten

It is almost always wrong that the time isn't ripe to decide something. That is always said of difficult problems. — Chris Patten

It used to be said all horse players die broke - you can't beat the races. But today, with the Pick 6's and Superfectas, you can. Not that the odds aren't against you, but a good hit, and it's hard to blow that back. — Dick Van Patten

We shall use the terms morality, behavior, conduct, or constructive action in the same broad way. It may sound strange to speak of the morals of an atom, or of the way in which a molecule conducts itself. But in the last analysis, science can draw no fundamental distinction between the conduct of an animal, a bullet, or a freshman, although there may be more unknown factors involved in one case than in the other. — William Patten

Multilateralism is not an easy option. We're going to find that the world is very difficult. And relationships between America and the rest of the world are very difficult. — Chris Patten

Sometimes the hardest things to believe are the only things worth believing at al. — E.J. Patten

A grape may become a raisin, and taste the sweeter for it, but even a raisin rot on the vine, if you do nothing for it. — E.J. Patten

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks. — Chris Patten

Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off. — Chris Patten

Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things
in the now, not as they were or will be, or as they might or
should be, but as they are, right now, in this moment. The
heart sees the now; the mind only sees the next. If you can't
learn to see the now, you'll never see what's truly there, and
then where will you be?"
"Trapped"
"Precisely. But if you take care of the now, the future will
work out as it should. — E.J. Patten

For nearly eight decades, I've had the great fortune of playing thousands of roles before millions of people. — Dick Van Patten

peccadillo. So far as my observation goes, men — William Patten

I remember how my mom would take me on the subway from Queens to Broadway. We'd go to the offices of casting agents. Many doors were slammed in our faces. I was just a boy, but I remember that well. — Dick Van Patten

You love with a fierce courage that I do not understand, and yet I wish that I could have it too. — Douglas Patten

Dreams larger
than ourselves we killed, not wanting
our smallness measured against them."
(poem: Having Taken the Necessary Precautions) — Brian Patten

Tom Bradford is a lot like the real me. He's a man who always put his career second to his family. As long as everything was OK at home, he was OK, too. — Dick Van Patten

When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers. — Brian Patten

In democracy everyone has the right to be represented, even the jerks. — Chris Patten

A good trap is like a good story: hidden and leading toward
one inevitable conclusion — E.J. Patten

Hong Kong's people will get what they want, despite China's objections. Freedom invariably wins in the end. — Chris Patten

I wasn't worried about unemployment. — Dick Van Patten

Havens turned again.
Someone else passed between the trucks.
That someone walked with less purpose than the other workers near the stalls. To Havens this meant a surveillance asset was on him and it probably was not an assassination attempt. It eased him back into relative comfort for just a moment or two more. — J.T. Patten

Dreams are merely life asleep.
Wake them up... — J.W. Patten

Undoubtedly, at the moment, the major cause of CO2 emission is what happens in developed countries. — Chris Patten

It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith. — Chris Patten

The family's first, and the career is second. I could get fired from a show. As long as everything's okay with my family, it really would not bother me. — Dick Van Patten

Death is the only grammatically correct full stop. — Brian Patten

How are you sacred to me? your lines are golden threads - your patter, my patten - I explore the liturgy of your words ... — John Geddes

Freakin' fairies, you're too damn small!"
"Dude, you're a faecist."
"A what?"
"A fae-racist, you're a faecist."
"That's not even a real word!"
"Patten pending, — S.L.J. Shortt

Of course, there were huge disagreements in the arguments of military intervention, .. There is no point at the moment on focusing on those disagreements. — Chris Patten

I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics. — Chris Patten

I may eat nine bowls of dog food, because eight isn't enough. — Dick Van Patten

But the ability to articulate what you are doing, to be clear about it, and to stick to it is, I think, the essence of political leadership. — Chris Patten

People don't like to feed live mice and rats to their snakes. Now we have a regular meat food that they will eat. Ninety percent of the snakes will eat this food and love it. — Dick Van Patten

Through silence only the good messages go unheard. — Brian Patten

My mother was aggressive - the typical stage mother. — Dick Van Patten

I've had a great life. It was exciting. I worked with the most interesting people, and I traveled all over the country. — Dick Van Patten

I was in 27 Broadway plays, and three of them got the Pulitzer Prize. — Dick Van Patten

[The poll tax] was a classic case of a good idea being entrusted to Chris Patten and becoming a terrible failure. — Norman Tebbit

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large. — Chris Patten

A wry smile crossed Havens' lips. Pork here in an overwhelmingly Muslim population was a stupid thought, even for self-talk.
OK, turkey bacon. — J.T. Patten

Life can be difficult sometimes, it gets bumpy. What with family and kids and things not going exactly like you planned. But that's what makes it interesting. In life the first act is always exciting. The second act, that is where the depth comes in. — Joyce Van Patten

We waited until we perfected the dog food, and then we worked on the cat food. Even though it's not going through the roof the way the dog food is, I think it will catch on eventually. — Dick Van Patten

On sighting mathematicians poetry should unhook the algebra from their minds and replace it with poetry; on sighting poets it should unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra. — Brian Patten

Those of us who had a perfectly happy childhood should be able to sue for deprivation of literary royalties. — Chris Patten

A trap, like a good
story, needs to hint at greater things without revealing them
until the prey is snared. — E.J. Patten

We're not trying to recreate Yugoslavia — Chris Patten

He continued along the route that he had reconnoitered the morning before. And the morning before that. He needed to change his route some to see if he was actually being followed. His instincts said he was clear, but his training ordered him to make sure. — J.T. Patten

It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day. — Chris Patten

Bloody my nose, freeze my nipples, give me blue balls, what else are you going to do to me today? — Jill Patten

I come from New York originally, but Californians have been wonderful about animals. These animals are so nice and so good and so sweet and intelligent. It's a crime not to help them. — Dick Van Patten

From the time I was 8 years old I was on almost every radio show there was. — Dick Van Patten

I used to go from one job to another. I started at seven years old in theater and used to go from one job to another. — Dick Van Patten

I've titled this book 'Eighty Is Not Enough' not just for the obvious play on words, but as a way of expressing the single idea that has governed my entire life, that every moment of life is precious, that every step we take is an adventure, that every day on earth is a gift from God. — Dick Van Patten

My four friends were John Kerr, who became a star, Paul Newman, Jimmy Dean, and Jack Lemmon. — Dick Van Patten

What you need is a chick from Camden,' Van Patten says, after recovering from McDermott's statement.
Oh great,' I say. 'Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother.'
Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England,' Price points out.
Where's dinner?' Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled on his napkin. 'Where the fuck are we going?'
It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases and stuff,' Van Patten says, shaking his head.
I'm not gonna wear a fucking condom,' McDermott announces.
I have read this article I've Xeroxed,' Van Patten says, 'and it says our chances of catching that are like zero zero zero zero point half a decimal percentage or something, and this no matter what kind of scumbag, slutbucket, horndog chick we end up boffing.'
Guys just cannot get it.'
Well, not white guys. — Bret Easton Ellis

I think that if politics is just about getting your backside on important seats, then it's a pretty worthless endeavor. — Chris Patten

It was just an accident; I was never going to come out here. — Dick Van Patten

I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by 'unbridled' you mean unregulated. — Chris Patten

We wanted a pet food based on sound scientific principles and truth, not marketing hype. — Dick Van Patten