Shaughnessy Quotes & Sayings

By relying on the statistical information rather than a gut feeling, you allow the data to lead you to be in the right place at the right time. To remain as emotionally free from the hurly burley of the here and now is one of the only ways to succeed. — James O'Shaughnessy

From the reader's point of view, punctuation provides a map for one who must otherwise drive blindly past the by-ways, intersections, and detours of a writer's thought. — Mina P. Shaughnessy

But on one man's soul it hath broken, / A light that doth not depart; / And his look, or a word he hath spoken, / Wrought flame in another man's heart. — Arthur O'Shaughnessy

You'll get nowhere buying stocks just because they have a great story. — James O'Shaughnessy

I got every Dan Shaughnessy book known to man. — Jimmy Fallon

Industries that make goods and services that people have to buy, regardless of economic circumstances, are bound to do well whatever the economic conditions. — James O'Shaughnessy

The truth seems to love the small print. — James O'Shaughnessy

A second red-orange spearhead leaps straight at O'Shaughnessy. The whole world seems to stand still. Then the gun behind it crashes, and there's a cataclysm of pain all over him, and a shock goes through him as if he ran head-on into a stone wall.
A voice from the car says blurredly, while the ground rushes up to meet him, 'Finish him up, you guys! I'm getting so I don't trust their looks no more, no matter how stiff they act!' ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

I love you, Quinn Shaughnessy. From the very first day when we snuck into my house and stole those chocolate chip cookies and then hid behind the jungle gym, I was hooked. — Samantha Chase

Brigid O'Shaughnessy: "I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know."
Sam Spade "You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere — Dashiell Hammett

If you're an investor who wants a little bit more from the capital-appreciation side of things, but still likes this concept of getting 'paid by the company,' then we would tell that investor to pursue shareholder yield. — James O'Shaughnessy

For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth. — Arthur O'Shaughnessy

You are not broken. You break again
and again because

that's what breaking means.
To be whole. — Brenda Shaughnessy

Now, Mr. Shaughnessy, remember what happened the last time your wife got jealous of your flirting? She exchanged your denture cream for hemorrhoidal ointment. — Leslie Kelly

I came to see that what constitutes strength is not just a muscle or will. It can also include the most desperate vulnerability, the saddest heartache, the lightest, sweetest laughter. — Brenda Shaughnessy

It seems unlikely that so much literature
could be made from twenty-six letters.
Doesn't it seem it could all be boiled
down to one sentence? — Brenda Shaughnessy

All gifts are riddles, all lives/are in the middle of mother-lives. — Brenda Shaughnessy

Strength means honoring your entire range of emotion, even your despair and heartbreak. — Brenda Shaughnessy

I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you. (Sam Spade to Brigid O'Shaughnessy) — Dashiell Hammett

What if all possible
pain was only the grief of truth? — Brenda Shaughnessy

Where can we
go if not to each other,
resenting every step? — Brenda Shaughnessy

Well," Paul said. "Hit a stiff hand against the dealer's seven through ace. Hit soft eighteen against the dealer's nine or ten. Stand on soft nineteen or above. Double on eleven and on ten against the dealer's two through nine. Split pairs of aces and eights, never split tens, fives, or fours. Split twos through sevens against the dealer's two through seven. Split pairs of nines against the dealer's — Perri O'Shaughnessy

'Days of Our Lives' was an insane schedule. You're doing a whole one-hour show in a day. You do a very cursory run-through with the director telling you where you're going to be standing, then you do a quick rehearsal on camera and you shoot it. — Charles Shaughnessy

If you're indexing to the S&P 500, you're buying the most expensive names in the market. — James O'Shaughnessy

If you are an investor who's retired and hopes to live off the income that your portfolio is generating, then we would focus just on the dividend yield. — James O'Shaughnessy

After months of rumors, inference, and horrible miscalculations, the impossible had happened. The U.S. Pacific fleet lay twisted anad burning at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in Honolulu. Had he been wrong about Japan not taking an offensive right now? God, he had thousands of men and women to think of, and he feared in his heart that it might not turn out the way he had seen it. He felt doomed, almost paralyzed by his gross miscalculation. He determined, however, that he would not let the word out about Pearl Harbor until he could meet with his American strategists and Philippine President Manuel Quezon. — Joyce Shaughnessy

Don't get me wrong. It's a lovely idea. It's very romantic. 'Just believe' and you can experience magic. It's why grandmothers the world over knit the word Believe into blankets for their grandchildren." His elbows resting on the arms of his chair, Mister Fox waved his hands in a vague, circular gesture. "There's just one little problem. It's completely wrong. It's backward. When you believe in something, you stop questioning it. You stop looking for answers and ignore other possibilities. Only minds that are truly open to possibility can see magic. It's people who aren't sure - of themselves, of the world, of their place in the world - who can see and experience magic. — Adam Shaughnessy

Fear, greed and hope have destroyed more portfolio value than any recession or depression we have ever been through. — James O'Shaughnessy

A breath of our inspiration / Is the life of each generation ... — Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Defensively the Red Sox are a lot like Stonehenge. They are old, they don't move, and no one is certain why they are positioned the way they are. — Dan Shaughnessy

History depends on who is telling the story. — James O'Shaughnessy

Would I dance with you? Both forever and rather die. / It would be like dying, yes. Yes I would. — Brenda Shaughnessy

You are freaking me out!" she said with a nervous laugh. "Who are you, and what have you done with Quinn Shaughnessy? — Samantha Chase

Strength means ... acknowledging each of those feelings, your questions and ideas and faith and terror, and meeting what comes with the full force of your heart. — Brenda Shaughnessy

If you look back to the most spectacular blow ups in history, you can always tie them to a couple things: They were extraordinary complicated strategies that maybe even the practitioners themselves didn't understand, and they were overleveraged. — James O'Shaughnessy

I do see the poet as someone whose role it is to push back against anti-intellectualism, anti-activism, and passivity in general. The purpose of this pushing back is to show that there are always infinite sides to a story, amazing unimagined perspectives on any narrative, and no limit to how weird and wild and unexpected our language and its meanings can get. — Brenda Shaughnessy

I've been melted into something
too easy to spill. I make more
and more of myself in order
to make more and more of the baby.
He takes it, this making. And somehow
he's made more of me, too. — Brenda Shaughnessy

Soaps are great. You learn to work very fast - some say superficially, but that's not really true. You do some very serious character work. I've never had any feelings about a stigma attached to it, and nowadays there seems to be less snobbery about what you do. More and more big names are doing TV and commercials and voiceovers. — Charles Shaughnessy

O'Shaughnessy is hitting Denholt on the side of his head with his free arm, great, walloping, pile-driver blows. The two of them stagger together, like partners in a crazy dance. Glass is breaking all around them. Gray smoke from the six shots, pink-and-white dust from the chipped brick-and-plaster walls, swirl around them in a rainbow haze. Something vividly green flares up from one of the overturned retorts, goes right out again. O'Shaughnessy tears the emptied gun away, flings it off somewhere. More breaking glass, and this time a tart pungent smell that makes the nostrils sting. The crunch of pulverized tube glass underfoot makes it sound as if they were scuffling in sand or hard-packed snow. ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

We believe that people moving their portfolios to an overweight in bonds will be disappointed over the long-term and will significantly underperform an asset allocation that over-weights equities. — James O'Shaughnessy

We continue to advise that investors remain committed to a patient, long-term outlook and that the best way to do well in stocks is to use a disciplined, time-tested strategy that has the benefit of empirically tested results over a variety of market environments. — James O'Shaughnessy

Secret, smug believers! God never gives you
more than you can bear, they like to say, as if
the strong should be punished for their strength:
We can bear it. So we got it.
But what about my baby? How weak does
a newborn have to be to escape God's burdens? — Brenda Shaughnessy

I'm fucking demanding, and you should know that if you ever feel like experimenting and ask me for a threesome, I'm most likely to cut off your dick and feed it to my neighbor's Chihuahua. — Taylor V. Donovan

The average investor does significantly worse than a simple index ... It's literally because of the way our brains are wired. — James O'Shaughnessy

It seems that the one thing that doesn't change is people's reaction to short-term conditions and their axiomatic ability to perpetuate them far into the future. — James O'Shaughnessy

Joy is a shadow cat that comes and goes when it pleases. A mere figment of mood, it slinks in from the ether and creeps beside you for a time, vanishing at the first sign of ownership. — Monica Shaughnessy

If the two meanings of 'heart' are 'center' and 'part,' then the word 'art' also forms a perplexing doubleness: it is something human-made with materials; that is, it is made of us. Art is life. And yet it is distinct from 'life.' Art is life's counterpoint. We make it, and in that making, art is pointedly not life. It is just made of us. — Brenda Shaughnessy

Arbitrage human nature. It's not going to change any time soon. — James O'Shaughnessy

What I like best about baseball is the continuity. Generation after generation can follow the game and get the same satisfactions year after year and bring to it the same interest and spirit. I want to take that with me into the next century. — Dan Shaughnessy

O precious is the pause between the winds that come and go, / And sweet the silence of the shores between the ebb and flow. — Arthur O'Shaughnessy

With this one kiss it was possible Riley Shaughnessy had ruined her for any other man. She'd dated plenty in her life, but no one had ever kissed her like this. And she had a feeling no one else ever would. — Samantha Chase

How anyone becomes herself/is a mystery. — Brenda Shaughnessy

Historically, we have always seen reversion to the mean. After stocks have had an unusually great 10 or 20 years, they typically turn in subpar results over the next 10 or 20, and after bad 10- to 20-year stretches, the next 10 to 20 tend to be above average. — James O'Shaughnessy

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say
For your tomorrow,
We gave our today. — Patrick O'Donnell

Who is my biggest inspiration? Wow ... I really, without wanting to sound 'aw gee shucks,' I'd have to say my wife who taught a rather uptight Englishman what there is to be got out of life. Susan is my greatest inspiration. She has more integrity than anyone I know, and integrity is more important than anything for a happy and successful life. — Charles Shaughnessy

Stocks change. Industries change. But the underlying reasons certain stocks are good investments remain the same. Only the fullness of time reveals which are the most sound. — James O'Shaughnessy

When you ten, you know more about your team than you ever will know again. — Dan Shaughnessy

There can be no question that the loss of TV manufacture in the United States was a disruption, but the loss had not been brought about by a disruptive technology or disruptive innovation. The key factor in disruption was the Asian approach to innovation, based primarily on process improvement and optimal design. — Haydn Shaughnessy

Death and life are, for most of us, too complex to comprehend, but Alex Lemon can pretty casually, accurately, and marvelously correlate them to heavy metal and birthday cake. — Brenda Shaughnessy

It takes will power and nerve to hold the stick that way, to keep his eyes open and watch the rocky face of the cliff, pine-bearded, rush up at them. O'Shaughnessy's mouth flattens, his face goes white. And then in that final fraction of a moment, he laughs, a little crazily - a laugh of defiance, of mocking farewell, and, somehow, of conquest.
'Here we go, baby!' he shouts, teeth bared. 'Now I'm going to find out what it really feels like to fly into the side of a mountain! ... '
There is only the storm to hear the smash of the plane as it splinters itself against the rock - and the storm drowns the sound out with thunder, just as the lightning turns pale the flame that rises, like a hungry tongue, from the wreckage. ("Jane Browns Body") — Cornell Woolrich