Spectator Sport Quotes & Sayings

I got out of that immediately was that now, all of a sudden, rock music had become a spectator sport, that corporate labels and their bands were the new establishment, and punk was there to fight them the way the activist hippies must have fought what the establishment must have been ten years before. And it was interesting to see the reactions in different parts of the country. — Jello Biafra

Talking about one's feelings defeats the purpose of having those feelings. Once you try to put the human experience into words, it becomes little more than a spectator sport. Everything must have a cause, and a name. Every random thought must have a root in something else. — Derek Landy

Now tell me this. What would you consider the greatest spectator sport in the country today? Would you say it was baseball, basketball, football? ... It's politics. That's right, politics. Millions and millions of people following it every day in the newspapers, over the TV and the radio. Now mind you, they wouldn't get mixed up in this themselves for all the tea in China, but they know the names and numbers of all the players. And what they can't tell the coaches about strategy. Oh, you should see some of the letters I get. — Frank Nugent

Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport. — Al Kooper

I believe marriage is a spectator sport. — Elizabeth McCracken

If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport. — Patricia Hampl

Saving civilization is not a spectator sport. — Lester R. Brown

Morality is not a spectator sport. — Thomas Lickona

War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press have turned war into a vast video arcade game. Its very essence-death-is hidden from public view. — Chris Hedges

The only time I got the absolute most insanely nervous in my life was at the Olympic trials, because archery is a horrible spectator sport. Nobody goes and watches an archery tournament. Because the targets are three-quarters of a football field away. Who can tell who's winning? You can't even see your own target from where you are. — Geena Davis

Life is too precious to be a spectator sport. We are no longer merely fans, rooting for the winning team. We are the team. We are the grown-ups. Whatever you believe is true, now is the time to give your respectful, inquisitive, and compassionate self to it. — Vicki Robin

There is only one emotion that I know of which has absolutely no place in spectator sport and death to it - laughter. — Rene Maheu

My favourite spectator sport is watching people who should know better searching for something (and often claiming to find it) where it never could be. Women claiming to find feminism in Islam is a good one. — Julie Burchill

Environmentali sm isn't a spectator sport. You actually have to stand up and demand that we be vigilant in protecting our air and water. — Lisa P. Jackson

In one respect, it's easier to open a restaurant in New York because you get more media attention than anywhere else. Almost everyone will try a new place once, irrespective of the reviews, because it's a spectator sport. — Danny Meyer

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life. — Jackie Robinson

Politics, he tells him, is the greatest spectator sport in America. In 1966, Ronald Reagan used a different metaphor. "Politics," he said, "is just like show business."1 Although — Neil Postman

Life is not a spectator sport. — Jackie Robinson

In no other sport must the spectator move. — John Updike

For the amoral herd that fears boredom above all else, everything becomes entertainment. Sex and sport, politics and the arts are transformed into entertainment ... Nothing is immune from the demand that boredom be relieved (but without personal involvement, for mass society is a spectator society). — Merold Westphal

Describing good relatedness to someone, no matter how precisely or how often, does not inscribe it into the neural networks that inspire love. Self-help books are like car repair manuals: you can read them all day, but doing so doesn't fix a thing. Working on a car means rolling up your sleeves and getting under the hood, and you have to be willing to get dirt on your hands and grease beneath your fingernails. Overhauling emotional knowledge is no spectator sport; it demands the messy experience of yanking and tinkering that comes from a limbic bond. If someone's relationship today bear a troubled imprint, they do so because an influential relationship left its mark on a child's mind. When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it takes a limbic connection to revise it. (177) — Thomas Lewis

I'm a citizen in a democracy. To call me an activist would be redundant. It's not a spectator sport. If we all become non-participants, it no longer works. — Michael Moore

Why did God make tigers so good at catching prey, and at the same time make prey so good at getting away from tigers? You'd think that if God wanted one thing or the other to happen he'd have engineered it rather better. Maybe he enjoyed the spectator sport? — Richard Dawkins

I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo. — Ann Coulter

I'll have to figure it out for myself. That's thge problem with life. It's not really a spectator sport. — Heather Wardell

You cannot say, 'Go! Go! Rah! Rah! Good move!' People want some emotion. Chess is an art and not a spectator sport. — Garry Kasparov

Democracy is not a spectator sport. It is a difficult, hard, full-contact, participatory endeavor. — Cory Booker

We are making politics a spectator sport in which our only duty is to vote somebody into office and then retire to the grandstands. — David Gergen

To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we may possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other people at such a stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was. — Thomas Hardy

Whatever you do to recover from a loss, people will be critical because they believe that the only way to recover is their way. And you will even run into some people who should be run into by rhinos because they actually don't want to see you get over your tragedy at all; grief is a spectator sport for them. — Joan Rivers

I do feel for me that cinema has somehow ceased to be a spectator sport. I get tremendous excitement out of making it rather than watching it. — Peter Greenaway

Unlike my esteemed colleague Garry Kasparov, I don't restrict the strength of opposition to Elo <2000, as fly-swatting makes poor spectator sport. (on simultaneous exhibitions) — Nigel Short

I enjoyed watching good-looking idiots looking at each other. A great spectator sport. — Jeff Lindsay

Chess will always be in the doldrums as a spectator sport while a draw is given equal mathematical value as a decisive result. — Michael Basman

Christianity is not a spectator sport, it's something in which we become totally involved. — Billy Graham

People tell me, "I'm glad you said that." But this is not a spectator sport. This is an activity that requires daily moral awakening as well as a commitment that leads to real change. — Bill Bradley

Life is not a spectator sport; it requires full pads and full participation. — Toni Sorenson

The stakes ... are too high for government to be a spectator sport. — Barbara Jordan

I don't regard nature as a spectator sport. — Ed Zern

I think that there's some brainwashing going on with this idea that we don't have time to cook anymore. We have made cooking seem much more complicated than it is, and part of that comes from watching cooking shows on television-we've turned cooking into a spectator sport ... My wife and I both work, and we can get a very nice dinner on the table in a half hour. It would not take any less time for us to drive to a fast-food outlet and order, sit down, and bus our table. — Michael Pollan

Wow, Angela and Holly," Ash said, sounding awed. "Hot."
"Excuse me, what is wrong with you?" Kami demanded. "Other people's sexuality is not your spectator sport."
Ash paused. "Of course," he said. "But - "
"No!" Kami exclaimed. "No buts. That's my best friend you're talking about. Your first reaction should not be 'Hot.' "
"It's not an insult," Ash protested.
"Oh, okay," Kami said. "In that case, you're going to give me a minute. I'm picturing you and Jared. Naked. Entwined."
There was a pause.
Then Jared said, "He is probably my half brother, you know."
"I don't care," Kami informed him. "All you are to me are sex objects that I choose to imagine bashing together at random. Oh, there you go again, look at that, nothing but Lynburn skin as far as the mind's eye can see. Masculine groans fill the air, husky and..."
"Stop it," Ash said in a faint voice. "That isn't fair. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Perhaps future space probes will be plastered in commercial logos, just as Formula One cars are now. Perhaps Robot Wars in space will be a lucrative spectator sport. If humans venture back to the moon, and even beyond, they may carry commercial insignia rather than national flags. — Martin Rees

Humanity is a spectator sport. God is the spectator. — Forrest Carr

Drinking is not a spectator sport. — Jim Brosnan

Philosophy is not a spectator sport. — Nigel Warburton

We have been deformed by educational and religious institutions that treat us as members of an audience instead of actors in a drama, so we become adults who treat democracy as a spectator sport. — Parker Palmer

Mathematics is not a spectator sport! — George Polya

Sex in the nineties is boring. The problem is that it has gone from an active act to a spectator sport. We watch people make love on television and in films. We call 900 numbers to hear what someone would do to us if they weren't sitting in a boiler room of other dirty talkers reading from a prepared script. — Erma Bombeck

There are so many wizards of the computer, stock market, test tube, and spectator sport, but so few of the art of life. — Mantak Chia

Democracy is not a spectator sport — Bernie Sanders

I'm doing a book, 'Chasing Science,' about the pleasures of science as a spectator sport. — Frederik Pohl

For most Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport. — Paul Krugman

Mathematics, you see, is not a spectator sport. To understand mathematics means to be able to do mathematics. And what does it mean [to be] doing mathematics? In the first place, it means to be able to solve mathematical problems. — George Polya

You keep meaning to cultivate an expertise in spectator sport. More and more you realize that sports trivia is crucial to male camaraderie. You keenly feel your ignorance. You are locked out of the largest fraternity in the country. — Jay McInerney