Stillman Quotes & Sayings

If liberty with law is fire on the hearth, liberty without law is fire on the floor. — George Stillman Hillard

Raised in the Episcopal church, I was once removed from my pew, at age six, because I could not control my weeping. Unbeknownst to anyone, I had been staring at a terrible, glorious stained-glass window of the crucifixion and grieving for the pain Christ must have endured. The arresting mosaic of that forlorn image etched itself indelibly upon me. And yet at some point, I became emotionally and empathically detached. — William Stillman

The Cha-Cha is no more ridiculous than life itself. — Whit Stillman

I wanted to think about ways to get an American readership concerned with what is happening in Mexico, but also to reframe it as a problem Americans share. — Sarah Stillman

I've killed my soul by playing the victim. — Peter Stillman

You can't go by what the governments say or do. It's not the governments. It's on the street where there's more hatred of Americans in Britain than in France. — Whit Stillman

There's a big difference between having relatives who have money and actually having it yourself. Just because you have a cousin who has a lot of money doesn't mean he shares it with you. Or that you'd ask him for a loan. — Whit Stillman

One might feel indignant at the injustice which deals out what is called fame with so unequal a hand, were it not for the reflection that men who are competent to add to the intellectual wealth of the world, and enlarge the domain of knowledge, have learned to take popular applause at its true value, and to find in the faithful discharge of honorable duty a satisfaction which is its own reward. — George Stillman Hillard

The desert doesn't care who you are, and neither does anyone or anything who lives in it. — Deanne Stillman

We bring these delightful creatures into the world - eagerly, happily - and then before long they are spying upon and judging us, rarely favourably. Having children is our fondest wish but, in doing so, we breed our acutest critics. It is a preposterous situation - but entirely of our own making. — Whit Stillman

Sometimes you don't realize how dependent you are on just a few people, and if they disappear, suddenly you can be thrown on your own resources, which may be limited, and you're really in a fix. So I think that's authentic to the experience that it might be very lonely. — Whit Stillman

Find someone hypersocial and crazy and try not to follow them to their doom, but to make friends with their nicer friends. — Whit Stillman

Occupation is the armor of the soul. — George Stillman Hillard

One thing I've discovered is that I never think of something that didn't work out as just "something that didn't work out." I think so often with investigative work, things that initially look like failures wind up leading to your biggest stories. — Sarah Stillman

So something I've felt I've learned with The Cosmopolitans shoot is using some agility and changing things quickly. That's something I found really useful on this shoot too. The gestation of The Cosmopolitans and this are slightly different from my other films. The script would be done and I'd be cutting it, but I wasn't always writing new material. — Whit Stillman

Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it. — George Stillman Hillard

If he held me in true regard he would not believe such insinuations in my disfavour. A worthy lover should assume one has unanswerable motives for all one does!" "Certainly - — Whit Stillman

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory. — George Stillman Hillard

I think the daily challenge for a lot of beat reporters is, how do you get past the regurgitated sound bites of powerful people or evasion masters who are so used to this routine - the theatricality of press conferences and stage-managed interviews and teams of handlers? — Sarah Stillman

Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing. — George Stillman Hillard

A statesman makes the occasion, but the occasion makes the politician. — George Stillman Hillard

You know, I'm a total perfectionist, and I labor over trying to get things right. Whether we're putting together an opening for the Masters broadcast or when I was writing with my friend Eli Stillman a book about my dad called 'Always By My Side,' I'm always trying to find a way to do something better. — Jim Nantz

I always knew I wanted to write, but I didn't know that I would want to do investigative reporting - in part because it seemed so ill-suited for my personality, or I thought it was ill-suited for my personality, insofar as I'm not very aggressive, and I'm not confrontational. — Sarah Stillman

I think crazy people are helpful, crazy people who are the catalysts who make other things happen for everyone else. It's almost as if they're not really making things happen in their own life, but their hyperactivity is triggered for everyone else. — Whit Stillman

There was reason for STILLMAN'S EXTREME SECRECY. HE WAS PREPARING TO EXTEND THE CITY BANK'S POWER OVER THE EARTH AND FULLY RECOGNIZED THAT THIS AMBITION WOULD DRAW HIM INTO THE WEB OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL INTRIGUE AND ESPIONAGE — George B. Cortelyou

When everyone's focused on the conventional parts of war - doing infantry imbeds or chasing IEDs - you look at the thing that seems not that interesting to people, like the circumstances of logistics workers cooking the troops' food or cleaning their latrines. — Sarah Stillman

I try to come to my reporting as a real, whole person, not an automaton. — Sarah Stillman

One thing I've discovered is that if you remain in contact with people, if you build longitudinal relationships, if you invest in sources who seem at first like they're uncomfortable or unwilling to talk, if you keep in touch with them, a year later that might yield something much more powerful. — Sarah Stillman

For me, the part of reporting that's the most rewarding and energizing is just hearing directly from people whose voices haven't often been heard, or incorporated into mainstream media. That stuff is really, really gratifying, and so to realize that you could make a career of that part of it, that appealed to me. — Sarah Stillman

I would say on the other side of the equation that there were really some massive sales and massive enthusiasm for some films that were given big releases. And I'm not really sure that happens in quite the same way, small films getting big releases. Maybe it still does, I don't know. — Whit Stillman

It may be too much to expect that nations should be governed in their relations towards each other by the precepts of Christian morality, but surely it is not too much to ask that they should conform to the code of courtesy and good breeding recognized among gentlemen in the intercourse of social life. — George Stillman Hillard

Often, I'm spending months with a person in a very intimate context, getting to know the ins and outs of what they ate for breakfast, not to mention dredging up the most traumatic experiences of their lives, digging through their documents and photographs from difficult times, all of that. And that process, I think, can be extraordinarily strange for subjects who've never been interviewed before, especially if you don't acquaint them from the get-go with what you're trying to do, what it entails, and why you care. — Sarah Stillman

The shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope. — George Stillman Hillard

The journalist's job isn't to be someone's friend, or their psychologist, or anything other than what we actually are. And at the end of the day, that can definitely seem like such a strange, extractive relationship. — Sarah Stillman

I found it really astonishing that undocumented migrants were kidnapped so routinely, that it was such a commonplace part of the journey for people trying to reach the US, and that we hear almost nothing about it here. — Sarah Stillman

I think it's helpful to aspire to make films if you feel that other people are not doing what you want to do. — Whit Stillman

A man so easily influenced is to be treasured." "As — Whit Stillman

Often, my central challenge is figuring out how do I build trust, how do I acquaint people who've just endured some terrible event - losing their child to murder, say, or being sexually assaulted - with the bizarre and sometimes invasive nature of in-depth interviews that aren't just a quick list of ten questions? — Sarah Stillman

Writing's deeper function is to serve as a way to find shapes and names for the world as you have come to know it; to find on paper what you know and feel. — Peter Stillman

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius. — George Stillman Hillard

I decided the moment I graduated from college that I would never wear blue jeans again. And I have never worn blue jeans again. — Whit Stillman

William Stillman's Autism and the God Connection is a sensitive and illuminating work which could dramatically change how we view autism. — Carol Bowman

There's some people who are just very dynamic about social life, and it can be some pretty crazy stuff, but you end up meeting people you like. — Whit Stillman

I tried the Scarsdale diet and the Stillman water diet (you remember that one, where you run weight off trying to get to the bathroom). — Dolly Parton

I explained to Amazon that I don't like outlining or projecting what something's going to be. I like to allow a story to arise as I'm writing scripts. I find it horrible when I try to think of something for the plot without really being on the ground and seeing where it goes. I was really resistant to do the mini-bible. So I gave them something, but I really didn't want to do it that way. — Whit Stillman

I've had no money, absolutely, from my family. They paid for a good education - or schools that purported to be a good education - but, um, not a dime. — Whit Stillman

I tend to gravitate toward the "act two," or "act three," or "act four" stories - either things that are underreported, where we think we already know the common narrative, or things that are at the margins of an over-reported story, where we're all so focused in one direction that we're missing something crucial that's unfolding off to the side. — Sarah Stillman

A sluggish, dawdling, and dilatory man may have spasms of activity, but he never acts continuously and consecutively with energetic quickness. — George Stillman Hillard

Nothing is more binding than the friendship of companions-in-arms. — George Stillman Hillard

I think it's really good and helpful to have the people you most admire in some other discipline than what you work in. It's too intimidating and derivative to be just totally gobsmacked by someone doing exactly the same thing as you are. — Whit Stillman

Here I am of the air, a beautiful thing for the light to shine on. Perhaps you will remember that. I am ... — Paul Auster

Characteristic of the overall difference between Boston and New York, the population at the Acropolis was far less forlorn. Its customers were just those who, for whatever reason, wanted to eat coffee-shop food at very strange hours. — Whit Stillman

There are pictures by Titian so steeped in golden splendors, that they look as if they would light up a dark room like a solar lamp. — George Stillman Hillard

William Stillman continues his fascinating exploration of the myriad connections between autism and human personality. The Soul of Autism makes a strong case for why we should embrace rather than fear the differences between us. — Dean Hamer

I feel like I partly came to writing through being in college during the start of the Iraq war, and knowing that those issues mattered lot to me, and wanting to go see for myself. — Sarah Stillman

I think most of us, as writers, have had experiences where you get edited and it doesn't feel like your voice at all. And so it's been nice to go through the experience of having a lot wind up on the cutting-room floor, and yet still feel that your voice is being - not purified, but made more yourself. I think that's a very rare thing. — Sarah Stillman

A great man is a gift, in some measure a revelation of God. A great man, living for high ends, is the divinest thing that can be seen on earth. The value and interest of history are derived chiefly from the lives and services of the eminent men whom it commemorates. Indeed, without these, there would be no such thing as history, and the progress of a nation would be little worth recording, as the march of a trading caravan across a desert. — George Stillman Hillard

Great men are among the best gifts which God bestows upon a people. — George Stillman Hillard

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return. — George Stillman Hillard

The tremendous challenge of narrative journalism about subjects that are underreported is, how do you make people care about something they think they already know about, or think they don't need to know about? — Sarah Stillman

Bomb Disposal Is a face off with your own mortality. Don't let the fear get to you. When you give in to the fear, the Darkness Comes. — Peter Stillman

So much of our cultural representation of what an investigative journalist looks like, in movies and pop culture, is about this really testosterone-filled dude screaming, "Give me what you got!" I didn't see myself as someone who would be good at or comfortable with that. — Sarah Stillman

So welcome 'Damsels in Distress,' an exhilarating gift of a comedy about college, the female intellect, the limitless male ego, inventing a new dance, and suicide prevention ... This is the world as Stillman sees it, and to luxuriate for two hours in that retro bubble of sparkling wit is a pleasure not to be missed. — Peter Travers

Ginny who lived her life with hair in the breeze, Stillman who lived his with it under his hat. And he loved her so much the worse for it. — Josh Weil

Ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy. — George Stillman Hillard

People are sometimes losing their homes before being convicted of a crime, or their cash or their cars. — Sarah Stillman

a favourite master, Mr. Grove, liked to say that if we learned to master the semi-colon we could expect to be successful in whatever path we chose in life. One — Whit Stillman

Thinking through how you find that intersection between individual, compelling human narratives and structural, systemic injustices - that's the place that's most interesting to me as a reporter. — Sarah Stillman

Even at a young age one sometimes recognizes that there are behavior patterns that would simply be a waste of time for everyone concerned, which leads you to put them out of your mind or avoid them until you reach a certain stage of inebriation, whereupon everything is reconsidered again. — Whit Stillman

For me, the present is a golden era. That's the greatest golden era. Right now. I just like pining for lost times. — Whit Stillman

For my boyhood's friend hath fallen, the pillar of my trust,
The true, the wise, the beautiful, is sleeping in the dust. — George Stillman Hillard

Excellence in art is to be attained only by active effort, and not by passive impressions; by the manly overcoming of difficulties, by patient struggle against adverse circumstance, by the thrifty use of moderate opportunities. The great artists were not rocked and dandled into eminence, but they attained to it by that course of labor and discipline which no man need go to Rome or Paris or London to enter upon. — George Stillman Hillard

Man is an animal that cannot long be left in safety without occupation; the growth of his fallow nature is apt to run into weeds. — George Stillman Hillard

I learned a lot, investigative methodology - wise, from litigators - watching their process. — Sarah Stillman

Workers are actually being starved on the largest military base in Baghdad, and women are being raped with impunity - and because it doesn't fit into a Hollywood context it's not going to fly. — Sarah Stillman

The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness serving to make them the most fitting symbols of those delicate sentiments for which language itself seems almost too gross a medium. — George Stillman Hillard

There are no eyes so sharp as the eyes of hatred. — George Stillman Hillard

The malignity that never forgets or forgives is found only in base and ignoble natures, whose aims are selfish, and whose means are indirect, cowardly, and treacherous. — George Stillman Hillard

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power. — George Stillman Hillard

There is space for a different kind of investigative reporting that's about immersion and obsessive attention to detail and deep listening. — Sarah Stillman

It's terrible to write what are essentially comedies for people with no sense of humor. Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but observably not. — Whit Stillman