T S Elliott Quotes & Sayings

Have you ever tried to use your eyes to tell someone that you want them, that because of them you're going to do the best you can to survive but that you're willing to die if that's the cost of putting yourself between them and anything that means them harm? That you don't care if they're playing you, or if what you have is really love, or if the two of you have a shot at lasting, that the very fact that they exist has made you come back to life in some way that's terrifying and exhilarating? A few seconds isn't long enough, especially when the person you're looking at is staring back as if she wants to pull you inside her and crush the two of you into one being. — Elliott James

I don't think you can create luck. You're either lucky or you're not. I don't know if it's really luck or if it's just curiosity. I think the main ingredient, or a main ingredient for photography is curiosity. If you're curious enough and if you get up in the morning and go out and take pictures, you're likely to be more lucky than if you just stay at home. — Elliott Erwitt

There's a transparency revolution sweeping the world. The more you can have transparency of payments, the more you'll be able to follow the money and the more you'll be able to see that payments for mineral rights in poor countries actually go to the people who need it, and don't get put into a kleptocrat's pocket. Transparency is terribly important for us. — Michael Elliott

Certain songs just feel a way that's hard to put into words and it's not happy and it's also not really sad but I couldn't say what it is — Elliott Smith

Q: What is a baby's motto? A: If at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again. Q: — Rob Elliott

No, because I don't want to hear what's hot and feel I have to copy it. I'll just make up my own thing. — Missy Elliott

I had a dog once. I thought so much of him that when he died I couldn't bear the thought of getting another in his place. He was a FRIEND - you understand, Mistress Blythe? Matey's only a pal. I'm fond of Matey - all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that's in him - like there is in all cats. But I LOVED my dog. I always had a sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog. That's why they're more lovable than cats, I reckon. — L.M. Montgomery

Even Crazy Horses is a good song, by the Osmonds. I've known many bands who have covered that. It's just a great song. I bought it in a brown, paper bag because I didn't want anyone to know I had it. — Joe Elliott

The Erdogan government's first major step outside of the U.S. alliance was during the Bush Administration, when it wouldn't let Washington use Turkey as a launching ground for U.S. troops entering Iraq in 2003. — Elliott Abrams

When you turn on your radio, you don't always want to hear about someone shootin' some person. Even if that's the lifestyle they live, people don't always want to hear it. — Missy Elliott

It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning. — Elliott Smith

A good meal is very important to me. When I have a bad meal, especially out, it's like I'm sitting in an airport during a flight delay. It's a part of my life I can't get back. — Josh Elliott

When I first started out in the music industry and went to Elektra Records, I didn't go to be an artist, I went to get a record label started. And they said in order to have a label deal, I had to be an artist - so that's what I did. — Missy Elliott

There isn't any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what's going on in Nicaragua. — Elliott Abrams

You're April's closest friend. I wasn't expecting you to fall into bed with me, but the two of you haven't exactly
been living a chaste lifestyle.
"I was". My voice is small.
"What?"
"Chaste. I made a promise." ...
"So there you are, drinking and taking drugs to the point of incapacitation, and you've been missing out on the
best part of debauchery?"
"I wouldn't know"
"If you want to know, tell me — Bethany Griffin

Donna E. Smyth - adventures with words; she is always doing something new and unique. Beginning with her visceral morality, her stories are startling, nerve wracking, provocative: she combines Angela Carter's beautiful style with Patricia Highsmith's malevolent atmospheres. Smyth shatters clichs and dismisses mere sociology. She knows that pleasure is besieged by terror. She tells us what we don't want to know, but need to know. Smyth's writing disturbs us, enrichingly, because truth can never be at peace with language. — George Elliott Clarke

What?" I said. "It's the smart play." "That's what," she responded. "This is usually the part where you explain how it's strategically necessary for you to go in there alone and naked with nothing but a pair of fingernail clippers." "I don't have to try to impress you anymore," I explained. "We're already having sex. — Elliott James

I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music that you don't really like as much as another kind. — Elliott Smith

But then, I was convicted by the simplicity of his need - my company. That's my significance. To provide company for my sweet boy while he's building a cave of throw pillows and couch cushions. I feel boring whenever I talk to someone who isn't in this same stage of life. But today Elliott reminded me that I'm not boring to him. And after all, what matters more than that? We — Melanie Dale

Code breaker Mabel Elliott's favorite quote was: It isn't life that matters! It's the courage we bring to it. — Hugh Walpole

I don't see kids with Palm Pilots. They are not common on college campuses, except among professors. Gen Xers don't need them. They are a phenomenon of the 50-something who can't remember if his broker's number ends in 1137 or 3317. — Elliott Abrams

I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television, — Elliott Smith

That was why I kept stealing books out of the parlor and returning them. For the only books I ever took were my father's journals. Didn't I have some right to them, being that they, and I, were all that remained of him? — Kate Elliott

I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection. But I have a problem with perfection. I don't think perfection is very artful. But there's something I liked about the image of a skater going in this endless twisted circle that doesn't have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it's just to make this thing as beautiful as they can. — Elliott Smith

At school, I was a shy lad and still am. But acting gives me licence to be up there, demanding the focus. It's the one time in my life where I don't have to shout to be heard. — Emun Elliott

I love you," she said, a little louder. A little stronger. She waited another handful of seconds before saying, "Now would be the time for you to say something, Elliott."
"I don't want to see you again."
Simone drew in a long, sobbing breath that hurt her in every single inch, but managed to find the voice to answer him. "That's not what I was hoping to hear. — Megan Hart

It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture. — Elliott Erwitt

I'm often given parts that aren't as big as they are colorful, but people remember them. When it's a minor or supporting role, you learn to make the most of what you're given. I can make two lines seem like 'Hamlet'. — Denholm Elliott

I see no difference between my pictures that people consider amusing and the rest. To me, it's all serious work - they're just a reaction to what I see. I don't leave this apartment in the morning and say to myself 'Today I'm going to be funny and tomorrow I'm going to be sad.' — Elliott Erwitt

White people's number one freedom, in the United States of America, is the freedom to be totally ignorant of those who are other than white. We don't have to learn about those who are other than white. And our number two freedom is the freedom to deny that we're ignorant. — Jane Elliott

I think a lot of times we're so told in our world that marriage is everything, and having a partner is everything. If you look at our movies and things, it's all directed around that love, and if you don't have that love, how sad you are. — Brooke Elliott

I don't think you can get to where you're truly meant to go until you travel that one road ... the one that's filled with sharp turns, steep hills, and nothing but pot-holes that you have to try and get around. After you make it off that road, you find the one that's straight, smooth, and filled with nothing but happiness. — Kelly Elliott

Manhattan's always fascinating, too, just a big, stinky, smelly conglomeration of numbered avenues and streets, but it's just got a vibe that's hard to beat. I shouldn't like it, but I do. I can't put my finger on it. — Joe Elliott

Why is thinking about crime or imagining crime so goddamn central to pop culture? It doesn't matter whether it's American TV or British TV. And there's entire sections of bookstores devoted to crime. — Elliott Colla

Emotions I've been working hard to hold back all summer start to spill out of me as I pull Elliott's mouth toward my own. I'm so eager and impatient that our noses bump and teeth knock together before our lips slide into place. The frigid water is still lapping at my legs, but I can't feel it anymore. My entire body is flush with heat, with desire. If it weren't for the faintest hint of dance music from the clearing, I'd think that the two of us were completely alone.

I wish the two of us were completely alone. — Paula Stokes

I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place. — Elliott Smith

It's the ones who can't let go - of fear or anger, lust or greed, vanity or pride or power - who are most at risk of becoming corrupted. — Kate Elliott

We are just fans of music, we are not fans of a specific kind of music. We just happen to be a rock band. Until we explain ourselves, sometimes people don't understand why we limit ourselves to just being a rock band. It's because that is what we like doing. — Joe Elliott

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy-the tone range isn't right and things like that-but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention. — Elliott Erwitt

There's so many people dependent on our work for their living or their livelihood. You do something whether it works or whether it doesn't. Once you're committed and you do it, it becomes a part of your life. I wouldn't be sorry about it. I'd learn from it. — Elliott Gould

I don't have a permanent place where I live. I'm in Atlanta about six or seven months out of the year. I gave up on my place in New York. I don't have a place in L.A., but sometimes when I go there for the hiatus, I stay in temporary housing. It's all over the place, and I don't know where I live! — Brooke Elliott

The Janitor: You're the only one around here that treats me like a real person.

Elliot: What did you say?

The Janitor: There was one other girl a few years ago: red-haired doctor. She used to eat lunch with me, until the other residents started making fun of her. They called her Janitor-lunch-eater. Not the most clever group...Anyway, I know that you don't think about me the way that I think about you. And I never really believed that you would or that you could. But just pretending for today made me feel good for a change.

Elliott: It's okay. I actually had a good time.

The Janitor: Thanks...Elliot. — Bill Lawrence

It's big production. It's huge. It's using studio technology to your benefit. You don't go in and play live and then just take the tapes and get them mastered. You have to create. — Joe Elliott

I read once that this man was in the chair and when the electrocutioner threw the switch the smoke came out of the man's head and formed a question mark over him and everybody said it was an omen, that maybe he didn't commit the murder they killed him for."
"Well," I said, "if they catch me, there won't be any question mark. There'll be an exclamation point. — Elliott Chaze

Today's status symbol is the Palm Pilot; tomorrow's is not having one, because you have a whole staff keeping track of you. It's like a winter coat in Washington: The ultimate status symbol isn't cashmere, it's no coat at all on the snowiest day of the year - because that means you have a car and driver waiting for you, so why do you need a coat? — Elliott Abrams

If you don't physically age gracefully, it's a bit sad. I think Steven Tyler can get away anything, because he still looks like he did in '73. Especially from row Z backwards in an arena. As long as the Stones keep their hair and don't get fat they'll get away with the wrinkles. — Joe Elliott

My parents have always worried that I'd take Amy too personally - they always tell not to read too much into her, And yet I can't fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right: When I finally quit violin at age twelve, Amy was revealed as a prodigy in the next book. ("Sheesh, violin can be hard work, but handwork is the only way to get better!") When I blew off the junior championship at age sixteen to do a beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game. ("Sheesh, I know it's fun to spend time with friends, but I'd be letting myself and everyone else down if I didn't show up for the tournament.") This used to drive me mad, but after I wend off to Harvard (and Amy correct those my parents' alma mater), I decided it was all too ridiculous to think about. That my parents, two child psychologists, chose this particular public form of passive-aggressiveness toward their child was not just fucked up but also stupid and weird and kind of hilarious. — Gillian Flynn

Finally, I formulate and say a little prayer to God, and since we haven't officially spoken since my mom and Elliott died that takes up quite a bit of my time.
The rest of it I spend on trying to determine what I think love really is and what I actually feel for Tally Landon at this point. Upon deep reflection, I realize that I must be at the edge of life's abyss. This is me. All there is left of me; and yet, I'm looking over and contemplating its meaning on whether to jump or stay. I'm not sure this feeling for Tally Landon is made up of love any more than it is of hate. This must be a kind of purgatory - the in-between place - because these pervasive feelings of rage and passion for Tally are equalized and actually co-mingle together - like fire and water - each ready to extinguish the other. I've come to accept the truth. There may be nothing left for us. It could go either way. — Katherine Owen

Music is worth doing just because. It doesn't have to be justified by some political point of view, and it's kind of insulting to the music to make it a tool for something else. — Elliott Smith

Making people laugh is one of the highest achievements you can have. And when you can make someone laugh and cry, alternatively, as Chaplin does - now that's the highest of all personal achievements. I don't know that I aim for it, but I recognize it as the supreme goal. — Elliott Erwitt

I just don't like the idea of going down that hole tomorrow with this thing hanging over you and me like..." She stopped and struggled for a good simile.
"Like an open airplane storage locker?" I offered.
(...)
"I like the 'open airplane storage compartment' thing better. It means there's a journey with lots of baggage."
"And things being balanced precariously," I added.
"And a lack of closure," she said.
"Ok," I admitted. "I could start bullshitting about frequent flier miles or something, but I cant really think of any more good ones. — Elliott James

Good photography is not about Zone Printing or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. — Elliott Erwitt

That's why you have to write your book right now, if that's what you want to do. If you wait until you have the time, and the security, you might not want to do it. You're in a race against your own enthusiasm. Don't put it off because someone told you it's never too late. That's the worst lie. It's never too late today, but it's often too late tomorrow. — Stephen Elliott

My wish and hope, every year, is that people's life chances - their chances of having a happy, prosperous, healthy life for themselves and their family and friends - should not depend on accident of birth. It shouldn't depend on where you're born. It should depend on who you are and what you do. But it shouldn't depend on the chance and the luck of being born in the U.S. or in a poor village in Sub-Saharan Africa or India or wherever it may be. — Michael Elliott

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it
there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter. — Elliott Smith

It's just that back then we didn't know that was considered being a coproducer. I would sit on the side and say what I wanted musically, but at the time we thought if you aren't the one playing it, you don't get the credit. Now you'll start seeing my name listed as producer. — Missy Elliott

You know you're in a college town when there's a restaurant called "Pancakea." The establishment was a pancake/coffee house, and Choo, Molly, Sig, and I were sitting in a booth arguing about the place and its name and their relative merits. I thought the name was a take on panacea, implying that pancakes are a cure for everything. Sig thought the owner wanted the place to become the IKEA of pancakes. Molly thought that given how large the pancakes were, the title might be a riff on Pangea, the first continental landmass. We all agreed that the owner was probably an ex-college student who couldn't get a job with his or her major, but we couldn't agree on whether that major was philosophy, marketing, anthropology, or just heavy drinking. — Elliott James

I have a hat for it, actually." Elliott made a vague gesture with one hand. "Well, it's more of a full-body suit, really."
"Is that a euphemism for a condom?"
"No." He marched past me and lay down on the bed. "My mother knitted me a willy-warmer a few years back when we were having a cold stretch. She felt I wasn't like to produce the grandchildren she desires if I had as she put it, frost-shriveled parts. — Katie MacAlister

I don't want to be known as a sex symbol. There's a great stigma that goes with that tag. I want to be a Sam Elliott. — Sam Elliott

TEN THINGS THAT PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T READ THE FIRST BOOK REALLY OUGHT TO KNOW.

I. One day, your father and mother were hugging, and they began to have special feelings. Warm feelings that tingled in their private places. It is likely they weren't wearing any clothes. At any rate, they began to rub against each other like two sticks trying to start a fire, and nine months later, you were born. If this is news to you, please put this book down now. There may well be big bad wolves and evil witches and fairies in the pages that follow, but I promise you, this isn't a children's story. — Elliott James

Professionally I've evolved with what's required, but the pictures I do for pleasure haven't changed, except for the cars in the background, the clothing. I haven't changed at all. — Elliott Erwitt

I believe in evolution and I think when it comes to business and the roots of business and the fundamentals of business, I don't think that ever changes. I think the idea of change is an illusion, but in nature it's necessary to change and perhaps business is a part of nature. I'm not totally sure. — Elliott Gould

In The Lost And Found (Honky Bach)"

He held his breath to hold your hand
To walk the stairsteps in pairs
Climbing up a slippery slope
I'm in love, love I hope
Don't go home Angelina
Stay with me, hanging around in the lost and found
He kissed you quick, feeling weird
Lonely leered, and disappeared
This is such a simple place
The passing time can't erase
Don't go home Angelina
Paint tomorrow blue
Day breaks
But every morning when he wakes he thinks of you
I'm alone, but that's okay
I don't mind most of the time
I don't feel afraid to die
She was here, passing by
Don't go home Angelina
Stay with me, hanging around in the lost and found
Stay with me, hanging around in the lost and found — Elliott Smith

It's easy to love someone you haven't let down. — Elliott Holt

There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing. — Elliott Smith

You don't just go with a majority because it's the majority. You go with it because it's right. If it feels right, do it. As long as it's legal. — Joe Elliott

So in a nutshell," he says, "something snapped. That's what people say, isn't it? But to be honest, now I hear myself saying it, I don't think that's right. I wonder if something mended. Maybe something joined up. — Rachel Elliott

The only currency isn't money. For me, it's about how can you build a good business that's also a social business. — Elliott Bisnow

With Los Angeles, it's kind of a love-hate thing. Sometimes I think it's marvelous, and sometimes I think it's a dump. It's so fake and I can't deal with how fake it is. — Joe Elliott

I'd love to work with Missy Elliott. I'd love to work with Bonnie Raitt. I'd love, love, love to work with Barbra Streisand. I'm reaching, because why not? You don't know what's going to happen in this life. — Jill Scott

You'd be amazed how much fun you can have if you get out of your own head. The problem is that now people are only interested in themselves. What we have is a non-voting generation. That's what they should call you guys, the non-voting generation. You think you can't fix anything until you fix yourselves. Well, let me be the first to tell you, you will never fix yourselves.
p.32 — Stephen Elliott

Out West all the smells are sucked up out of the baked land by the sun. And it's as if all the colors in the ground are gobbled up by their sunsets, and so is the blue of the sky. The sky is high and pale and impersonal and you get the feeling it doesn't belong to you at all, but that it is the property of the chamber of commerce. In the South the sky is humid and low and rich and it's yours to smell and feel. In the West you're only an observer. In the West someone sees a flower growing on a mountain and he writes a whole damned pamphlet about it. — Elliott Chaze

Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That's when magic comes in. And I don't know that there's any explanation for that. — Elliott Erwitt

I don't think it's important who I am. I really like playing music, but I don't really want to be anything in particular. — Elliott Smith

I don't really think of time off as writing blocks. I think that's a western notion of demonizing inactivity. When your imagination decides it needs to take a nap. maybe that's what it needs to do. — Elliott Smith

During the election campaign of 2000, it was generally thought that then-governor Bush didn't know much about foreign policy or national security affairs, and that Colin Powell would lead on that front, while the president's main concern would be domestic. — Elliott Abrams

The thing is that when you don't carry a camera, that's when you see pictures in particular, or at least that's when you think you see pictures in particular. When you do carry it, if you do see one on the occasion that you do, you can take it. — Elliott Erwitt

This country isn't a melting pot. Think of this country as a stir fry. That's what this country should be. A place where people are appreciated for who they are. — Jane Elliott

It's never going to get better than working opposite an actor like Jeff Bridges. That's as good as it gets. I don't even know what to refer to him as. He's just a great guy. He's iconic on his own merits. — Sam Elliott