Viola Quotes & Sayings

Stop thinking that nuns are sweet and kind like Maria in The Sound of Music. That's just a movie. Think of the evil old bruja in 'Hansel and Gretal. — Viola Canales

If you look at landscape in historical terms, you realize that most of the time we have been on Earth as a species, what has fallen on our retina is landscape, not images of buildings and cars and street lights. — Bill Viola

Tell me about the loons," Lolly would always reply. And he would. "They mate forever, just like humans," he would tell her. "They always come home, to the same place, same lake, every year, as soon as the ice thaws. They are territorial, and mates will defend their home from other loons. Small lakes can only accommodate one pair of loons, so they are always together, and they always talk to each other. — Viola Shipman

When a sex tape gets made a star is born with a publicity agent on speed dial a six figure payout and a line of tacky lingerie in the works — Saira Viola

Don't initiate! Follow the initiator! Follow the follower. — Viola Spolin

I've always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure. — Viola Davis

And what exactly do you think this proves?" he spits. "You've got power, but you don't know what to do with it."
VIOLA
"Looks like I'm doing fine," I say. — Patrick Ness

I just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, "Do you know how fabulous you are?" — Viola Davis

The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, fellow players, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful. — Viola Spolin

II know very, very little about the ukulele, but I actually grew up playing the viola from 4th grade through high school. — Kris Allen

People have experiences in art museums today that they used to have in church. — Bill Viola

As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves! — Jan Karon

The best way would be education and kids and all that stuff and then education and working education comes through. Then I started a music school and the music school now teaches kids to play the violin and the viola. — A.R. Rahman

The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece. — Elliott Carter

We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. — Viola Spolin

We ain't spies," I say in a hurry.
"The army your girl's been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road," Doctor Snow says. "One of our scouts just reported them as less than an hour away."
"Oh, no," I hear Viola whisper.
"She ain't my girl," I say, low.
"What?" Doctor Snow says.
"What?" Viola says.
"She's her own girl," I say. "She don't belong to anyone."
And does Viola ever look at me. — Patrick Ness

It's always hard to be private in public, which is what acting is because you have to do thing really emotionally naked. — Viola Davis

There's always a choice," Viola says by my side.
"Oh, people like to say that," the Mayor says. "It makes them feel better. — Patrick Ness

It's an important moment. I just feel like I want it to happen tonight, either for myself or Viola [Davis] so we can get past it, so it's not big news anymore. I mean, it is 2015. We have a black president. — Taraji P. Henson

My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important. — Viola Davis

Mr Davis was a middle class tremble of a man worried about an unseemly display and his Jerry Springer moment — Saira Viola

Reality Tv had become the preferred drug of choice for the George Clooney obsessed housewives strung out on empty promises and splintered dreams — Saira Viola

The world is fine and everything is normal and then, bang, you just get bowled over by the wrathful deities somehow. That happens in very small ways and happens in very large ways when you have a major conflagration in the world. It's another cycle of existence of human beings. — Bill Viola

And right on cue, Viola yells, " TODD! "
And I hit him with everything I got -
Every bit of her behind me -
Every piece of anger and frustrayshun and nothingness -
Every moment I didn't see her -
Every moment I worried -
Everything -
Every little tiny thing I know about her -
I send it right into the center of him -
VIOLA — Patrick Ness

Viola hadn't seen Sunny for nearly ten years and in the interim he had turned into a complete human being. ("Perhaps the two things aren't unrelated," Bertie said.) — Kate Atkinson

Viola Davis should be a household name. So should Angela Bassett. — Rutina Wesley

There's only one way to tackle life, enjoy a day at the beach, and jump into a Great Lake: Headfirst! — Viola Shipman

When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive. — Viola Davis

[Meryl Streep] just sent me an email, and I was like, "That's perfect." She was like, "Yes, Viola, now that you've just had your vow renewal ... this is the best part of your life now. There's not anything that you don't know anymore in terms of what's good and bad out there, so now you can just fly." She's always imparting wisdom like that. — Viola Davis

The viola and the clarinet made for an interesting pairing: we had to imagine the accompaniment of other instruments, ideally a violin and a cello. — Nicholas Christopher

His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-
See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-
"Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-
And he says, "Viola-?"
And I pull myself towards him-
And I kiss him.
And it feels like, finally. — Patrick Ness

Martyrdom is a lonely business.
Jukebox — Saira Viola

I don't just want to be a cute girl in a comedy or the actress who just does the same thing over and over again. I want to play roles that are distinct. I want to have a more varied career like actresses Viola Davis or Angela Bassett - those are the people that I grew up watching and admiring. — Naturi Naughton

I rub the ears of my dog, my stupid goddam ruddy great dog that I never wanted but who hung around anyway and who followed me thru the swamp and who bit Aaron when he was trying to choke me and who found Viola when she was lost and who's licking my hand with his little pink tongue and whose eye is still mostly squinted shut from where Mr. Prentiss Jr. kicked him and whose tail is way way shorter from where Matthew Lyle cut it off when my dog - my dog - went after a man with a machete to save me and who's right there when I need pulling back from the darkness I fall into and who tells me who I am whenever I forget. — Patrick Ness

You can't schedule fun, and you can't put it off for the future. At some point, you just have to say to heck with everything and dive in headfirst. — Viola Shipman

They say the two most important days in a persons life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born. — Viola Davis

I think we're in an age where artists really have an incredible range of materials at their command now. They can use almost anything from household items - Jackson Pollock used house paint - to, you know, advanced computer systems, to good old oil paint and acrylic paint. — Bill Viola

And I know I've lost.
Everything is lost.
Everything is over.
"As the newly appointed President of this fair planet of ours," the Mayor says, holding out his hands as if to show me the world for the first time," let me be the very first to welcome you to its new capital city."
"Todd?" Viola whispers, her eyes closed.
I hold her tightly to me.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to her. "I'm so sorry."
We've run right into a trap.
We've run right off the end of the world.
"Welcome," says the Mayor," to the New Prentisstown. — Patrick Ness

I started off in drama, and there are so many women that I admire. Women in this industry are gladiators. Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Taraji Henson, Regina Hall, Regina King. — Bresha Webb

Human beings have always been creative. The guys who were making the pyramids.. and archaeological research has showed us this.. had little figurines made by the workers, to express their devotion to their god. — Bill Viola

You can always tell in a movie when they are setting you up for something. If someone leaves an important object on the table and walks away, the camera will have some way of indicating that to you. — Bill Viola

I think that I'm coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world. — Viola Davis

Next an Intimacy Consultant named Anita arrived. When Anita walked in she looked very studious. However, when she started to set up I would have never guessed that she did this for a living. First came all types of lingerie; see through, lacy, racy, edible, and even costumes.
"Okay," Phoebe cleared her throat. "The idea here is to purchase things for our dear Lilli to wear or use on her honeymoon." Phoebe giggled and I scowled at her.
"Don't waste your money," I spat quickly, earning a laugh from Maggie and Viola.
"Oh, honey, if Aidan is anything like his uncle then you will definitely want to get yourself some."
"Mom," Maggie yelled and covered her ears.
We all burst into laughter.
"I'm just saying," Viola shrugged. "Your father is quite - "
"Seriously? Seriously, mom? No ... Ew, ew, ew!" Maggie screamed as she left the room. "God, please let my car get here soon! — Sadie Grubor

She was all slump and sag her spirit withering like a tuckering weed shambling for a way out — Saira Viola

The Hot Air Balloon Charm

Life Can Be Filled with Adventure If You Let Yourself Soar — Viola Shipman

The Loon Charm

To A Life Filled with A Love Whose Voice Always Calls You Home — Viola Shipman

The Kite Charm

For A Life Filled with High-Flying Fun, Play with the Wonder of A Child — Viola Shipman

Fifty years from now I don't think optical realism is going to be an issue in visual communication any more. Experience is so much richer than light falling on your retina. You embody a microcosm of reality when you walk down the street - your memories, your varying degrees of awareness of what's going on around you, everything we could call the contextualizing information. Representing that information is going to be the main issue in the years ahead - how the world meets the mind, not the eye. — Bill Viola

What wish did you grant me?" Lolly asked. "I can't tell you," the little girl said very seriously. "But if you believe, it will come true. — Viola Shipman

The very first video experience I had was in high school. They brought a black-and-white closed-circuit surveillance camera into the classroom. I will never forget, as a kid, looking at that image. — Bill Viola

When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life. — Viola Davis

Sunset's the best time to take a stroll down Mouffetard, the ancient Via Mons Cetardus. The buildings along it are only two or three stories high. Many are crowned with conical dovecotes. Nowhere in Paris is the connection, the obscure kinship, between houses very close to each other more perceptible to the pedestrian than in this street.

Close in age, not location. If one of them should show signs of decrepitude, if its face should sag, or it should lose a tooth, as it were, a bit of cornicing, within hours its sibling a hundred metres away, but designed according to the same plans and built by the same men, will also feel it's on its last legs.

The houses vibrate in sympathy like the chords of a viola d'amore. Like cheddite charges giving each other the signal to explode simultaneously. — Jacques Yonnet

That which is not yet known comes out of that which is not yet here. — Viola Spolin

I was like, 'What is this?' Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalized it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore. — Viola Davis

I am not a glam woman - this definitely is a mask I put on for the public. — Viola Davis

Knowing the only way out is education, even if you don't have parents that are extraordinarily wealthy. I understand that I have to be an active participant in [my daughter's] education in order for her to thrive in the world. — Viola Davis

You absolutely feel, as a black actress, that you've got to ride the wave because there's just so few roles. I hate to play that card, but it's the truth. There's not a lot of roles. — Viola Davis

The unknown is where we go to find new things and intuition is how we find them. — Viola Spolin

We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there. — Viola Davis

You said war should never be personal, but that's all it's ever been for me. — Patrick Ness

When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself. — Viola Davis

Nevertheless, it was not necessary to assume, as Wolfe had in the case of Viola Duday, that if he had killed Priscilla Eads he had probably done so by contrivance and not by perpetration. In spite of his pure white hair and wrinkled old skin, I would have bet, from the way he looked and moved and held his shoulders and head, that he could still have chinned himself up to five or six times. — Rex Stout

I look back at pictures of myself and I remember thinking, "I was so fat when I was growing up. I was 165 pounds when I graduated from high school. I was a mess". — Viola Davis

His Noise saying, No, no, not now, not NOW-
And then he says, Viola?
"I'm here, Todd," I say, my voice breaking, shouting with desperation. "I'm here!"
And he says Voila? again-
Asking it-
Asking like he's not sure I'm there-
And then his Noise falls completely silent-
And he stops struggling-
And looking right into my eyes-
He dies.
My Todd dies. — Patrick Ness

It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated. — Viola Davis

Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character. — Viola Davis

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.
"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"
He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"
"We all fall, you said." I'm gripping his hand now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again. — Patrick Ness

A sematary," I say. "A what?" Viola says, looking round at all the square stones marking out their graves. Must be a hundred, maybe two, in orderly rows and well-kept grass. Settler life is hard and it's short and lotsa New World people have lost the battle.
"It's a place for burying dead folk," I say.
Her eyes widen. "A place for doing what?"
"Don't people die in space?" I ask.
"Yeah," she says. "But we burn them. We don't put them in holes." She crosses her arms around herself, mouth and forehead frowning, peering around at the graves. "How can this be sanitary? — Patrick Ness

That's why I do what I do, and that's why I wanted to be an actress from the time I was six years old. If I can't effectively move people, then I would prefer not to do it. — Viola Davis

Her breast was young, the nipples rosy. Cosimo just grazed it with his lips, before Viola slid away over the branches as if she were flying, with him clambering after her, and that skirt of hers always in his face — Italo Calvino

In insisting that peasant activity contrary to Communist policies could be defined as kulak while at the same time maintaining that his approach to the peasantry was based on scientific Marxist class analysis, Lenin provided his successors with conceptualizations that would be used in collectivization when Stalin launched a war against all peasants. — Lynne Viola

Get out of your head, into your space and await the invisible stranger — Viola Spolin

Viola had a harrowing story about riding a bicycle west out of the burnt-out ruins of a Connecticut suburb, aged fifteen, harboring vague notions of California but set upon by passersby long before she got there, grievously harmed, joining up with other half feral teenagers in a marauding gang and then slipping away from them, walking alone for a hundred miles, whispering French to herself because all the horror in her life had transpired in English and she thought switching languages might save her, wandering into a town through which the Symphony passed five years later. — Emily St. John Mandel

When I make my work, I am making what I hope to be something functional - a space for individual contemplation and reflection. I want my art to be useful. — Bill Viola

HELP!"
I race to the square, crossing it, looking all around, listening out-
No.
No.
It's empty.
Viola's breathing heavy in my arms .
And Haven is empty.
I reach the middle of the square.
I don't see nor hear a soul.
I spin around again.
"HELP!" I cry.
But there's no one.
Haven's completely empty.
There ain't hope here after all. — Patrick Ness

When student-actors see people and the way they behave when together, see the color of the sky, hear the sounds in the air, feel the ground beneath them and the wind on their faces, they get a wider view of their personal world and development in the theater is quickened. The world provides the material for the theater and artistic growth develops hand-in-hand with one's recognition of it and one's self within it. — Viola Spolin

I didn't tell her that death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time. — Dean Koontz

The Sewing Machine Charm

To A Life Bound by Family, The Thread That Ties Us All Together — Viola Shipman

Take a cup of love Add a dash of care Mix with kindness Add a bit of patience Top it off with faith Sprinkle liberally with understanding Share with everyone you meet — Viola Shipman

It's not about being religious. It's about knowing that life and the world are way too intricate to just end like this." He — Viola Shipman

And she says, "Then let's just take the effing road and get ourselves to Haven."
I smile, a little. "You said effing," I say. "You actually said the word effing. — Patrick Ness

A lot of what making art is, is just being open, and empty. And putting yourself in the right place for things to, literally, come together. — Bill Viola

She tried to kill you, Viola. She tried to blow you up ... You don't owe her nothing,' he says.
But I feel his arms on me and I'm realizing things don't seem so impossible anymore. I feel Todd touching me and there's anger rising in my gut but it's not at him and I grunt and I pull myself up again, leaning on him to keep me there as I stand. 'I do owe her,' I say. 'I owe her the look on her face when she sees me alive. — Patrick Ness

That's how I digest it, 'cause I can press the fast-forward button and I know that I'm gonna have to continue to be an actor, continue to make choices, continue to perform in a show every week. — Viola Davis

When you're making video, you're giving structure to time, which is what a composer does. — Bill Viola

The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you. — Viola Davis

Bill Viola is worth ten Scorseses. — Peter Greenaway

For the Persian poet Rumi, each human life is analogous to a bowl floating on the surface of an infinite ocean. As it moves along, it is slowly filling with the water around it. That's a metaphor for the acquisition of knowledge. When the water in the bowl finally reaches the same level as the water outside, there is no longer any need for the container, and it drops away as the inner water merges with the outside water. We call this the moment of death. That analogy returns to me over and over as a metaphor for ourselves. — Bill Viola

Fanning Court. God forbid. Teddy could no longer sit in the chair. He could no longer leave the bed, no longer do anything. He was approaching the end of his twilight, entering into the final darkness. Viola imagined the synapses in her father's brain flaring and dimming like the slow death of a star. Soon Teddy would burn out completely and implode and become a black hole. Viola was hazy on the subject of astrophysics, but she liked the image. — Kate Atkinson

Where lies your text?
Viola: In Orsino's bosom.
Olivia: In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?
Viola: To answer by the method, in the first of his heart. — William Shakespeare

Nick sat alone reading a copy of The Independent . Cocaine socialists were trying their hardest to juice up Britain's economy with super casinos — Saira Viola

When you come into my pieces, it's not an intellectual experience, it's a physical experience. It's coming at your body. There's light, there's sound, the lights in some pieces are going on and off. There's loud roaring sound happening. — Bill Viola

Viola blows out a thoughtful air. "My dad used to say, 'There's only forward, Vi, only outward and up.'"
"There's only forward," I repeat.
"Outward and up," she says. — Patrick Ness

crowded about the four sides of the green to watch and cheer. Viola had set out from home early in the morning looking ladylike and elegant in a muslin dress and shawl and straw bonnet, her hair in a neatly braided coronet about her head beneath it. She had even been wearing gloves. But she had long ago discarded all the accessories. Even her hair, slipping stubbornly out of its pins during the busy morning of rushing hither and yon, had been allowed finally to hang loose in a long braid down — Mary Balogh

I did want to mark the fact that it was the first African-American to win the Lead Actress category.I thought it was so progressive. — Viola Davis

Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being. — Karen Mueller Coombs

She had noticed that his complexion underneath days' worth of stubble had darkened in the sun and wind, and tiny white lines radiated out from the corners of his eyes, as if he spent a lot of time laughing. Viola found she rather liked the idea of this man laughing. Liked the idea of being able to make him laugh. — Kelly Bowen

And this is what was fascinating to me about 'The Help'; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things. — Viola Davis

I was raised by my great-great aunt. I was adopted within our family. My mother had me when she was, I think, 15, 16. They tried to get her to have an abortion and she refused. So, my 'mama' adopted me, which was really her great aunt, which was really my great-great aunt, who was named Viola Dickerson. I was told that my mother was my sister. — Eric Dickerson

Hope is terrifying, Viola," he said. "No one wants to admit it, but it is. — Patrick Ness