Very Quotes

It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

A film set is really delicate and people treat you very very well if you're an actor because they want you to be as comfortable as possible for you to do your work, but it really is just one in a team of many and usually 150 people.

I do believe sometimes discipline is very important. I'm not just lying around like a lazy cow all the time.

Soldiers are not policemen, and it's very unfair, even for those soldiers who have some police training, to burden them with police duties. It's not what they're trained for, or equipped for.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.

I get angry about stuff, I get very emotionally intense about stuff and that's how I get it out - with books, with the band, on my own onstage, but it's always kind of a wail.

Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.

With big, emotional roles it's very easy, especially if you've grown up in the American school of acting, to exploit your own pain. You have to be careful about that, because 9 times out of 10, your pain is not appropriate to the character.

Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren't able to live in the place you called home.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

I'm ridiculous in my oversharing; my mom and sister are very open but a little more judicious than me... and my father is a decidedly private person.

Envy aims very high.

I learned to work on a computer years before I was placed under house arrest. Fortunately I had two laptops when I was under house arrest - one an Apple and one a different operating system. I was very proud of that because I know how to use both systems.

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as 'us' and 'them' - he doesn't care whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, or none of the above... he knows that we all love our country... and he's always ready to listen to good ideas... he's always looking for the very best in everyone he meets.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.

Until I started doing standup, there were some very bleak days.

If I get married, I want to be very married.

All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is very, very small.

Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.

I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do.

Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.

It's a very frightening time when something as basic as due process is seen as somehow radical.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

Internet TV and the move to the digital approach is quite revolutionary. TV has historically has been a broadcast medium with everybody picking from a very finite number of channels.