Often Quotes

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?

They tend to be civil servants, often diplomats drawn from the Foreign Office, who may be very pleasant, intelligent people, but once they get inside the Palace they're riveted to the status quo and they lose track of public opinion in the real world.

You will soon find that I am a bit obsessive about my work. And that is a little sad, one often feels strangely restricted, not finding time to simmer, although one actually has many interests.

Affectation is certain deformity; by forming themselves on fantastic models, the young begin with being ridiculous, and often end in being vicious.

Love is often the fruit of marriage.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

Campaigns often make standing on principle the highest of virtues - and listening to your opponents a sure sign of weakness. It's the virtual opposite of what it takes to succeed in office. Squaring the circle takes a powerful combination of skills. But presidents who can campaign and compromise are generally the most successful.

Friendships in childhood are usually a matter of chance, whereas in adolescence they are most often a matter of choice.

There is nothing that is more often clothed in an attractive garb than a false creed.

Often, a serial killer has no felony record.

I don't always set stories in villages, more often in towns. But always in smallish communities because the characters' actions are more visible there, and the dramatic tension is heightened.

I've worked with a lot of people on music and often times those things don't work out.

To be in the right is often an expensive business.

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.

When I was young in L.A. and I couldn't get into clubs or restaurants, I would call imitating celebrities and get a table, and it would work often. I was either Stallone or Mickey Rourke: 'This is Sly. I may be late, but my buddy Hank will be there early.'

Young writers only take off when they find their subjects. Since almost everyone has a family and stories about family, that is often a place to start.

Square meals often make round people.

The artist likes to seem totally responsible for his work. Often he begins to explain it, to make it appear as if it were a reasonable process.

Women do not often fall in love with philosophers.

It's really cool to know that you've put something together that isn't for a particular audience. It's so often that a TV show can really only speak to one sect of the population, and this really is something that appeals to a worldwide fan base. People who are into the pursuit of knowledge. Their reaction has meant the world to us.

The particular ballet was not so important as the fact that I was physically healthy, and capable of getting out there and dancing as often as possible.

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed.