Then Quotes

I'm a professor of media studies as well as humanities, and I'm an evangelist of popular culture, but when there's only media, then there's going to be a slow debasement of language, and that's what I think we're fighting.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

More understand China, then more people will have interest in China and more people will come to China to visit us because I am a tourist ambassador.

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

I think I've still got a bit of a sado-masochistic streak in me, because if I'm not going to be restricted by corsets and covered in lace, then I still wind up wearing an ape-mask over my face. I do wonder how I get myself in these situations!

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?

My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.

Laughter is the best medicine - unless you're diabetic, then insulin comes pretty high on the list.

Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.

It's always tough for me to make a movie, and then sit on an airplane and watch somebody watch it on their phone.

If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it's moving you away from your goals.

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

You can be obsessed with makeup and hair products and, you know, your appearance and still be absolutely making smart life decisions and work on your smarts, develop your smarts by studying something like math. Then you'll make much better decisions on the brands of clothing that you buy or whatever it is that you want.

I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm standoffish, that's because you are.

We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.

But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.

The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.

Do you remember when you were 10 or 11 years old and you really thought your folks were the best? They were completely omniscient and you took their word for everything. And then you got older and you went through this hideous age when suddenly they were the devil, they were bullies, and they didn't know anything.

I'm a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.

It's interesting how we often can't see the ways in which we are being strong - like, you can't be aware of what you're doing that's tough and brave at the time that you're doing it because if you knew that it was brave, then you'd be scared.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

There are occasions when I've pretended to be in a firefight, and then there are people who have really been in a firefight. Clearly it's absolutely ridiculous, and even disrespectful, to suggest that I understand what that is.

Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it.

I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.

What I think we need to do to engage the American people in a conversation about entitlement reform is to have a bipartisan group of people who come together and put every solution on the table, every alternative on the table. And then we ought to engage in a long conversation with the American people so they understand the choices.

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love.

Growing up, I remember my parents feeling a little wary of 'The Simpsons.' This was the late eighties, and there was a wave of articles about TV shows that were bad for America. Then we all started watching it and loved it.

I love acting, but being an actor for hire only serves so much, and then you want to fill your well up again and be charged by something else.

Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of authority, then we would be more open to slavery, to the subjugation of women, to wider use of stoning. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against divorce in the strongest of terms.

Poor people cannot rely on the government to come to help you in times of need. You have to get your education. Then nobody can control your destiny.