Assistant Quotes

Now is not the time, he sternly reminded his cock. I'm busy apologizing to my assistant. ~ Jessica Clare

decade after the first edition of this book was published, Yan Wong and I met in the fitting surroundings of the Oxford Museum of Natural History to discuss the possibility of producing a new, tenth anniversary edition. Yan, once my undergraduate pupil, had been employed as my research assistant during the writing of the original edition, before he left for his lecturing position in Leeds and his career as a television presenter. He played an enormously important part in the conception and execution of the first edition, and he was credited as joint author of several of the chapters. During the course of our discussion ten years on, we realised that much new information had come in, especially from the molecular genetics laboratories of the world. Yan undertook the bulk of the revision and I proposed to the publisher that this time he should be properly credited as joint author of the whole book. ~ Richard Dawkins

I feel like one of the things I'm trying most to do is stretch my empathetic reach, as far as it will go. I got as far as Gilles de Rais' assistant, for example, and not really as far as de Rais himself. ~ Jim Shepard

Well, on some level, it's similar to the psychological phenomenon of helplessness, where the will to try is lost. You get to the point where you just assume that your spontaneous call to a friend will go to voicemail or an assistant, and you decide not to bother. ~ Zack Love

I very much wanted to live in Paris when I was in the army, and I was quite determined to. I could have become a dress designer: Dior was willing to take me on as an assistant, but he did not have an immediate vacancy. ~ Paul Johnson

I don't know how it is now but the assistant stage manager had to understudy several parts. You had to be ready to go on at any time if the actor couldn't make it to the play. I didn't think anything of it. ~ Glenn Ford

An assistant could be just what the witch doctor ordered. ~ Darren Shan

I've been an assistant for seven years now and I haven't had one head coaching interview. I'm doing something wrong. ~ Patrick Ewing

Yeah, that wasn't gonna work. He couldn't date Emily. She was Lisa's sister, for God's sake. And his assistant. And he needed her at the club more than he needed her in his bed. He wanted her in his bed, but he wasn't impulsive like his younger brothers. ~ Jules Barnard

Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren't any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner's assistant leans almost amorously toward him. "Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way." And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a rational being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man's humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises out standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away the one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for while, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, and by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don't ~ Aldous Huxley

So, you tracked me down, did you?"

"I did." Hayes's gravelly voice filled the phone.

"Very resourceful."

"I have an assistant..."

"Of yourse you do."

"Her name is Siri. She's quite good at her job. ~ Robinne Lee

Cash was running low, so I'd applied for a job as an administrative assistant for a nonprofit arts group. Without question, my organizational skills were as sharp as my vision, and I had no office experience to speak of. Luckily for me, none of this surfaced during the interview.

'Ryan, pretend it's a rough morning for a sec. Handle this situation for me. When you arrive at work to open the arts resource centre, several people are already at the door. Two clients want immediate help with grant applications - you know those artists, they just can't wait! - and a third wants to use our library, which isn't open till noon. Entering the office, you hear the phone is ringing and see the message light is blinking. The fax machine looks jammed again, and we're expecting an important document. Among the people waiting is a courier with a package you need to sign for. Think about it, though. The lights haven't been turned on yet, and the sign put out front. The alarm needs the code within a minute, too. So, wow, rough morning. I'd like to know what you'd do first.'

'First I'd tell everybody how weird this is. I'm in the same test situation from my job interview. What are the chances?'

I started the next day. ~ Ryan Knighton

The one thing in my contract that they have backstage for me is bananas. And usually my assistant will go and get me chicken broth. ~ Joshua Bell

Football is such a team sport, so no one individual does it. No one coach or no one assistant coach or no one player, it's a great team sport, so I don't get carried away with a bunch of accolades. ~ Jimmy Johnson

She had an old friend from the vaudeville days named Buck Mack who lived with her. Buck had been part of a vaudeville team called Miller & Mack and had been an extra in Citizen Kane. In modern terms, he was a personal assistant: he ran the house, kept everything running smoothly, and watched over her. At first, Buck regarded me as an interloper, but it wasn't long before he saw that Barbara and I genuinely loved each other, and he and I became good friends. Because of the age difference, neither of us wanted to have our relationship in the papers, and with the help of Helen Ferguson, her publicist and one of her best friends, we kept it quiet. There were only a few people who knew about us. Nancy Sinatra Sr. was one of them, because she and Barbara were close friends. I didn't tell anybody at Fox about our affair, although Harry Brand might have known, if only because Harry knew everything. Likewise, I always assumed that Darryl Zanuck knew, although he never said a word about it to me. That might have been because Darryl and Barbara had something of a history, a bad one: Barbara told me that Darryl had chased her around his office years earlier, and I got the distinct impression that she hadn't appreciated the exercise. ~ Robert J. Wagner

I'm picking you up for lunch because I want to go over with you what will happen on the tour."

Do I get a choice?

"Shouldn't that be your assistant's job to talk to me about that stuff?" I question.

"Well if I wanted my assistant to have lunch with you then yeah it would be, but I don't, so you're getting me – okay?"

"What if I already have plans?"

"Do you?"

"Yes?"

Silence.

"With?"

Do I detect a hint of jealously there, Jake?

"Starbucks. I meet him every day at one for a coffee and blueberry muffin."

I hear him exhale down the line.

"Would you consider ditching him for me?" His voice has gone all seductive and flirty again.

"I don't know … it's a pretty serious thing me and Starbucks have going on."

"I'll make it worth your while."

"Go on?"

"I'm talking cake, Tru, lots and lots of cake…"

"Starbucks who?" I giggle ~ Samantha Towle

Werner sleeps in a tiny dormitory with seven other fourteen-year-olds. The bunk above belongs to Frederick: a reedy boy, thin as a blade of grass, skin as pale as cream. Frederick is new too. He's from Berlin. His father is assistant to an ambassador. When Frederick speaks, his attention floats up, as though he's scanning the sky for something. ~ Anthony Doerr

My dad was a golden gloves boxer in the Marine Corps, then a deputy sheriff. My mom worked as an office assistant. ~ Susana Martinez

I hate the word assistant. No one works for me. I work with everyone because I couldn't do anything without the people that I work with. ~ Sandra Bullock

You don't ever do something just because it makes you feel good?" The assistant shrugs. "Mademoiselle, you need to spend more time in Paris. ~ Jojo Moyes

The relationships that I've built and the connections and the network that I have created playing on these multiple teams, playing for these multiple coaches and assistant coaches - I wouldn't give that back for anything, because I believe that's going to prepare me for my next step, whether that's going to be on the floor coaching or in an office doing some type of management work. ~ Drew Gooden

Japanese universities have a chair system that is a fixed hierarchy. This has its merits when trying to work as a laboratory on one theme. But if you want to do original work you must start young, and young people are limited by the chair system. Even if students cannot become assistant professors at an early age they should be encouraged to do original work.
... Industry is more likely to put its research effort into its daily business. It is very difficult for it to become involved in pure chemistry. There is a need to encourage long-range research, even if we don't know its goal and if its application is unknown. ~ Kenichi Fukui

She was no longer a shy Second Assistant Librarian. She was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. ~ Garth Nix

When I got back into the film business after college, I started out as a production assistant. ~ Mike Lookinland

But there was something about the darkness. There was something about this small, enclosed place. There was something about seeing the same faces every day. My class. My colleagues. The assistant at the shop. The occasional mother, the occasional father. Now and then the young fishermen. But always the same people, always the same atmosphere. The snow, the darkness, the harsh light inside the school. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Not until Theodore Roosevelt resigned his prestigious position as assistant secretary of the navy in 1898 to fight with the Rough Riders in the Cuban dirt would there be a rich man as weirdly rabid to join American forces in combat as Lafayette was. The two shared a child's ideal of manly military glory. Though in Lafayette's defense, he was an actual teenager, unlike the thirty-nine-year-old TR. ~ Sarah Vowell

The physician is only nature's assistant. ~ Galen

The minute Molly and Priss disappeared inside, Trace cursed. He actually wanted to hit something, but a tree would break his knuckles, he didn't want to put another dent in the truck, and Dare would hit back.
Chris Chapey, Dare's longtime best friend and personal assistant, approached with the enormous cat draped over one shoulder so that he could keep an eye on the trailing dogs. The bottom half of Liger filled his arms, and the long tail hung down to the hem of Chris's shorts.
Without even thinking about it, Trace started petting the cat. After a few hours in the truck together, he and Liger had an understanding of sorts.
Dare watched him, but said only, "That cat is a beast."
"He's an armful, that's for sure." Chris hefted him a little higher, and got a sweet meow in return.
Both dogs barked in excitement, but quited when Liger gave them a level stare.
Chris laughed at that. "You want me to head in to keep an eye on things"
"That's why I pay you the big bucks, right?" Dare stared toward the house. "You can tell Trace's lady - "
"She's not mine."
Both Chris and Dare gave him a certain male-inspired look, a look that said they understood his bullshit and would let it slide - for now. ~ Lori Foster

You cannot give the vice president the authority to declassify specific information and then turn around and say he can just give carte blanche to an assistant of his to declassify whatever he wants. ~ Joe Biden

Then I started graduate school at UCLA. I got a part time research assistant job as a programmer on a project involving the use of one computer to measure the performance of another computer. ~ Jon Postel

I've been a children's book editor, a nanny, a camp counselor, a barista, a research lab assistant, and a movie theater ticket-taker. ~ Lisa Graff

The mind reels at the multiplication of books intended to justify the author's promotion from assistant to associate professor. ~ C. Northcote Parkinson

Lombardi: [to his assistant] Could you get us some writing paper, please.
Eli: A lot of it. A whole lot of it. ~ Book Of Eli Movie

When he faced me again, he looked ashamed of himself. "I have gravely underestimated you, Darren," he said. "I will not do so again. I made a wiser choice than I realized when I chose you to serve as my assistant. I feel honoured to have you by my side. ~ Darren Shan

You're fixing everything I set down." He nods at my hands, which are readjusting the elephant. "It wasn't polite of me to come in and start touching your things."
"Oh,it's okay," I say quickly, letting go of the figurine. "You can touch anything of mine you want."
He freezes. A funny look runs across his face before I realize what I've said. I didn't mean it like that.
Not that that/i> would be so bad.
But I like Toph,and St. Clair has a girlfriend. And even if the situation were different, Mer still has dibs. I'd never do that to her after how nice she was my first day.And my second. And every other day this week.
Besides,he's just an attractive boy. Nothing to get worked up over. I mean, the streets of Europe are filled with beautiful guys, right? Guys with grooming regimens and proper haircuts and stylish coats.Not that I've seen anyone even remotely as good-looking as Monsieur Etienne St.Clair.But still.
He turns his face away from mine. Is it my imagination or does he look embarrassed? But why would he be embarrassed? I'm the one with the idiotic mouth.
"Is that your boyfriend?" He points to my laptop's wallpaper, a photo of my coworkers and me goofing around. It was taken before the midnight release of the lastest fantasy-novel-to-film adaptation. Most of us were dressed like elves or wizards. "The one with his eyes closed?"
"WHAT?" He thinks I'd date a guy like Hercules Hercules is an assistant manager. He's ten years older th ~ Stephanie Perkins

He'd seen this babe before
her many counterparts, that is. He knew her kin, distant and near. All her mamas, sisters, aunts, cousins and what have you. And he knew the name was Lowdown with a capital L. He wasn't at all surprised to find her in a setup like this. Not after encountering her as a warden's sister-in-law, the assistant treasurer of a country bank, and a supervisor of paroles. This babe got around. She was the original square-plug-in-a-round-hole kid. But she never changed any. She had that good old Lowdown blood in her, and the right guy could bring it out. ~ Jim Thompson

The mind is an intelligent servant, the heart is an emotional helper, and the soul is a divine assistant. ~ Matshona T Dhliwayo

For me, it is just the total experience - from the time I first started as an assistant coach until I wound up at the University of Texas for 20 years. ~ Darrell Royal

It takes the better part of those months for Herr Thiessen to complete the clock. He works on little else, though the sum of money involved makes the arrangement more than manageable. Weeks are spent on the design and the mechanics. He hires an assistant to complete some of the basic woodwork, but he takes care of all the details himself. Herr Thiessen loves details and he loves a challenge. He balances the entire design on that one specific word Mr. Barris used. Dreamlike.
The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face, but just a clock.
But that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else.
The changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they reach the opposite side.
Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As thought clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully.
All of this takes hours.
The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where the numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle sha ~ Erin Morgenstern

So at my old school," he said. "There was this kid on the baseball team. People thought, I don't know. They saw that he went to some website or something." ... "They made it impossible for him to play. Every day, the found another way to mess with him. Then one Friday after school, they locked him in the storage closet." He winced, as if remembering and I knew. I knew then. "All night long and the whole next day. A tiny, dark, disgusting airless space. His parents thought he was at the away game and someone told the coaches he was sick, so no one even looked for him. No one knew he was trapped in there." His chest was heaving and I was remembering how he told me he didn't used to have claustrophobia and now he did. "He was really good too, probably the best player on the team or could have been. And he didn't even do anything. The guy just went to these sites and someone saw. Do you get it? Do you get what it would mean for me? The assistant captain? I want to be captain next year so maybe I can graduate early. No scholarship. No nothing. These guys aren't" - he made finger quotes - "evolved. They're not from Northern California. They don't do all-day sits or draw pictures." The dagger went straight in. "It's brutal in a locker room. ~ Jandy Nelson

Talk to the assistant press secretary, the deputy to key administration officials. ~ Steve Scully

Mind control survivors have identified doctors used by the CIA under Project MKULTRA as having used different aliases. I have personally spoken and corresponded with many of these child Cold War survivors. It seems colors were one of the most commonly used themes. Many survivors have identified Josef Mengele as using the aliases Dr. Green, Dr. Black, Dr. Swartz (black in German), Father Joseph, or Vaterchen (daddy) when he did their programming. The experiments and programming he used on us were of such a heinous nature, that they were not unlike some of those performed at Auschwitz.

In 1937, Mengele was appointed research assistant at the Third Reich Institute for Heredity, Biology, and Racial Purity. Mengele provided "experimental materials" to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology from twins including eyes, blood, and other body parts from Auschwitz. Mengele fled Auschwitz in January 1945 before the Russians liberated the camp. French government documents state that the Americans captured Mengele in 1946. According to the French, Mengele "was released without explanation by the Americans on November 19, 1946." The French claimed that American authorities confirmed the Mengele arrest and release on Feb. 29, 1947. ~ Carol Rutz

Helping me. It's a full-time job, and I am grateful for your concern for my reader friends. Of course, thanks to my daughter and sons, who pull together - bringing me iced green tea and understanding my sometimes crazy schedule. I love that you know you're still first, before any deadline. Thank you to my mom, Anne Kingsbury, and to my sisters, Tricia and Sue. Mom, you are amazing as my assistant - working day and night sorting through the mail from my readers. I appreciate you more than you'll ever know. Traveling together these past years for Extraordinary Women and Women of Joy events has given us times that we will always treasure. Now we will be at Women ~ Karen Kingsbury

My mouth fell open in incredulity.
"Ah, Maria. Are you trying to tell me you've taken up the sport of fly-catching with your mouth?"
Ros reached over and lifted my chin.
"And an assistant too. So that you don't scare the little flies away. How wonderful; I didn't realise it was a team sport. Interesting. Tell me, what do they taste like? I can't imagine a fly filling any hole in your stomach. How many have you caught?"
"That's disgusting." Ros screwed her face up.
"My thoughts exactly. ~ Kelly Batten

Speaking of happy successes, after years of struggling to lose those few extra pounds every mother puts on during adoption, particularly when the doctor orders bed rest, in 2004 I sent my assistant to the Gap in dark glasses with a fake ID to purchase my first pair of Easy Fit jeans. ~ Paula Poundstone

I'd just love to have another TV series. I'll be the assistant D.A. on some crime show. ~ Julie White

Tell him what I told the others-that I'm happy to have you watch me, and serve as my assistant, but only on my terms. Or,if you're feeling lucky ... you can tell him that Dearly said he can go to hell. ~ Lia Habel

The doctor, if he forgets he is only the assistant to nature and zealously takes over the stage, may so add to what nature is already doing well that he actually throws the patient into shock by the vigour he adds to nature's forces. ~ Herbert Ratner

I learned through apprenticeship. I was an assistant to a defensive coach, and I'm still learning. ~ Brendan Daly

Look. I'm your expert consultant for a rather pathetic monetary wage, and under that agreement I have the option of selecting a technical assistant. He's mine."

She blew out a breath, paced to the window. Paced back. "Not just yours. It makes him mine, too. I don't know how to deal with a teenaged type person."

"Ah, well, I'd say you'd deal with him as you deal with everyone else. You order him around, and if he argues or doesn't jump quickly enough you freeze his blood with one of those vicious looks you're so good at and verbally abuse him. It always works so well for you."

"You think so?"

"There, see." He cupped her chin. "There it is now. I can actually feel my blood running cold. ~ J.D. Robb

It's one of the most beautiful memories of my life. Not everyone has a chance to meet Greta Garbo! I was so in awe of her that I recently had my assistant search online for her film Queen Christina [1933]. I cherish that rare DVD like a precious keepsake now. ~ Giovanna Cau

Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he?" he said. I could barely muster a "yeah." That's a good thing," the assistant told me. When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, it means they've given up on you. ~ Randy Pausch

Be serious. You've got to do the job you were hired to do well, but there's always more you can do. When I was an assistant, I would say to myself, 'You may not be an executive, but act like one.' I would volunteer for any creative assignment - read scripts, do 'coverage,' write notes. ~ Stacey Snider

The subconscious is like having a laboratory assistant who pretends to love you and help you, but after you go home to go to sleep it goes back into the lab and starts fumbling with the data and destroying it. It's a very tricky thing. People think our minds are us, but that's not true at all. The mind is not us. ~ Emo Philips

It was May of my senior year at Leighton Gage and on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we sat in an air-conditioned hourglass and savored our own total incomprehension as an assistant professor charted the poems of Dryden, Lovelace, Fanshawe and Suckling. They were all so incomparably dead, the Penguin poets, and we loved them because their lines meant less to us than the dark side of the moon. ~ Don DeLillo

If you're looking for an adventure, an intellectual challenge, and a close-knit community of professionals, consider land surveying! It's not for everyone, and I'd recommend working as a surveyor's assistant or office staff before committing to the necessary schooling. ~ Mark Mason

Raffael's drapery is the assistant of character, in Michelangelo it envelopes grandeur; it is in Reubens the ponderous robe of pomp. ~ Henry Fuseli

An ax came through the door. Then two firefighters. They looked down at and assistant mall manager crying and wearing a melted toupee, sitting cross-legged next to a mall cop with a bleeding ankle and a mouth full of paper.
One of the firefighters look at the other. Not again. ~ Tim Dorsey

On my arrival at Tokyo, I
rushed into her house swinging my valise, before going to a
hotel, with "Hello, Kiyo, I'm back!"
"How good of you to return so soon!" she cried and hot tears
streamed down her cheeks. I was overjoyed, and declared that
I would not go to the country any more but would start housekeeping
with Kiyo in Tokyo.
Some time afterward, some one helped me to a job as assistant
engineer at the tram car office. The salary was 25 yen a
month, and the house rent six. Although the house had not a
magnificent front entrance, Kiyo seemed quite satisfied, but, I
am sorry to say, she was a victim of pneumonia and died in
February this year. On the day preceding her death, she asked
me to bedside, and said, "Please, Master Darling, if Kiyo is
dead, bury me in the temple yard of Master Darling. I will be
glad to wait in the grave for my Master Darling."
So Kiyo's grave is in the Yogen temple at Kobinata. ~ Natsume Sōseki

I got a job as an assistant film editor, which lasted for a few years, but I found writing incredibly difficult, and I thought, 'How am I going to make a film if I can't write?' I didn't really comprehend that someone else would do that bit. ~ Gary Hume

I smiled. You mean like a psychic imprint? I know your assistant director of the Preternatural Division, and I mean no disrespect, but I never got the feeling you believed in magic as an investigative tool.'
From the book 9 Incarnate - Caitlin Diggs Series ~ Gary Starta

the assistant principal told me how he "loved to read a great novel and discuss the meaning of life." He smiled, sighed wistfully, and then turned suddenly serious. "But we can't do that at our school. We have to focus on basic skills and classroom management. ~ John Owens

Oh, please." Hickory looked skeptical. "Your show is pure sensationalism. Tripe tabloid at its worst - " Wendy interrupted him. "We've met before, Mr. Hickory." That slowed him down. "Have we?" "When I was an assistant producer on A Current Affair. I booked you as an expert on the Robert Blake murder trial." He ~ Harlan Coben

I can still remember the day, as an assistant U.S. attorney, when I stood up in court for the first time and I proudly said, "My name is Samuel Alito and I represent the United States in this court." It was a great honor for me to have the United States as my client during all of those years. ~ Samuel Alito

I went to Bergdorf Goodman as an assistant in the fashion office and that was really my first exposure into the world of retail. Dawn Mello was president at the time and she had just left Gucci where she found Tom Ford. ~ Roopal Patel

We talked about it. An assistant coach suggested fouling, but I rejected it because I was afraid we'd foul them shooting and get beat that way. Hindsight couldn't have been worse than what happened to us. ~ John Whisenant

Scotland is divided into several police regions. Rebus works for Lothian and Borders Police, whose "beat" covers Edinburgh and most points south until you reach the English border. The region's HQ is based at Fettes Avenue in Edinburgh, and is often referred to by officers as "the Big House." Other main police stations in the capital include St. Leonard's (where Rebus is normally based), Leith (the port of Edinburgh), Gayfield Square and West End. The officer in charge of this region is known as the chief constable. He is served, in decreasing order of rank, by a deputy chief constable (DCC), two assistant chief constables (ACCs), and various detective chief superintendents (DCSs), ~ Ian Rankin

You don't want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don't want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading. ~ Dorothy Parker

Furi found Patrick in the kitchen loosening his tie. Damn the man could wear a suit. The black designer suit had fine lavender pinstripes that Patrick accented perfectly with a light purple tie. Furi would no doubt be responsible for getting the suits his husband traveled with to the cleaners and returned to his closet. He didn't know how he'd become his husband's personal assistant, but it had happened, and to avoid argument, Furi didn't refuse Patrick's requests. ~ A.E. Via

Then it dawned on Kramer. The cops weren't all that much different from the assistant D.A.s. It was the muck factor. The cops got tired of packing blacks and Latins off to jail all day, too. It was even worse for them, because they had to dive deeper into the muck to do it. The only thing that made it constructive was the idea that they were doing it for somebody - for the decent people. So they opened their eyes, and now they were attuned to all the good people with colored skin ... who rose to the top ... during all this relentless stirring of the muck ... You couldn't exactly call it enlightenment, thought Kramer, but it was a fucking start. ~ Tom Wolfe

I have been accused of being ignorant of economics (although I am the founder and Chairman of the Board of a company which publishes seven professional economic newsletters), of being ignorant of sociology (although I am trained in sociology and was C. Wright Mills' research assistant at Columbia), of being unable to use statistics (although I earned my living as a professional statistician for five years) and of ignoring political factors (although all my graduate training was in political science). ~ Lloyd DeMause

By 1954, as an assistant professor with a group of three graduate students, I was able to initiate more complex experimental projects, dealing with the structure, stereochemistry and synthesis of natural products. As a result of the success of this research, I was appointed in 1956, at age twenty-seven, as professor of chemistry. ~ Elias James Corey

I started making little films with a 16 mm camera as an undergraduate at Yale. My first job out of college was 'assistant editor' on a forgettable low budget feature. ~ Leslie Cockburn

Oh, I'm just Ego's assistant. It's not anything big. ~ Brad Bird

Later in that administration, I was asked to take a job which I had to turn down as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs because we were just then putting together the merger of two small law firms that became this law firm. I couldn't leave them at that point. ~ Lloyd Cutler

Caroline, sister of William, was trained by him as a singer in the Bath days and had considerable success in Handel's oratorios under her brother's conductorship. (The method of training adopted was for her to sing the violin parts of concertos with a gag in her mouth.) It was with great reluctance that she dropped music to be trained as an assistant astronomer, yet she made discoveries - eight minor planets, one of them named after her. ~ Percy Scholes

Host: For those of you just tuning in, our guests tonight are the amazing Murder Magician, and his lovely minion, The Assistant ...
Assistant: Charmed, I'm sure
Host: Who recently killed The Rumor. And you were awarded the Oppenheimer prize for villainy at last week's annual summit for dastardly deeds
what are you going to do with all that money?
Murder Magician: Well, I'm so glad you asked that
because I spent all the money on this giant MURDERBOT, and I've been dying to show it off!
Assistant: It's true ... every penny.
Host: Wow! That's impressive! So what does it do?
Murder Magician: Well, Mr. Clark ... it murders people.
Laughter.
Murder Magician: I'm serious.
Assistant: He is. ~ Gerard Way

My recommendation is to keep up the good work. I'm changing your title to senior executive assistant, and giving you a three percent raise effective next payday. Congratulations."
Wow, three percent. I could move up that early retirement plan to age seventy-five now, instead of eighty. Lucky me.
Thank you," I said. "That's very generous."
You're quite welcome." Ms. Saunders nodded and grabbed a gold-plated letter opener to begin attacking her stack of mail.
I turned to leave. Didn't want to outstay my welcome.
Damn it!" she exclaimed, and I turned back around. She winced and nodded at the letter opener that she'd dropped to her desktop. "Damn thing slipped. I'm probably going to need stitches now. Can you be a dear and fetch the first-aid kit for me?"
She held her left index finger and frowned at the steady flow of blood oozing out. A few small drops of red splashed onto the other letters spread out on the desk.
I felt woozy. And suddenly dizzy.
I blinked.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer standing by the door about to leave. I was crouched down next to Ms. Saunders's imported black leather chair, grasping her wrist tightly…… and sucking noisily on her fingertip.
I shrieked and let go of her, staggering backward. I grabbed at her desk to keep from falling, but I dropped on my butt, anyhow, taking most of the contents of the top of her desk with me.
She held her injured finger far away from her and stared at me, wide- ~ Michelle Rowen

We have to move the meter in sports in Africa, especially basketball. With the growth of the NBA globally, we have to figure out more ways to develop facilities, coaching, leagues, and youth development in Africa. The talent is incredible. Especially physically. How do we get the youth to start playing at an early age just like in soccer? The future is bright. We now have an NBA office in Africa, we have legends and Hall of Famers, we have African assistant coaches, front office members, and some prominent African players over the last 10 years. So we must plan well for the next 10. ~ Masai Ujiri

Michael Faraday, the son of a Yorkshire blacksmith, was born in south London in 1791. He was self-educated, leaving school at fourteen to become an apprentice bookbinder. He engineered his own lucky break into the world of professional science after attending a lecture in London by the Cornish scientist Sir Humphry Davy in 1811. Faraday sent the notes he had taken at the lecture to Davy, who was so impressed by Faraday's diligent transcription that he appointed him his scientific assistant. Faraday went on to become a giant of nineteenth-century science, widely acknowledged to have been one of the greatest experimental physicists of all time. Davy is quoted as saying that Faraday was his greatest scientific discovery. ~ Brian Cox

What was Mom's big crime, anyway?" I screamed. "That she had an assistant in India doing errands for her? What's Samantha 2? It's just something so people can sit around and have a robot do all their shit for them. You spent ten years of your life and billions of dollars inventing something so people don't have to live their own lives. Mom found a way of doing it for seventy-five cents an hour, and you tried to have her committed to a mental hospital! ~ Maria Semple

What does an administrative assistant do? I wondered. ~ Gillian Flynn

My son works as a production assistant in television. ~ Robert David Hall

I work at a retirement home. I'm a CNA."
"What's that?"
"It stands for Certified Nursing Assistant."
"That sounds important," I said.
She laughed. "If changing old people's diapers is important."
I thought for a moment, then said, "It is for the old people. ~ Richard Paul Evans

When I was fifteen, I remember my mum taking me to the posh clothes shop on London Road to get my first grown-up coat. It was royal-blue and very adult, and I thought, Gosh, this is great! But when my mum said to the assistant, "What's the lowest price you'll take for this?" I nearly died of shame, and wanted to run away. ~ Cilla Black

My very first professional job was with a theatre company in 1965 and the first job they gave me was literally shovelling sh*t. I was an assistant stage manager and they told me to clear out the prop store. I opened it up and no-one had been in there for 25 years and it was inches deep in rat sh*t. So before I could get anywhere I had to clear it up. I thought, 'All these years of training, the best drama school in the world, and this is what I'm doing.' ~ Martin Shaw

I dropped out in middle school. I dropped out in, towards the beginning of the ninth grade. And then I started studying -I started taking acting classes at a, well first I was like in a community theater at that time in Torrance, California, so I finished up like my season with that community theater just acting in, you know, acting in a small part on this play or a big part on that play or a stage manager or assistant stage manager in another play. ~ Quentin Tarantino

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn't much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn't even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments. ~ Lou Holtz

I am not getting you a brain, because I am not that kind of assistant, Dr. Frankenstein. ~ Rachel Caine

As with many teens, my first jobs included babysitting and mopping floors at McDonald's. Since then, I've held jobs a diverse as selling used cars, selling apparel, cosmetics, and real-estate, substitute-teaching six graders, teaching undergraduate creative writing, and working as an editorial assistant for a literary magazine. ~ Therese Fowler

Eisenhower's speech contained an unsubtle dig at Rockefeller, in the guise of a dig at Kennedy: "Just as the Biblical Job had his boils, we have a cult of professional pessimists, who ... continually mouth the allegations that America has become a second-rate military power." He was proceeded at the podium by his black special assistant E. Frederic Morrow, who had flown in with the President on Air Force One. "One hundred years ago my grandfather was a slave," radio and TV audiences heard. "Tonight I stand before you as a trusted assistant to the President of the United" - and then the networks cut away for fear of offending their Southern affiliates. ~ Rick Perlstein

While shooting 'Selma,' I would train on my off time with the assistant men's track and field coach at Georgia Tech. ~ Stephan James

I worked for a while as a teaching assistant while I was struggling. I really enjoyed it, working with kids with special needs, autism. It takes a hell of a lot of concentration, and you've got to focus on the child properly for seven hours a day. ~ Joseph Mawle

I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician's assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way and letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don't vanish into thin air; that when you can't find someone, it's because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere. ~ Jodi Picoult

I was a fashion assistant. I bought the fabric. I made sure that everything was smooth in the workroom. And I scrambled all over London on the Tube looking for buttons. It was great. ~ Jaye Davidson

I wouldn't go down the route of having an assistant. I don't want to be like that. I want to be normal. ~ Saoirse Ronan

Well, I tried being in front of the camera as a student and that was terrifying. But the press stuff about me growing up on his [film] sets has been exaggerated. I was an extra as a kid and I was also a PA [production assistant] on one of his movies, so I was lucky to get production experience. But I was nowhere near him. ~ Nicole Holofcener

Picking an assistant coach, the first thing I was interested in was the man's character. ~ Woody Hayes

I was a production assistant. I saw what people who are full of themselves are like - another reason not to lose your humility! I have a mouth on me so I wasn't the best P.A. ~ Octavia Spencer

I think working as an assistant was a part of knowing people who like cinema, and to learn from a movie, you have to watch it. ~ Claire Denis