Derek Thompson Quotes

Most consumers are simultaneously neophilic, curious to discover new things, and deeply neophobic, afraid of anything that is too new. The best hit makers are gifted at creating moments of meaning by marrying new and old, anxiety and understanding. They are architects of familiar surprises. ~ Derek Thompson

In the psychology of aesthetics, there is a name for the moment between the anxiety of confronting something new and the satisfying click of understanding it. It is called an 'aesthetic aha. ~ Derek Thompson

People have all day to talk about what makes them ordinary. It turns out that they want to share what makes them weird. ~ Derek Thompson

The line from psychologists is, if you've seen it before, it hasn't killed you yet. ~ Derek Thompson

The mere observation that something is popular, or even that it became so rapidly, is not sufficient to establish that it spread in a manner that resembles a virus. Popularity on the internet is driven by the size of the largest broadcast. Digital blockbusters are not about a million one-to-one moments as much as they are about a few one-to-one-million moments. ~ Derek Thompson

The trick is learning to frame your new ideas as tweaks of old ideas, to mix a little fluency with a little disfluency - to make your audience see the familiarity behind the surprise. ~ Derek Thompson

Quality, it seems, is a necessary, but insufficient attribute for success. ~ Derek Thompson

In all sorts of markets - music, film, art, and politics - the future of popularity will be harder to predict as the broadcast power of radio and television democratizes and the channels of exposure grow.... The gatekeepers had their day. Now there are simply too many gates to keep. ~ Derek Thompson

Some consumers buy products not because they are 'better" in any way, but simply because they are popular. What they're buying is not just a product, but also a piece of popularity itself. ~ Derek Thompson

This might be the most important question for every creator and maker in the world: how do you make something new if most people just like what they know? Is it possible to surprise with familiarity? ~ Derek Thompson

Initially [my favorite books] seem to immerse me in another life, but ultimately they immerse me in me; I am looking through the window into another person's home, but it is my face that I see in the reflection. ~ Derek Thompson

The mathematical challenge of finding the greatest good can expand the heart. Empathy opens the mind to suffering, and math keeps it open. ~ Derek Thompson

People gravitate toward products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible: Most Advanced Yet Acceptable--MAYA. ~ Derek Thompson

When people read, they hear voices and see images in their head. This production is total synesthesia and something close to madness. A great book is an hallucinated IMAX film for one. The author had a feeling, which he turned into words, and the reader gets a feeling from those words - maybe it's the same feeling; maybe it's not. As Peter Mendelsund wrote in What We See When We Read, a book is a coproduction. A reader both performs the book and attends the performance. She is conductor, orchestra, and audience. A book, whether nonfiction of fiction, is an "invitation to daydream. ~ Derek Thompson

It begs for a gospel of perseverance through inevitable failure... There is no antidote to the chaos of creative markets. Only the brute doggedness to endure it. ~ Derek Thompson

The mark of a good book is that you're happy to come home to it. The mark of a great book is that you occasionally schedule your life to stay home with it. ~ Derek Thompson

Imitating recent successes is a game that everybody knows how to play. But seeing the next big thing before anybody else sees it is far more valuable... It means being a little bit wrong at just the right time. ~ Derek Thompson

Posting dramatic charts or funny pictures is good and giving people smart reasons to believe what they already think is great. ~ Derek Thompson

I'm an overthinker. Many of us are. My mind gets racing a thousand miles a minute and I get anxious about my work, my career, or where I need to be in thirty minutes. Every day I need to shut down this machine and simply be still.
Be aware of your breathing, really feel your breath going in, going out. Be aware of the feeling of the cloth on your shirt. Be aware of the grip on the steering wheel. Tell yourself--out oud--that the only thing that truly exists right now is this exact moment, and enjoy it, swim in it. Someone once said that your mind is like a raging river that's full of debris, and when you're floating in this river, you reach out and try to grab the branches and rocks. But what if you could climb onto the bank and watch the river? Suddenly you're in a calm place.
Maybe it sounds like a cliché to say, "Stop and smell the roses," so I'll tell you this instead: "Stop and watch the sunset." Just the other night, driving home in L.A., I was struck by how beautiful the sky was--a dark blue canvas painted with strokes of bright orange and red. It was truly one of the most glorious sunsets I'd ever seen. I was stuck in traffic, worrying about one thing or another, and I just gazed out the window and drank it in. I let it fill my soul and inspire me. The world stopped revolving for just that split second, and my mind was still and calm.
And to think, I could have missed it. ~ Derek Hough

It's not so bad."
Melancholia looked at her. "You're lying."
"I'll get used to it. So will you."
"I ... I don't think I'll be able to."
"I'll be there to help when you need it."
"But I hate you."
Valkyrie smiled. "No you don't."
"No, I do. I want to kill you and stuff."
"We actually became friends in those caves."
"That's not what happened, " said Melancholia.
"We're pals. We're buddies."
"If my wrists weren't in shackles, my hands would be round your throat."
"You want to hug my throat because we're friends. ~ Derek Landy

We must have football. What would this country be without football in October? ~ Hunter S. Thompson

My background is all comedy. I've been doing improv since I was 17. It's funny, because when I meet people, I'm known as this guy who will punch you in the face or throw you out a window, when I also have a background in comedy. ~ Derek Mears

In lots of books I read, the writer seems to go haywire every time he reaches a high point. He'll start leaving out punctuation and running his words together and babble about stars flashing and sinking into a deep dreamless sea. And you can't figure out whether the hero's laying his girl or a cornerstone. I guess that kind of crap is supposed to be pretty deep stuff - a lot of the book reviewers eat it up, I notice. But the way I see it is, the writer is just too goddam lazy to do his job. And I'm not lazy, whatever else I am. I'll tell you everything. ~ Jim Thompson

The man from lunch - Derek - stood leaning against the column by the steps. The way his arms crossed his chest made his biceps and shoulders appear huge, which made her notice that he'd changed clothes since lunch. The minute his playful gaze landed on her, he pushed off the column.
"Hi," he said, looking sheepish and way sexier than any man had the right to look. From the way his blue jeans hung on his lean hips to the way his navy button-down hugged the muscles of his shoulders and chest to how tall he was, this guy was sex on legs. ~ Laura Kaye

Is he all scarred now?"
"Magic gets rid of most physical scars, but I like to think I scarred him emotionally. ~ Derek Landy

You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

What now matters most is how we respond to various risks to the survival of humanity. We are creating some of these risks, and discovering how we could respond to these and other risks. If we reduce these risks, and humanity survives the next few centuries, our descendants or successors could end these risks by spreading through this galaxy.

Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche's words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea.

If we are the only rational beings in the Universe, as some recent evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including some of those who have suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists. ~ Derek Parfit

He chuckled. "All I can see is that goddamn necklace. Being seen with you could jeopardize my career. Do you have anything illegal in that bag?" "Never," I said. "A man can't travel around on airplanes wearing a Condor Legion neck-piece unless he's totally clean. I'm not even armed ... This whole situation makes me feel nervous and weird and thirsty." I lifted my sunglasses to look for the bar, but the light was too harsh. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Hubert Humphrey is a treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Seeing me shivering, he stretched a front leg toward the sweatshirt, pawing the edge and snarling when he realized he couldn't grab it.
"The lack of opposable thumbs is going to take some getting used to, huh?" ~ Kelley Armstrong

The curse of the intelligent man is that he will always find himself surrounded by the ignorant. The measure of the intelligent man is determined by his tolerance toward them. ~ Derek R. Audette

Andrew was right. We probably wouldn't have any problems if I didn't go out of my way to create them. ~ Alicia Thompson

No one likes sarcasm, Miss Cain. I've merely delayed my exit to promise you something. You took my straight razor, li'l darlin'. That I view as an unforgivable offense. So when the time comes, when you have served your purpose, I swear to you I'm gonna kill you for free." And with that, Billy-Ray Sanguine disappeared into the ground. Then he popped his head back up. "Or at least half price." And he was gone again. ~ Derek Landy

There is not a thought that is being thought in the West or the East that is not active in some Indian mind ~ E.P. Thompson

We are none of us infallible not even the youngest of us. ~ William Hepworth Thompson

I got a pole and fishing line from under my bed. I came back out of the bedroom and called to Myra, asking her if she could pack me up a lunch because I was going fishing. And I guess you know what she told me. So I left. There weren't many people on the street that late at night, almost nine o'clock, but practically everybody that was up asked me if I was going fishing. I said, why, no, I wasn't, and where did they ever get an idea like that? "Well, how come you're carryin' a fish pole and line, then?" this one fella said. "How come you're doin' that if you ain't goin' fishin'." "Oh, I got that to scratch my butt with," I said. "Just in case I'm up a tree somewheres, an' I can't reach myself from the ground." "But, looky here now - " He hesitated, frowning. "That don't make no sense. ~ Jim Thompson

It's very important, who has the most delegates. The superdelegates should not be the ones making the decision. ~ Linda Chavez-Thompson

This is the fast lane, folks ... and some of us like it here. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Caring about people, especially people who've hurt you, isn't a flaw. It's a sign that you understand God's grace. ~ Janice Thompson

To exist as an individual means not simply to be numerically distinct from other things but to be a self-pole in a dynamic relationship with alterity, with what is other, with the world. ~ Evan Thompson

Elizabeth Taylor has reinvented herself and her image time and time again. The results have often helped redefine modern fashion. ~ Bo Derek

I went from being an underpaid ad man to quite a successful photographer in a very short time. Success breeds confidence and as soon as I got properly confident, I developed my own style. After that I never looked back. ~ Derek Ridgers

Isolation, not solitude, breaks men. If I could not find the means to deal with the isolation, then my options were severely limited. I began to call up memories of places, people, events, food-anything I could do to occupy my mind and remind myself that, even if I was being treated like an animal, I was still a living breathing human being. ~ Shawn Thompson

Don't get me wrong; it's not like I didn't go out and have fun. But there's been a lot of players that come to New York and get caught up in the lifestyle, and before you know it, they're sent away to another team because it affected their performance. ~ Derek Jeter

It is entirely conceivable - given the known effects of Ibogaine - that Muskie's brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time; that he looked out at that crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely when he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs. We ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Everyone in the world has lost someone they care for. That doesn't mean you stop caring. ~ Hilary Thompson

Even President Bush has cited the need to outlaw the practice of corporations making loans to their officers. Strangely enough, when the President was a corporate officer, he took out several loans from the company. ~ Bennie Thompson

Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise ... ~ Emma Thompson

Whether or not anyone could have done it is not what's important. What is important is whether or not anyone would have done it. ~ Derek R. Audette

With rare exceptions, the outlaw bike is a Harley 74, ~ Hunter S. Thompson

He wandered into the Newsroom and asked for a job the same way he'd walk into a barbershop and ask for a haircut, and with no more idea of being turned down. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

At a time when everybody in our culture is talking about tolerance, it seems that tolerance has the highest premium of any response - "If we just tolerate one another ... " But my feeling is: Who wants to be tolerated? People don't want to be tolerated; they want to be loved. ~ Derek Webb

I'm seventeen today and dressed for a party. But I can't move. I can't think, much less move. I can't breathe, much less think. This is the moment when my life will change forever. ~ Hilary Thompson