Glen Gould Quotes

To wake up one day and be Steinway and Glen in One... Glen Steinway, Steinway Glen, all for Bach. ~ Thomas Bernhard

In almost any aspect of our social lives, the ability to interpret accurately the signals of body language, and to manage the impression we are giving to others, may be critical to our success, or even our survival. ~ Glen Wilson

Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough to think that they always observe with rigorous and objective scrutiny, and therefore could never be so fooled while ordinary mortals know perfectly well that good performers can always find a way to trick people. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

But certainly the laser proved to be what I realized it was going to be. At that moment in my life I was too ignorant in business law to be able to do it right, and if I did it over again probably the same damn thing would happen. ~ Gordon Gould

If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it if your speculation is wrong, for the behavior then becomes unnatural and worthy of condemnation. Better to stick resolutely to a philosophical position on human liberty: what free adults do with each other in their own private lives is their business alone. It need not be vindicated and must not be condemned by genetic speculation. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

She brought the tea into the living room on a lacquered tray. The pot and cups were Japanese with unglazed rims. She poured.
"Thanks," I said.
"Well?"
"Huh?"
"Your family," she reminded.
I sipped the tea. "This is really good. Really delicious."
She raised her eyebrows. "That's what I thought. You're a good listener, Davy, and you can change the subject on a dime. You've hardly talked about yourself at all."
"I talk... too much."
"You talk about books, you talk about plays, you talk about movies, you talk about places, you talk about food, you talk about current events. You don't talk about yourself."
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I hadn't really thought about it. Sure, I didn't talk
about the jumping, but the rest? "Well, there's not much to say. Not like those stories of growing up with four brothers."
She smiled. "It's not going to work. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But I'm not going to be distracted again, nor fooled into talking about those idiots again."
She poured more tea into my cup.
I frowned. "Do I really do that?"
"What? Not talk about yourself? Yes."
"No, try and distract you."
She stared at me. "You are fucking amazing. I've never seen someone so good at changing the subject."
"I don't do it on purpose."
She laughed. ~ Steven Gould

Life shows no trend to complexity in the usual sense-only an asymmetrical expansion of diversity around a starting point constrained to be simple. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

This homicide proves only the beginning of his murderous spree. In just the first year of his existence Batman will send some twenty-four men, two vampires, a pack of werewolves, and several giant mutants to their ultimate ends, occasionally at the business end of a gun. ~ Glen Weldon

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies. ~ Glen Cook

Be virtuous and you'll be happy Nonsense Be happy and you'll begin to be virtuous. ~ James Gould Cozzens

Rifkin's assertions bear no relationship to what I have observed and practiced for 25 years ... Either I am blind or he is wrong - and I think I can show, by analyzing his slipshod scholarship and basic misunderstanding of science, that his world is an invention constructed to validate his own private hopes ... Rifkin shows no understanding of the norms and procedures of science: he displays little comprehension of what science is and how scientists work. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

There are, I'm depressed to say, many classics I have not yet read and will probably never get around to, though I will not stop short of hospitalizing myself in the attempt. ~ Glen Duncan

I'm a husband, a father of two, a full-time teacher, and so my writing process mostly involves sitting down and writing, any chance I get, anywhere I am, for as long as life will let me. Music helps. Good light helps. I love quiet and coffee when I can get them. But I can write on a bus, in a dentist office's waiting room, in bed with a clip-on booklight, almost anywhere. And I try to do at least some every single day. ~ Glen Hirshberg

In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money. ~ Glen Hansard

My happiness is like this sand:
I let it run out of my hand. ~ John Gould Fletcher

Well - er - Batwoman - I thought we were going to die - and I wanted to make your last moments happy ones!" he says. Jerk. ~ Glen Weldon

Why do some bald guys grow ponytails? It it the same reason people too old to run always wear track shoes and sweat pants? ~ Dana Gould

Live long enough and nothing is news. 'The News' is
'the new things.' That's fine, until a hundred years go by and you realise there are no new things, only deep structures and cycles that repeat themselves through different period details. ~ Glen Duncan

Does anyone remember how we used to get cash before ATM's? Did we have to go inside the bank? Then what? We lived like apes! ~ Dana Gould

People perceive me as a commodity. They just don't think anything of asking for five minutes of my time. It never occurs to them that if they're asking for it and another thousand people are asking, I don't have 1,000 five minutes to give. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

It's like being called up in the draft. The peculiar joy of hemorrhaging without bleeding starts when the evil little red light glows on the monstrous camera. ~ Jack Gould

We build our personalities laboriously and through many years, and we cannot order fundamental changes just because we might value their utility; no button reading "positive attitude" protrudes from our hearts, and no finger can coerce positivity into immediate action by a single and painless pressing. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

I hated the words. Each one was like a big live insect in my mouth. ~ Glen Duncan

Thank you for your anonymous, enthusiastic posting of my quotes, but one of them is taken from Einstein, another from IB Singer and a third from Shakespeare. Let's return what's rightfully theirs as I feel their brands could use the signal boost. ~ Glen David Gold

Nothing about the character was new. He was simply a combination of tropes from many sources: even his origin story itself was full of swipes. Kane ~ Glen Weldon

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking. ~ Glen Hansard

I went to Iceland in 1861 and went over nearly every bit of the ground made famous by the adventures of Grettir. ~ Sabine Baring-Gould

That which does not kill you isn't finished. ~ Dana Gould

Current utility and historical origin are different subjects. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Nothing holds love together like shared vice or collusive perversion. ~ Glen Duncan

-'Did I snore again last night?'
-'You solidified your grasp on the all-time women's championship. You're ready to compete at the next level. ~ Glen Cook

What you see is that the most outstanding feature of life's history is a constant domination by bacteria. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

The national oil companies still want to acquire some expertise so they will outsource more, but not totally. ~ Andrew Gould

The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor - not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies "out there" in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than the establishment of probable truth. Confirmed hunches, of course, are more upbeat than discredited hypotheses. Since the worst traditions of "popular" writing falsely equate instruction with sweetness and light, our promotional literature abounds with insipid tales in the heroic mode, although tough stories of disappointment and loss give deeper insight into a methodology that the celebrated philosopher Karl Popper once labeled as "conjecture and refutation. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Heydrich, Eichmann, and company therefore invoke the usual trick of argument for breaking a true continuum that lacks a compelling point for separation: choose an arbitrary dividing line and then treat it as a self-evident law of nature. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

The enemy of knowledge and science is irrationalism, not religion ~ Stephen Jay Gould

An old, old formula came to mind, from back when I was very young indeed. "I am a soldier." I said it first in the language I had spoken then, then repeated myself in Sleepy's own Dejagoran dialect. "I've been distracted before. I'm still alive. ~ Glen Cook

A herd of minuscule lightning bugs poured out of One-Eye's nostrils. Good soldiers all, they fell into formation, spelling out the words Goblin is a Poof. ~ Glen Cook

Some fifteen to twenty Burgess species cannot be allied with any known group, and should probably be classified as separate phyla. Magnify some of them beyond the few centimeters of their actual size, and you are on the set of a science-fiction film ... ~ Stephen Jay Gould

It is the things we think we know - because they are so elementary or because they surround us - that often present the greatest difficulties when we are actually challenged to explain them. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

I would judge the sanest man to be him who most firmly realizes the tragic isolation of humanity and pursues his essential purposes calmly. I suppose I feel about it this way because I have a delusion of grandeur. I believe myself to be Joe Gould. ~ Joe Gould

I gave up the notion of writing the life of Joan of Arc, as I found that there was absolutely no new material to be gleaned on her history - in fact, she had been thrashed out. ~ Sabine Baring-Gould

Television networks are a lot like automobile manufacturers or anyone else who's in commerce. If something out there catches on with the public ... I guess you can call it 'market research.' ~ Glen A. Larson

Combat is fear and management of fear far more than it is organized murder. Those who manage fear best will seize the day. ~ Glen Cook