Really Smart Quotes

It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books. ~ Phil Klay

Fortunately, we have a lot of really smart women in the business. ~ Rosanna Arquette

I really liked Tom & Jerry. That was huge for me. I watched it every morning, before I walked to school. Even as a kid, I thought there was something really smart about it. I thought it was very clever. ~ Jason Lee

They don't understand that I'm just choosing to be dumb. I'm not dumb. I'm just choosing not to be smart at the moment, but if I put in effort, then I could be really smart, but I choose not to. ~ Jonah

Dogs (like rats) are multitalented but they are also not very smart the way humans are. A recent book, devoted to the intelligence of dogs, is 250+ pages long (Stanley Coren, The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of Our Canine Companions, 1994). Interestingly, despite careful qualifications by Coren regarding definitions, the ranking of breeds by intelligence literally made newspaper headlines. We are obviously fascinated by the notion that dogs - or at least certain breeds of dog - might, just might, be really, really smart. It all makes as much sense as evaluating humans on our ability to sniff for bombs or echo-locate. ~ Jean Donaldson

To me the key thing is getting it right. And if a person's really smart and they're doing fantastic work, I don't care if they're a high school kid or a Harvard professor; it's the work that matters. ~ Jimmy Wales

One of the most stubborn barriers to patient empowerment is the cultural assumption that since the way professionals learned was hard, you must need to be really smart, and you need to be taught in a carefully thought out, methodical sequence. ~ Dave DeBronkart

I took in a deep breath, and smoke twisted around my head as I let it slip through my teeth. "Do you know what my favorite show was when I was a little kid?"

The look again. "I would have no idea."

"Doctor Who. British sci-fi show."

"I am familiar with it. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt - "

"No," I said. "The new show's great, but I grew up on the old one. The low-budget, rubber monster show with Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I watched it on PBS all the time as a kid."

I looked out at the dark ruins of Hollywood, at the stumbling shadows dotting the streets as far as you could see. The only other living person within half a mile was standing behind me, her eyes boring into my head.

"The Doctor didn't have super-powers or weapons or anything like that. He was just a really smart guy who always tried to do the right thing. To help people, no matter what. That struck me when I was a kid. The idea that no matter how cold and callous and heartless the world seemed, there was somebody out there who just wanted to make life better. Not better for worlds or countries in some vague way. Just better for people trying to live their lives, even if they didn't know about him."

I turned back to her and tapped my chest. "That's what this suit's always been about. Not scaring people like you or Gorgon do. Not some sort of pseudo-sexual roleplay or repressed emotions. I wear this thing, all these brigh ~ Peter Clines

Dallas Willard explains: The world has succeeded in opposing intelligence to goodness. . . . And today any attempt to combine spirituality or moral purity with great intelligence causes widespread pangs of "cognitive dissonance." [As with Jesus,] Mother Teresa . . . is thought of as . . . nice, of course, but not really smart. "Smart" means good at managing how life "really" is. ~ Jared C. Wilson

Somebody said something really smart: It's like you end up being the defense attorney for your role. Your job is to defend their point of view. You're fighting for what they want. You learn that in acting school - it's Acting 1A: 'What do you want? What's in the way?' ~ Annette Bening

'The Simpsons' basically - and 'Futurama' - are really smart shows. They're kind of disguised as these goofy animated sitcoms, but the references within the shows, if you're paying attention, are pretty smart and pretty sophisticated. ~ Matt Groening

I haven't been paying attention to politics long enough to have really smart opinions. ~ Biz Stone

Oh, come on. Haven't you seen him?" Eleanor exclaimed.
It's because he's tall, isn't it? Tall and has long hair." Even Nathaniel's crude description made me want to see Dante again. Unfortunately, he never came to dinner, probably because he lived off campus.
"He's really smart," I murmured.
"And confident," Eleanor added.
"It's like he's older than everyone else," I said "Like he knows what he want and isn't afraid of taking it."
"What she's saying is that he's manly." Eleanor grinned. ~ Yvonne Woon

Part of the fun of the movie is understanding exactly why we called it Prometheus. And also, it sounds really pretentious, like Inception, so we were just like, "Yeah, that makes the movie sound really smart!" It's so much better then my original title, Explosion. Well, there might be an explosion in the movie. ~ Damon Lindelof

To see talented people in roles that others might not see them in, to see how they might fit in the puzzle of the cast, has always been something that I've been good at. I think that if you look at the successes of my films and start to peel them back, there's usually a really smart casting decision that has gone into that success. ~ Jon Favreau

The future is going to require really smart people. What we think are crises today probably will be no big deal, and we have no idea what will really be crises in the future. ~ Dean Kamen

I may not be a role model, but at least I'm raising really smart children. ~ Colleen Hoover

When you live in America, it's kind of insular - the news coverage that you get - unless you're really smart about it and find more international news coverage. I've learned that from my husband. In the French culture, they talk politics. ~ Kim Raver

DFW: I think there are different people on the page than in real life. I do six to eight drafts of everything that I do. Um, I am probably not the smartest writer going. But I also
and I know, OK, this is gonna fit right into the persona
I work really really hard. I'm really
you give me twenty-four hours? If we'd done this interview through the mail? I could be really really really smart. I'm not all that fast. And I'm really self-conscious. And I get confused really easily. When I'm in a room by myself alone, and have enough time, I can be really really smart. And people are different that way. You know what I mean? I may not
I don't think I'm quite as smart, one-on-one with people, when I'm self-conscious, and I'm really really confused. And it's like, My dream would be for you to write this up, and then to send it to me, and I get to rewrite all my quotes to you. Which of course you'll never do ... ~ David Lipsky

Robots will someday, or maybe, wake up. They may be really smart. They may be as creative, smart and capable as human beings, and fully conscious, and self discerning with free will. ~ David Hanson

We all have brains and we're all really smart people, but the underlying reality is that we're really just animals and sometimes animal instinct takes over your capability to really think things through. ~ Cristian Machado

Yeah, I guess I do." My heart plummets again. "Or I did. Maybe I still do. I don't know. But I didn't bring her to the dance. I brought you. It seems I spend all my time with you."
"Why is that?" I'm genuinely curious but aware that I could be opening a door I don't want opened. I quickly rephrase. "I mean, why do you want to?"
He looks thoughtful.
"You're funny," he finally says. "I laugh a lot when I'm with you. I always have fun when I'm with you. And you try to hide it, but you're actually pretty sweet."
"That's a horrible thing to say," I say petulantly, crossing my arms tightly again. He chuckles.
"And you're really smart."
"Now I know you're lying."
"You are. But you try to hide that as well. And you're pretty."
"Worse and worse," I moan. He grins.
"And when I'm with you, I don't want to be anywhere else or with anyone else. ~ Cindy C. Bennett

No one can be as intellectually slothful as a really smart person ~ Stephen King

I complained about it to Tim Kaine. "Flake gave me this stupid hat. This is the worst Secret Santa gift ever. What was he thinking?"
"Staff error," said Tim. He's really smart. And would make a great vice president. Goddammit. Now I'm depressed. Let's move on. ~ Al Franken

The cool thing about Kyle Killen, he writes really defined characters. I was a big fan of 'Awake' and also 'Lone Star.' I just think that he's a really, really special writer, and complex and deep, and a really smart dude. ~ Jaime Ray Newman

I've always felt that kids are really smart. ~ Michelle Trachtenberg

I always value people's opinions. I think a lot of people are really smart people, and when people say something, they do it for a reason. ~ Harald Zwart

I lack formal education. So I'm left with the feeling that I'm smarter than everyone around me but that if I ever got around really smart people - people who went to universities and drank wine and spoke Latin - that they'd be bored as hell by me. It's a lonely way to go through life. ~ Gillian Flynn

The problem with being a really smart prick is, end of the day, you're still a prick. ~ Dana Haynes

In ten minutes, I'm thinking, 'OK, you know what? I love these guys. They're really smart, they're really good, they've got a good sense of comedy, under their guidance, I think maybe this could come out OK.' But I didn't like the part. ~ Eugene Levy

You see these young people in Antigonish who are coming from Cape Breton, and these are really smart, attractive young people, who are living in a place that's been very rough economically. It's a very special thing to be helpful there. ~ Gerry Schwartz

I try to create some stupid entertainment for really smart people that they don't feel too stupid watching. In 'Xanadu,' the biggest laugh was a reference to Achilles. ~ Douglas Carter Beane

Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks. ~ Aaron Sorkin

If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down. ~ Jessica Valenti

When I'm going to events, I like Armani because I think they do a cross between my relaxed rocky feel and a really smart elegant look really well. ~ Ruta Gedmintas

I've definitely seen things that have made me laugh. And there's some things that are really smart and like, "Oh man, we should have done that, that's really cool!" And there's some things that are like, "Oh, do they know something? I don't know!" So there's the whole variety of things that are in those theories. But they're cool. ~ Dan Trachtenberg

Musk has talked about having more kids, and it's on this subject that he delivers some controversial philosophizing vis-à-vis the creator of Beavis and Butt-head. "There's this point that Mike Judge makes in Idiocracy, which is like smart people, you know, should at least sustain their numbers," Musk said. "Like, if it's a negative Darwinian vector, then obviously that's not a good thing. It should be at least neutral. But if each successive generation of smart people has fewer kids, that's probably bad, too. I mean, Europe, Japan, Russia, China are all headed for demographic implosion. And the fact of the matter is that basically the wealthier - basically wealth, education, and being secular are all indicative of low birth rate. They all correlate with low birth rate. I'm not saying like only smart people should have kids. I'm just saying that smart people should have kids as well. They should at least maintain - at least be a replacement rate. And the fact of the matter is that I notice that a lot of really smart women have zero or one kid. You're like, 'Wow, that's probably not good. ~ Ashlee Vance

Wow! So you're really smart, huh? This brilliant deduction was offered by a girl with a Marilyn Monroe voice who used glittery pens and wrote each letter of her name in a different color, surrounded by hearts and stars. I had dubbed her Sparkles. ~ Amy Harmon

My theory is that there is a finite amount of intelligence in a family, and you're supposed to gradually transfer it to your children over a period of many years. This is why your parents started to get so stupid just at the time in your life when you were getting really smart. ~ Dave Barry

If you want to compete in bioinformatics, first you need to compete for really smart people. You need really smart people who understand how to manipulate nanomolecules. ~ Juan Enriquez

I love reading religious authors. Especially in the sort of circle I move in, people tend to be more secular, and I love reading books by just really smart people of religious faith. It's always a really cool perspective. ~ Mallory Ortberg

I think Chris Brown gets kind of dismissed as a gay writer, and I think Chris's books are really, really smart. I wish his books sold a little more widely. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I go for really smart guys, ones who are well-read and can banter and argue. Men need to be able to take me out and have a few drinks, but by the end of the night we'll be talking about Nietzsche. ~ Katie McGrath

I come from a really lovely, really smart family where the only stress was money and employment. ~ Paul Schneider

Where you go to these really good schools, and it's all about preparing for the next step of success. That was never even on my radar. My job is to explore the world, because this is my one life, you know? That's totally how I see it. But I came to Yale just being like, Yeah, now I get to explore this place and meet all these people who are really smart. And I was just excited to be surrounded by people who were as smart as me or were probably smarter. And I just did not expect the level of competition and bitterness and anger, and, the tearing each other down. ~ Larkin Grimm

It's funny how really smart people have the most unusual holes in their worldview and perception. ~ Nalini Singh

People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave. ~ James Randi

I think my parents were really smart parents. I think they were, actually, pretty progressive for the time. The one thing that they really wanted me to know is what makes me tick, what I am about, how I approach life. And I think what my parents really wanted for me was for me to be who I am. ~ Rich Mullins

When I first came to Washington, what I admired most was that people were just really, really smart with a tremendous amount of intellectual horsepower and the ability to look at an issue and say something fresh. ~ Ezra Klein

If risk is the key factor to success and really smart people avoid it, you might not be dumb enough to succeed! ~ Garrison Wynn

So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation's good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition - recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us. It would be strange and self-defeating to fail to seek out these wise voices from the past
as self-defeating as it would be to attempt to rediscover the principles of physics from scratch or invent a new method of brain surgery without having learned the ones that already exist. ~ George Saunders

I don't give a crap if you're a Tangent or a really smart llama. You're my friend and that's all that matters ~ James Dashner

A lot of the turning points happen in high school and in college, and it defines a lot of how you see the world and how you decide to defend yourself from the world. Some people - their defense mechanism is, I'm really smart or I'm sexy or I'm the leader. And other people - they hide or they make jokes. ~ Judd Apatow

If I go to an awards ceremony, I wear a suit, of course I do. I am proud to be there. If there are young kids looking at pictures of me, I want them to feel that they should long for the opportunity to go somewhere really smart and wear a beautiful suit, rather than to reject that. ~ Tinie Tempah

Even the most analytical thinkers are predictably irrational; the really smart ones acknowledge and address their irrationalities. ~ Dan Ariely

Maybe the only significant difference between a really smart simulation and a human being was the noise they made when you punched them. ~ Terry Pratchett

Smile at people, pop your head into your boss's office regularly and say hello, and come to your first meeting with something really smart to say. ~ Kate White

I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas

I'm a really smart player. If you tell me something, I get it quickly. If there is something wrong with my hitting, tell me what's wrong and I'll pick it up right away. That's the best thing I have going for me, my ability to listen to a coach and fix what I'm doing wrong. ~ Albert Pujols

My mom's always saying really smart things ... like, you probably heard this one, 'Why buy the cow when the milk has HPV?' Wish I'd listened to that one. ~ Amy Schumer

Really smart people don't want to say stupid things, and they really don't want to be a part of a PR-engineered interview. People really do want to be smart, and they want smart questions. So, if you ask smart questions, there's no way you can't do well. ~ Kara Swisher

I definitely feel like I'm a really good playmaker, a really smart point guard that can lead his team and win. ~ Trey Burke

People that are really smart and that can learn new things can almost always find a role in the company as time goes on. ~ Sam Altman

And Silence of the Lambs is a really smart book. ~ Jonathan Franzen

If you want your children to be smart, tell them stories. If you want them to be really smart, tell them more stories. If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them even more stories. ~ Albert Einstein

There was, and still is, a sense that those who make it are of two varieties. The first are lucky: They come from wealthy families with connections, and their lives were set from the moment they were born. The second are the meritocratic: They were born with brains and couldn't fail if they tried. Because very few in Middletown fall into the former category, people assume that everyone who makes it is just really smart. To the average Middletonian, hard work doesn't matter as much as raw talent. It's ~ J.D. Vance

We teach brilliance bias to children from an early age. A recent US study found that when girls start primary school at the age of five, they are as likely as five-year-old boys to think women could be 'really really smart'. But by the time they turn six, something changes. They start doubting their gender. So much so, in fact, that they start limiting themselves: if a game is presented to them as intended for 'children who are really, really smart', five-year-old girls are as likely to want to play it as boys - but six-year-old girls are suddenly uninterested. Schools are teaching little girls that brilliance doesn't belong to them. No wonder that by the time they're filling out university evaluation forms, students are primed to see their female teachers as less qualified. ~ Caroline Criado Perez

I am sure Cinderella was really smart. Even if the fairy had not appeared, she would have found some way out of their clutches. She would have had to; it's called survival. ~ Gita V. Reddy

I update my MySpace every day, I update my Facebook fan page, but that's about the extent of it. I don't want to get into extended conversations with people on MySpace, because there are friends I have extended conversations with every day. I'm on the phone every day. There's like five people I just call and yak with every single day. And that to me is my Internet. You can replace the Internet with five really smart friends. ~ Patton Oswalt

I heard John Wells say something really smart, many years ago. He said, "Assume your audience is really intelligent. Assume that they are really smart, and tell your story that way." So, for me, it's about never assuming that they will go away because they're not entertained. ~ Veena Sud

Did you hook up with your girlfriend yet?"
"No. But I have high hopes for that. Assuming I can stay alive."
"High hopes for what?"
"Our relationship."
"Why?" she asks. "What's changed between then and now?"
This is one of these utterly simple and obvious questions that is irritating
because Hiro's not sure of the answer. "Well, I think I figured out what she
was doing -- why she came here."
Another simple and obvious question. "So, I feel like I understand her now."
"You do?"
"Yeah, well, sort of."
"And is that supposed to be a good thing?"
"Well, sure."
"Hiro, you are such a geek. She's a woman, you're a dude. You're not supposed
to understand her. That's not what she's after."
"Well, what is she after, do you suppose -- keeping in mind that you've never
actually met the woman, and that you're going out with Raven?"
"She doesn't want you to understand her. She knows that's impossible. She just
wants you to understand yourself. Everything else is negotiable."
"You figure?"
"Yeah. Definitely."
"What makes you think I don't understand myself?"
"It's just obvious. You're a really smart hacker and the greatest sword fighter
in the world -- and you're delivering pizzas and promoting concerts that you
don't make any money off of. How do you expect her to -- ~ Neal Stephenson

Netflix is amazing 'cause they trust the creator to do their job, and they trust us to do our job. They're really smart and just let us do our thing and deliver a great job. ~ Laura Prepon

Some [people] are really smart. You know who you are. Some [people] are really thick. Unfortunately, you don't know who you are. ~ Ricky Gervais

I think I just pick really smart and motivated people to work with - people who are probably going to do great things anyway - and I just teach them what I know, maybe teach them how to think a little clearer than they did before, and then off they go. ~ Tucker Max

I like to work with people that I like hanging out with, that I admire, that are really smart and talented, and we can problem solve together. ~ Tom Cruise

I think most teen comedies are probably played in a way that aren't geared towards people that are wanting to be entertained but also [see] something that has a lot of heart to it. The things we do in the movie - it has a lot of heart, and also it's really smart. The people and the characters that we are, we're really intelligent people that are using our tactics to get back at a guy. The moral of being who you are, and trusting yourself, finding your inner strength - I think that's something that most teen movies don't really dial into. ~ Brittany Snow

The Republican Party would be really smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible. ~ Sarah Palin

Then the door flew open and Mr. Faulks told us to head over to the gym. I thought that was really smart. Get all of us in one place so the aliens didn't have to waste a lot of ammunition. ~ Rick Yancey

The rifle and the pistol are still the equalizer when one man is more of a man than another, and if ... he is really smart ... he will get a permit to carry one and then drop around to Abercrombie and Fitch and buy himself a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, 'Woodsman model', with a five-inch barrel and a box of shells. I advise him to get lubricated hollow points to avoid jams and to ensure a nice expansion on the bullet. He might even get several boxes and practice a little ... ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Science fiction has done a really good job of scaring us into thinking that computers shouldn't get too smart, because as soon as they get really smart, they're going to take over the world and kill us, or something like that. But why would they do that? ~ Luis Von Ahn

Ah, God, it was too sad and awful, the endless hide-and-go-seek game one played with the middle class.
If one could only be sure that one did not belong to it, that
one was finer, nobler, more aristocratic. The truth was, she
hated it shakily from above, not solidly from below, and her
proletarian sympathies constituted a sort of snub that she ad-
ministered to the middle class, just as a really smart woman will
outdress her friends by relentlessly underdressing them. Scratch
a socialist and you find a snob. The semantic test confirmed
this. In the Marxist language, your opponent was always a
"parvenu," an "upstart," an "adventurer," a politician was al-
ways "cheap," and an opportunist "vulgar." But the proletariat
did not talk in such terms; this was the tone of the F.F.V.
What the socialist movement did for a man was to allow him-
self the airs of a marquis without having either his title or his 
sanity questioned. ~ Mary McCarthy

You know something,Jacob, I'd hate to be as smart as Jonh. I mean he was really, really smart, and to be that smart means you know all the answers, and when you know all the answers there's no room for dreaming. ~ Melina Marchetta

You just can't tell or calibrate motive or intelligence or sense. So I don't read anything unless someone tells me that it's really smart or illuminating. I don't read any reviews anymore and it's been really liberating. ~ Anna Quindlen

Everyone remembers the pop-quiz hotshot bit from 'Speed' because it's extremely funny, and it's really smart and really witty. And the notion that action movies can have dialogue that pops just as well as the explosions is something that I hope more people continue to remember. ~ Graham Moore

What? (Nick)
You one of them humans can't follow Simi speak. That's okay. This is why the Simi don't bother talking to most humans 'cause, no offense, you all weird. Some of you even stupid. Real stupid. Like stump stupid. It's the lack of hornays, I say. See, only really smart creatures have hornays…except for them moo moo cows – they not bright. But akri says there's always an exception to every rule. So they would be the exception to the hornay one. But they taste really good so the Simi will forgive them for bringing down her bell curve of superior intellect over all the other nonhorned subspecies. (Simi ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I'm a self-didact. (Not a dirty word, look it up.) I read constantly. I think. But I lack formal education. So I'm left with the feeling that I'm smarter than everyone around me but that if I ever got around really smart people - people who went to universities and drank wine and spoke Latin - that they'd be bored as hell by me. ~ Gillian Flynn

Ever notice how really smart people enjoy making silly jokes? ~ Elizabeth Chandler

I think it's because it's so different and it takes risks. Plus, it's really smart humor. It gives the audience credit in terms of not needing to tell them when to laugh. I love that about the show. There's no laugh track. ~ Sarah Chalke

I started acting when I was, like, three. My brother was really smart, and he wasn't being challenged enough, so my mom put him in the theater class. And I obviously followed him. ~ Nolan Gould

I had a number of great teachers and the ones that really were the strongest influences on me were women. They were really, really smart and interesting women. ~ Meryl Streep

I've been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of really smart people. The thing that strikes me most about them is how they continue to explore and learn every day. I have tried to apply that approach in my modest career as well. ~ Bill Russell

I've been fortunate to work with some really smart people. Larry Page is an extremely smart guy, most probably one of the smartest people I've worked with. ~ Ram Shriram

The kind of stupid you can manage to achieve only by being really, really smart, because only really, really smart people can reach adulthood without having any goddamn common sense. ~ Mira Grant

Once he had identified the new new thing, all he needed was some really smart, passionate engineers to chase after it and make it happen. ~ Michael Lewis

If I had a daughter, I would tell her certain things. I would tell her that it's great to be smart, really smart - that being smart makes you strong. I would tell her that emotions are powerful, so don't be afraid to show them. I would tell her that some people may judge you on how you look or what you wear - that's just how it is - but you should keep your focus on what you say and do. I would tell her that she may see the world differently from boys, and that difference is essential and good. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

Obviously if you're playing some of the smartest men in the world, you want to sound really smart. ~ Matthew William Goode

If you were smart, you'd probably spend more time stretching, he said & I said, If I were really smart, I'd probably spend more time just sitting in the shade drinking lemonade. ~ Brian Andreas

I think so many great artists are flocking to LA because the downtown art scene is so vibrant, there is cheap living and you can really flourish as an artist there. There is an unbelievably supportive and really smart, talented theatre audience in LA full of young, hungry, vibrant people. It's something that sort of makes me think of what New York must have been like in its downtown theater scene in the 1980s - before my time. ~ Jon Bernthal

I'm not saying people shouldn't apply themselves and work hard. You do have to try to make your own luck. But I know people firsthand who worked incredibly hard, who were really smart, who never got into trouble, and still didn't get a break. ~ David Lindsay-Abaire

My talent isn't so much in traditional research as in finding really smart people and badgering them with questions. ~ Maria Semple