Roger Allam Quotes

[Measure for Measure] leaves me with the sense that life is all there is, so we might as well live it as best we can; that being human is not a given something we have to strive for. That the reason we are here is to live and that this involves making many difficult judgements. ~ Roger Allam

Italy still has a provincial sophistication that comes from its long history as a collection of city states. That, combined with a hot climate, means that the Italians occupy their streets and squares with much greater ease than the English. The resultant street life is very rich, even in small towns like Arezzo and Gaiole, fertile ground for the peeping Tom aspect of an actor's preparation. I took many trips to Siena, and was struck by its beauty, but also by the beauty of the Siennese themselves. They are dark, fierce, and aristocratic, very different to the much paler Venetians or Florentines. They have always looked like this, as the paintings of their ancestors testify. I observed the groups of young people, the lounging grace with which they wore their clothes, their sense of always being on show. I walked the streets, they paraded them. It did not matter that I do not speak a word of Italian; I made up stories about them, and took surreptitious photographs. I was in Siena on the final day of the Palio, a lengthy festival ending in a horse race around the main square. Each district is represented by a horse and jockey and a pair of flag-bearers. The day is spent by teams of supporters with drums, banners, and ceremonial horse and rider processing round the town singing a strange chanting song. Outside the Cathedral, watched from a high window by a smiling Cardinal and a group of nuns, with a huge crowd in the Cathedral Square itself, the supporters passed, and to drum r ~ Roger Allam

As Keyes noted, one bet soundly considered is preferable to many poorly understood. ~ Roger Lowenstein

Above all, practice being loyal to your Soul. ~ Roger Delano Hinkins

Well,' Lydia said, 'I guess Armageddon's back on.'
Eliot fought back a grin.
'You're smiling?', Lydia said. She looked at her car and at their house and down the empty street. 'That's totally inappropriate. ~ D.L.E. Roger

The truth of the matter is, the birds could very well live without us, but many
perhaps all
of us would find life incomplete, indeed almost intolerable without the birds. ~ Roger Tory Peterson

Karkaroff intends to flee if the Mark burns."
"Does he?" said Dumbledore softly, as Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies came giggling in from the grounds. "And are you tempted to join him?"
"No," said Snape, his black eyes on Fleur's and Roger's retreating figures. "I am not such a coward."
"No," agreed Dumbledore. You are a braver man by far than Igot Karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon ... "
He walked away, leaving Snape looking stricken. ~ J.K. Rowling

The headwaters of Shit Creek are a cruel and treacherous expanse. ~ Roger Zelazny

People need books, but they don't know they need them. Generally they are not aware that the books they need are in existence. - Roger Mifflin ~ Christopher Morley

Too much to lament a misery is the next way to draw on a remediless mischief. ~ Roger Chamberlain

When in doubt, use nutrition first. ~ Roger Williams

I learned in high school that I was going to have to outwork people. I remember running around the track, training for football, and a faster guy ran past me. I just figured, I can outlast him. If I work harder than him, I'll beat him. And to this day I overprepare. ~ Roger Goodell

Throughout his life Hayek wanted to affirm his identity with the classic liberal tradition, believing that the true cause of the crises leading to two world wars was the steady increase increase in the power of the state, and its misuse in the pursuit of unattainable goals. 'Social justice' was the name of one of these goals, and Hayek expressly dismissed the expression as a piece of deceptive Newspeak, used to advance large-scale injustice in the name of its opposite. ~ Roger Scruton

Why do we remember the Boys of Summer? We remember because we were young when they were, of course. But more, we remember because we feel the ache of guilt and regret. While they were running, jumping, leaping, we were slouched behind typewriters, smoking and drinking, pretending to some mystic communion with men we didn't really know or like. Men from ghettos we didn't dare visit, or rural farms we passed at sixty miles an hour. Loving what they did on the field, we could forget how superior we felt towards them the rest of the time. By cheering them on we proved we had nothing to do with the injustices that kept their lives separate from ours. There's nothing sordid or false about the Boys of Summer. Only our memories smell like sweaty jockstraps. ~ Roger Kahn

But you can be happy, if you've a mind to! ~ Roger Miller

There is no creature so contemptible but by resolution may gain his point. ~ Roger L'Estrange

How can you be conservative and justify wiretapping people without a warrant? We're supposed to be the party of personal freedom and civil liberties. ~ Roger Stone

It is strange how the romances of the teenage years retain a poignancy all through life - how a girl who turns you down when you're 16 retains an aura in your memory even long after you, and she, have ceased to be who you were then. I attended my high school reunion a couple of weeks ago and discovered, in the souvenir booklet assembled by the reunion committee, that one of the girls in my class had a crush on me all those years ago. I would have given a great deal to have had that information at the time. ~ Roger Ebert

The serve, I think, is the most difficult, you know, in terms of coordination, because you got the two arms going, and you got to toss it up at the right time so. ~ Roger Federer

In a 1957 experiment that helped launch the modern study of language acquisition, the late Roger Brown showed that children know that if you say, "Can you see a sib?" you probably have in mind an action or a process. No other mammal seems to be equipped to use such clues for word learning.

Even more dramatically, no other species seems to be able to make much of word order. The difference between the sentence "Dog bites man" and the sentence "Man bites dog" is largely lost on our nonhuman cousins. There is a bit of evidence that Kanzi can pay attention to word order to some tiny extent, but certainly not in anything like as rich a fashion as a three-year-old human child. ~ Gary F. Marcus

I felt it would to add a great deal to my legend for eccentricity. ~ Roger Ebert

It's kind of fun to be a clown. I've always played the clown. The clowns come on, get the biggest, juiciest laughs, and then leave. ~ Roger Bart

Roger Ailes said, we learned from a secret back channel that the ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. ~ Michel Martin

Working with UNICEF made me grow up and recognize how fortunate I am. ~ Roger Moore

And that's the mistake that was made with Steel Pier. Roger was caught between a rock and hard place. It would have cost a couple of million dollars more to take it to Boston or someplace first. So we opened about a month too early. ~ Gregory Harrison

A powerful flight of the imagination ... an entirely enjoyable reading experience, wrought by a pair of writers noted for excellence. ~ Roger Zelazny

Every player in every game is subjected to a cold and ceaseless accounting; no ball is thrown and no base is gained without an instant responding judgment - ball or strike, hit or error, yea or nay - and an ensuing statistic. This encompassing neatness permits the baseball fan, aided by experience and memory, to extract from a box score the same joy, the same hallucinatory reality, that prickles the scalp of a musician when he glances at a page of his score of Don Giovanni and actually hears bassos and sopranos, woodwinds and violins. ~ Roger Angell

I want to elect the next president. ~ Roger Ailes

Tiant, noted for odd pitching mannerisms, is also a famous mound dawdler. Stands on hill like sunstruck archeologist at Knossos. Regards ruins. Studies sun. Studies landscape. Looks at artifact in hand. Wonders: Keep this potsherd or throw it away? Does Smithsonian want it? Hmm. Prepares to throw it away. Pauses. Sudd. discovers writing on object. Hmm. Possible Linear B inscript.? Sighs. Decides. Throws. Wipes face. Repeats whole thing. Innings & hours creep by. Spectators clap, yawn, droop, expire. ~ Roger Angell

No, Roger had not seen the funny side. But there had been a moment when, after looking at his watch, he had thought: I can remember when Christmas morning would start at about half past ten with a glass of Buck's Fizz in bed. Now it begins at half past five, with a test of my fine motor skills and ability to read Korean. ~ John Lanchester

O sun, heart of the heavens whose blood of light
Infuses the vigor which transmutes to azure
The black ice strangler of great space obscure
I hate you, mask of gold, mist and fire, circular
Blind monster blinding all the prey around
You who veil the impure dazzling phantasm
To the loving vertigo of my avid gazes
The visions of the colorless abyss of the void
Reversed hollow truth-mask of the other world. ~ Roger Gilbert-Lecomte

Early in my career, I struggled with consistency, but I couldn't get more consistent than this year. ~ Roger Federer

My place, your place, slapped face, rat race. ~ Roger Daltrey

I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy. ~ Roger Bannister

Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge. ~ Roger De Rabutin, Comte De Bussy

I'd always hated any kind of peanut butter candy. Peanut butter, in my opinion, belonged in sandwiches and nowhere else. ~ Morgan Matson

When dealing with American politics, you try to follow the money, and that's where it leads you. It doesn't take you to the electoral college or to Princeton. It takes you down the darker alleys of American life. ~ Roger Morris

2001's production notes contain a number of startlingly prescient glimpses of the world we live in today. As of mid-1965, approximately the same time that the US Department of Defense was conceiving of the internet's direct predecessor, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), Kubrick's intrepid band of futurists had seemingly already visualized important aspects of the new technology's implications. One document sent from Tony Masters to Roger Caras on June 29 listed matter-of-factly - under a letterhead replete with the roaring MGM lion - nine props that he asked Caras to help him with. Number one was "2001 newspaper to be read on some kind of television screen. Should be designed television screen shape; i.e., wider than it is high. ~ Michael Benson

I was obsessed with The Who. I would have accepted a marriage proposal from Roger Daltrey on the spot. I went to all of their shows in San Francisco and some in L.A. That was as close as I got to being a groupie. ~ Jennifer Egan

Diary of a Brave Ender Dragon The ~ Roger Rice

Here's how much I know about hockey. Mike Royko and I were in a tiny bar one winter night, and the radio kept reporting goals by the Blackhawks. I mentioned how frequently the team was scoring. 'You're listening to the highlights,' Royko observed. ~ Roger Ebert

Obviously a candidate has to be held responsible for the words that come out of his mouth, regardless of where they came from. ~ Roger Stone

At 09:22, Mitchell radioed down. "We're in position."
Pete peered up into the canopy, but of course he couldn't see a thing. "How's it looking up there?"
"Five by five."
He snorted at Mitchell's cheery misuse of the phrase. "Thank you, Faith."
"Any time, Giles. Now go be a good watcher and keep us clear."
"Roger that. Out. ~ Rachel Haimowitz

I'm proud to be British. ~ Roger Moore

Another example of their hatefulness while my dander's up: in order to get themselves off the hook of sometimes liking uncool things, they refer to them as 'guilty pleasures', which is a ridiculous expression. What? So you like Abba, or Roger Moore as James Bond, but have been led to believe that this taste is somehow infra dig, so you style it a 'guilty pleasure', thus demonstrating you're sufficiently relaxed and self-deprecating to own up to it – when in fact the way you have chosen to express it lays bare your bland and inane obsession with the worthless trappings of the zeitgeist.
'Guilty pleasures'? It's prudish and judgemental and yet it's referring to harmless things people do in their spare time. I mean, I've watched and enjoyed The X Factor and I know that it's not exactly the Proms or The Wire or whatever worthy thing I'm supposed to be watching, but why should I feel the least bit guilty about having taken pleasure from it? Or, for that matter, from eating a Findus crispy pancake, watching a Brittas Empire DVD or reading Country Life in the bath? ~ David Mitchell

Kindness' covers all of my political beliefs. ~ Roger Ebert

One of the first items of Congressional business in 2006 will be an effort to renew the USA Patriot Act. ~ Roger Wicker