Vanderbilt Quotes

I want to be with you as much as possible, Ronnie. You're smart and funny and you're honest. I trust you. I trust us. Yeah, I'm leaving and you're going back home. But neither of those things changes the way I feel about you. And my feelings aren't going to change simply because I'm going to Vanderbilt. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Throughout my life I have taken detours in acting and writing, but art remains my abiding passion. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

As Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues, 'You can't adapt to commuting, because it's entirely unpredictable. Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.' ~ Tom Vanderbilt

When anybody says, 'Why me?' Why is 'me' exempt? ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Men may or may not be better drivers than women, but they seem to die more often trying to prove that they are. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

Years ago I asked my friend, the great actress Ruth Gordon, to articulate in a few words the secret to her indomitable, unsinkable spirit. Her reply was a gift that became a mantra for me:

"It takes courage.
It takes believing in it.
It takes work.
It takes rising above it.
It takes me liking you, and you liking me.
It takes the dreaming soul of the human race that wants it to go right.
Never stop dreaming.
Think about it. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

disappearing into the rent sky. ~ K.M. Vanderbilt

Gut feelings help us filter the world, and what is taste, really, but a kind of cognitive mechanism for managing sensory overload? But ~ Tom Vanderbilt

Today, of Americans officially designated as 'poor', 99 per cent have electricity, running water, flush toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 per cent have a television, 88 per cent a telephone, 71 per cent a car and 70 per cent air conditioning. Cornelius Vanderbilt had none of these. ~ Matt Ridley

In America, a pedestrian is someone who has just parked their car. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

Ceremony is-really a protection, too, in times of emotional involvement, particularly at death. If we have a social formula to guide us and do not have to extemporize, we feel better able to handle life. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

When I'm traveling to promote my book, I feel like an artful impostor. What I really am is when I'm in my (painter's) studio and when I'm writing. With actors, it's the same thing. They're kind of artful impostors in public. When you get to know them, they're different people. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Today Americans living below the poverty line are not just light-years ahead of most Africans; they're light-years ahead of the wealthiest Americans from just a century ago. Today 99 percent of Americans living below the poverty line have electricity, water, flushing toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television; 88 percent have a telephone; 71 percent have a car; and 70 percent even have air-conditioning. This may not seem like much, but one hundred years ago men like Henry Ford and Cornelius Vanderbilt were among the richest on the planet, but they enjoyed few of these luxuries. ~ Peter H. Diamandis

Experts are people who have the same opinions as other experts. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

If you've never had a mother or a father, you grow up seeking something you're never going to find, ever. You seek it in love and in people and in beauty. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

When I started travelling, I would go to a city and be on television and I used to get the question, 'Why do you work? If I were you, I'd just go and lie on a beach somewhere.' And I'd answer, 'Well, I wanted to make something of my life.' ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

One of the goals of life is to try and be in touch with one's most personal themes-the values, the ideas, styles, colors that are the touchstones of one's own individual life, its real texture and substance. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I was fearless. Wild horses couldn't stop me. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I am not afraid of my enemies, but by God, you must look out when you get among your friends. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

In mythology and palmistry, the left hand is called the dreamer because the ring finger on the left hand leads directly to the heart. I find it a very poetic idea. And that's why I only wear nail polish on my left ring finger. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I've been really very fortunate with the men I've been involved with. They've always really treated me very, very wonderfully. And whenever anything broke up, I was always the one to leave. So I think I've been really very, very lucky. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Everything in life is elusive. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is to my interest to do so. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

If you don't have a father, you don't miss it, because you don't know what it is. It was really only when I married Wyatt Cooper that I understood what it was like to have a father, because he was just an extraordinary father. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Traffic is more of the in between time where we think more about where we are going than where we are at the moment. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

In the first stage, the city is proposing to begin reviewing a zoning change for what it is calling the Vanderbilt corridor, from 42nd to 47th Streets along Vanderbilt Avenue. If approved, developers would be allowed to build taller and larger buildings than currently permitted in exchange for substantive transportation improvements. ~ Anonymous

That is the best-to laugh with someone because you both think the same things are funny. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Have great, secret, big, fat hopes for yourself. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

The fame you earn has a different taste from the fame that is forced upon you. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr. Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The public be damned. I am working for my stockholders. ~ William Henry Vanderbilt

Art brings a message into a room. It should make us perceive in a new way - either through color, form or narrative content - something we had not perceived before ... and perhaps reveal something to you about yourself. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

We are not put on this earth to see through one another. We are put on this earth to see one another through. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Everyone knows that a man can marry even if he reaches the age of 102, is penniless, and has all his facilities gone. There is always some woman willing to take a chance on him. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

I'm the seventh chancellor at Vanderbilt; Bobby Johnson is the 25th head football coach. That shows a lack of commitment to attract and retain. ~ Gordon Gee

I'll always remain friends with men I've been in love with. Each one gave me so much, in so many ways. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt don't wear clothes with your name on it, so why should you wear their name? ~ Mr. T

I don't care half so much about making money as I do about making my point, and coming out ahead. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

Starling knew what the malicious Dr. Lecter would say, and it was true: she was afraid there was something tacky that Senator Martin saw in her, something cheap, something thief-like that Senator Martin reacted to. That Vanderbilt bitch.
Dr. Lecter would relish pointing out that class resentment, the buried anger that comes with mother's milk, was a factor too. Starling gave away nothing to any Martin in education, intelligence, drive, and certainly physical appearance, but still it was there and she knew it. ~ Thomas Harris

For the Vanderbilts lived in a day when flaunting one's money was not only accepted but celebrated. What may have started as playacting, as dressing up as dukes and princesses for fancy dress balls in fairytale palaces, soon developed into a firm conviction that they were indeed the new American nobility. ~ Arthur T. Vanderbilt II

If I had learned education I would not have had time to learn anything else. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

Do not smoke without asking permission or sit so near (as in a train) that the smoke might annoy. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

Even death is wonderful because, as Woody Allen says, we're not going to know when it happens. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbour on the next block who is worth only half a million. ~ William Henry Vanderbilt

You must always have great, secret, big fat hopes for yourself in love and in life. The bigger, the better. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Death is the price you paid for being born. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

The anxious positioning Bourdieu had noted could be felt in a tweeted "humblebrag," an attempt to claim cultural capital without looking as if one were doing so. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

I can't bear to look at Paris Hilton and all that. I mean, it really doesn't grab me. I don't think she's interesting, and the sense of values seems sort of off-kilter. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Sometimes, you'll watch the news and you'll see two-year-old boys in South Africa, wearing 'Spider-Man' t-shirts. It's such a global phenomenon. ~ James Vanderbilt

Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

I guess I had all kinds of ideas about him, but they weren't really him, they were just what I made him in my head. The reality was not as attractive as the ideal. ~ May Vanderbilt

To be happy--one must find one's bliss ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

There's a saying I read recently; I painted it on the fireplace and in my studio: "Be kind to everyone you meet, for everyone is fighting a great battle." We all are. Everyone. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I have been insane on the subject of moneymaking all my life. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

You are not put on this earth to see through people. You are put on this earth to see people through. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Archer?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. Hey, you might be able to take away my magical powers, but the power of sarcasm was still at my disposal. "Is your last name Newport or Vanderbilt? Maybe followed by some numbers? Ooh!" I said, widening my eyes, "or maybe even Esquire!"
I'd hoped to hurt his feelings or, at the very least, make him angry, but he just kept smiling at me. "Actually, it's Archer Cross, and I'm the first one. Now what about you?" He squinted. "Let's see ... brown hair, freckles, whole girl-next-door vibe going on ... Allie? Lacie? Definitely something cutesy ending in ie."
You know those times when your mouth moves but no sound actually comes out? Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. And then, of course, my mom took that opportunity to end her conversation with Justin's parents and call out, "Sophie! Wait up."
"I knew it." Archer laughed. "See you, Sophie," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the house. ~ Rachel Hawkins

I've never let myself dwell on what other people think of me......You can never change their minds so why waste time trying? Why agonize over it? better to concentrate on more important things. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I've been president of Brown and chancellor of Vanderbilt, where they have very high completion rates. ~ Gordon Gee

Parents must get across the idea that "I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior." ~ Amy Vanderbilt

Everyone wrote our obituary but us and the coaches and the kids who stayed with us. The obit was, 'Vanderbilt will have to leave the Southeastern Conference. All the coaches are leaving, and all the students are transferring.' ~ Gordon Gee

Cornelius Vanderbilt and his fellow tycoon John D. Rockefeller were often called 'robber barons'. Newspapers said they were evil, and ran cartoons showing Vanderbilt as a leech sucking the blood of the poor. Rockefeller was depicted as a snake. What the newspapers printed stuck--we still think of Vanderbilt and Rockefeller as 'robber barons'. But it was a lie. They were neither robbers nor barons. They weren't robbers, because they didn't steal from anyone, and they weren't barons--they were born poor.
Vanderbilt got rich by pleasing people. He invented ways to make travel and shipping things cheaper. He used bigger ships, faster ships, served food onboard. People liked that. And the extra volume of business he attracted allowed him to lower costs. He cut the New York--Hartford fare from $8 to $1. That gave consumers more than any 'consumer group' ever has.
It's telling that the 'robber baron' name-calling didn't come from consumers. It was competing businessmen who complained, and persuaded the media to join in.
Rockefeller got rich selling oil. First competitors and then the government called him a monopolist, but he wasn't--he had competitors. No one was forced to buy his oil. Rockefeller enticed people to buy it by selling it for less. That's what his competitors hated. He found cheaper ways to get oil from the ground to the gas pump. This made life better for millions. Working-class people, who used to go to bed when it got dark, could suddenly afford fuel ~ John Stossel

I don't think age has anything to do with what you write about. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I think something wonderful is going to happen to me. Maybe tomorrow. The phone can ring and your whole life can change. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

A work of fiction is conceived very much the same way as a dream occurs in the mind of a sleeper. But a lot of it is imagination. It's not based on real people. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

'Can you imagine, 30 years ago, saying nobody will make coffee at home?' Nancy McGuckin, a travel researcher in Washington, D.C. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

Even then, Vanderbilt was the premiere place for clinical pharmacology. ~ Alastair Wood

The road, more than simply a system of regulations and designs, is a place where many millions of us, with only loose parameters for how to behave, are thrown together daily in a kind of massive petri dish in which all kinds of uncharted, little-understood dynamics are at work. There is no other place where so many people from different walks of life
different ages, races, classes, religions, genders, political preferences, lifestyle choices, levels of psychological stability
mingle so freely. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

I believe there is an impulse in each of us to make our own personal and individual mark on the world around us. The little child coming upon a stretch of clean white snow gleefully rushes forward to imprint the shapes of his feet upon it. A woman passing through a strange room pauses briefly to move an object on a table, making a slight rearrangement that her eye finds more pleasing. A boy carves his initials upon a tree. We all write our names upon the sand.

All of us hope that our choices and our actions will make a little sweeter those rooms we enter, those worlds we move through, those lives we touch, those people and those places we leave behind us. It is, in a way, our small gesture toward immortality, our little message to the universe. It says, "I was here", to the ages. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I love to decorate and redecorate. Now it's called interior design, but the term decorating is fine with me. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I have a tremendous appetite for life; the phone rings and your whole life could change. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I completely trust Gloria Vanderbilt. I have always found her very honest. ~ Michael Lindsay-Hogg

If you have health, you have everything. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Traffic was as much an emotional problem as it was a mechanical one. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

The road itself tells us far more than signs do. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

The railroads are not run for the benefit of the dear public. That cry is nonsense. They are built for men who invest their money and expect to get a fair percentage of the same. ~ William Henry Vanderbilt

What makes a good judge? Confidence for one. An expert, in Shanteau's view, is someone good at convincing others he or she is an expert. Good judges may make small errors, but they will "generally avoid large mistakes." When they encounter exceptions, experts are good at making"single-case deviations in their decision patterns." Novices, meanwhile, tend to stick stubbornly to the rules, even when they are inappropriate. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

I've always believed that one woman's success can only help another woman's success. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Not Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Astor together could have raised money enough to buy a quarter share in my little dogs. ~ Ernest Thompson Seton

I lived in Europe until I was 9, really. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I don't like cold people at all. It makes me feel really insecure. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

I do spend money. I like to spend money, on houses - on furnishing houses. And I love to give presents to people. It's just in my nature to be that way. I always spent money I had. And I always spent what I made. I'm not stingy. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Some of us are born with a sense of loss. It is not acquired as we grow. It is already there from the beginning, and it pervades us throughout our lives. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Do not speak of repulsive matters at table. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

Much of what was to become modern art and the changed concept of the function of museums was spurred by a cadre of women on the East Coast who changed the face of American museums. Women like Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (Whitney Museum of American Art), Lillie Bliss (Museum of Modern Art), and Abby Rockefeller (Museum of Modern Art), contributed their significant influence, wealth, and tireless enthusiasm to promoting contemporary art and artists. ~ Ivy Hendy

It is not according to my mode of doing things, to bring a suit against a man that I have the power in my own hands to punish. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

I have no use for people who exhibit manners. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

The way humans hunt for parking and the way animals hunt for food are not as different as you might think. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

Sinatra created a kind of magic. You want those people to be part of your life. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

When a situation feels dangerous to you, it's probably more safe than you know; when a situation feels safe, that is precisely when you should feel on guard. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

The bell of public opinion is today making the Morgan-Rockefeller-Vanderbilt class jump. Nor are the strongest of our corporations immune. The railroads have had to jump pretty lively, and certain gigantic industrial combinations are also being put through their paces. ~ B.C. Forbes

The relative ease of most driving lures us into thinking we can get away with doing other things. Indeed, those other things, like listening to the radio, can help when driving itself is threatening to cause fatigue. But we buy into the myth of multitasking with little actual knowledge of how much we can really add in or, as with the television news, how much we are missing. As the inner life of the driver begins to come into focus, it is becoming clear not only that distraction is the single biggest problem on the road but that we have little concept of just how distracted we are. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

The modern rule is that every woman should be her own chaperone. ~ Amy Vanderbilt

I don't categorize myself as an 85-year-old woman who has written an erotic novel. I categorize myself as a writer who's written an erotic novel. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

At one time he [Cornelius Vanderbilt] personally controlled some 10 percent of all the money in circulation in the United States. ~ Bill Bryson

Cats are so interesting - endlessly fascinating. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Law! What do I care about the law? Ain't I got the power? ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

In anything there has to be dark and light. There's a lot of joy in my paintings and a lot of darkness. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Never tell anyone what you are going to do till you've done it. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt

Although I performed in high school, my first real experience with theater was performing with a student-run organization at Vanderbilt University called The Original Cast where I learned that I loved performing and especially loved theater people. ~ Nancy Allen