Best life related quotes- its not a collection words its your life also

 quotes

QUOTE/AUTHOR

I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.

M. C. Escher

Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement... let me go upstairs and check.

M. C. Escher

We adore chaos because we love to produce order.

M. C. Escher

Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?

M. C. Escher

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

M. C. Escher

My work is a game, a very serious game.

M. C. Escher

I realized that after years of studying Shakespeare and Chekhov and regional repertory theater, what I really wanted to do was bust in and rob a bank and jump in the screaming getaway car and tear through the city and get in a shootout.

M. C. Gainey

I just have that sort of face and when I got to Hollywood in the late '70s they took one look at me and said, 'Get him a gun. You definitely should be carrying a gun,' and so a lot of it is just the way I look. I look like I'm angry and dangerous, and in fact, I'm loveable and kind.

M. C. Gainey

All my life, people have asked me what I was so mad about. 'Why you so mad?' And I was never mad. I'm not mad, I just look mad.

M. C. Gainey

If I play a cop, it's always a racist cop or a trigger-happy cop or a crooked cop - but by and large I play cowboys, bikers, and convicts.

M. C. Gainey

With a face like this, there aren't a lot of lawyers or priest roles coming my way. I've got a face that was meant for a mug shot, and that's what I've been doing for the past thirty years.

M. C. Gainey

You know what, it's a time honored tradition in movies in America that if you kill enough people in your 30s and 40s and 50s that by the time you get into your 60s you become loveable.

M. C. Gainey

You know you've been around a long time when your stuntman says, 'Yeah, my grandfather doubled you.'

M. C. Gainey

'Con Air' was kind of a turning point for me, in my mind. I never shot anybody in that movie - I never did anything bad - because there were so many bad guys in that movie. I said, 'The hell with this, I'm just gonna be a lovable guy.' I'm like Steve McQueen in 'The Great Escape.'

M. C. Gainey

Hell, I'm an old man. I'm 70 years old. I'm supposed to be sitting on a rocking chair watching the sunset.

M. Emmet Walsh

I imagine there are things I wouldn't do, but I haven't been offered those recently either.

M. Emmet Walsh

But I'm an actor and I like to just keep working.

M. Emmet Walsh

No, I'm not a horse better. Every once in a while somebody will give me a sure thing and of course it's not.

M. Emmet Walsh

But I've worked where they've had animals before, and animal wranglers, the people who raise animals and train animals for films and television, they're all very, very professional.

M. Emmet Walsh

I'm impressed with how professional they are and what they can get an animal to do. I mean, dogs and cats - that's one thing. But when you get into the larger animals, that's a different thing all together.

M. Emmet Walsh

Conflict is the beginning of consciousness.

M. Esther Harding

If any human being is to reach full maturity both the masculine and feminine sides of the personality must be brought up into consciousness.

M. Esther Harding

They can put me in a jungle. Still, I can create.

M. F. Husain

I kept on trying to use so many media and ideas in my work because our horizon is so vast and Indian culture is so rich that I think what we are today, culturally, we have a unique position and I don't think one lifetime is enough to encompass it.

M. F. Husain

I think you don't do work for controversy alone, and whenever you do new work which people don't understand and they say it is done to create controversy.

M. F. Husain

All this talk about inspiration and moment is nonsense.

M. F. Husain

Mostly people are ignorant, what is the language of painting. You know, they're ignorant. It is so difficult to make them aware, but time will teach them.

M. F. Husain

I am an Indian and a painter, that's all.

M. F. Husain

I am like a folk painter. Paint and move ahead.

M. F. Husain

I have not intended to denigrate or hurt the beliefs of anyone through my art.

M. F. Husain

I only give expression to the instincts from my soul.

M. F. Husain

India is my motherland.

M. F. Husain

Wherever I find love I will accept it.

M. F. Husain

Ninety-nine percent of Indian people loved me and they still love me.

M. F. Husain

I'm an Indian-origin painter. I will remain so to my last breath.

M. F. Husain

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

M. F. K. Fisher

Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.

M. F. K. Fisher

It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without soup or bread in it.

M. F. K. Fisher

Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.

M. F. K. Fisher

There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.

M. F. K. Fisher

Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.

M. F. K. Fisher

I can no more think of my own life without thinking of wine and wines and where they grew for me and why I drank them when I did and why I picked the grapes and where I opened the oldest procurable bottles, and all that, than I can remember living before I breathed.

M. F. K. Fisher

War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.

M. F. K. Fisher

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.

M. H. Abrams

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.

M. H. Abrams

Secular thinkers have no more been able to work free of the centuries-old Judeo-Christian culture than Christian theologians were able to work free of their inheritance of classical and pagan thought. The process... has not been the deletion and replacement of religious ideas but rather the assimilation and reinterpretation of religious ideas.

M. H. Abrams

Jews had an outsider's eye on a lot of Western tradition.

M. H. Abrams

Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.

M. H. Abrams

Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.

M. H. Abrams

We believed that to understand literature, you had to understand its place in history and culture.

M. H. Abrams

If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.

M. H. Abrams

When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas.

M. H. Abrams

The first test any poem must pass is no longer, 'Is it true to nature?' but a criterion looking in a different direction: namely, 'Is it sincere? Is it genuine?'

M. H. Abrams

I was never a monist - always a diversitarian.

M. H. Abrams

John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. And Harold Bloom, another former student.

M. H. Abrams

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

M. H. Abrams

We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.

M. H. Abrams

When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that. I think its heyday has passed, but it's had an effect and will continue to have an effect.

M. H. Abrams

We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity.

M. H. Abrams

The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives.

M. H. Abrams

The Romantics were whipping boys of the New Criticism, but they appealed to me anyway. I was recalcitrant. It was clear to me that they had thought innovatively.

M. H. Abrams

Life is ruthless, and its bestowal of fortune arbitrary and capricious. I'd been born to morons, and mine was a shabby life.

M. J. Hyland

Law gave me some structure... all these rules and internal disciplines.

M. J. Hyland

As is the case for many people with multiple sclerosis, the effects of weakened limbs, spasticity and fatigue had cut my working life in half. Yet not a single GP, neurologist or nurse, and none of the MS websites, had mentioned the use of neuroenhancers for the treatment of neurological fatigue.

M. J. Hyland

I've never experienced writer's block. When it's going really well, my body temperature goes up, and I'm flushed. I get quite delirious.

M. J. Hyland

I get into all sorts of trouble with my publicists and with newspapers because I won't do photographs.

M. J. Hyland

I've just finished reading 'The Second Plane,' and I think it's some of the best non-fiction I've ever read.

M. J. Hyland

Where writers are from is one of the world' s most boring topics. Where we're born, gender or race, wealth or poverty - those are the things we spend time talking about. Stop trying to label me. I'm a writer. Worry about whether I'm any good!

M. J. Hyland

From the age of eighteen to twenty-one, I worked any job I could get my hands on. One of these jobs was selling fake paintings door-to-door.

M. J. Hyland

I have been obscenely lucky. I've got most of the things I've asked for and done well at the things I've wanted to succeed at.

M. J. Hyland

I might live in Manhattan or Edinburgh or Cardiff. I think of myself as without nationality.

M. J. Hyland

I grew up in a bookless house with a father and brother who have spent most of their lives in prison, psychiatric hospitals, or living rough, and a mother who has spent her life slaving and scrimping to pay the bills, living a nervous and troubled life.

M. J. Hyland

I was the first and only person in my family to go to university, and I spent two decades redesigning myself: even my voice is the product of elocution lessons.

M. J. Hyland

Before MS moved in on me, I'd worked for seven years as a city lawyer, as the editor of a literary magazine, and before the age of 20, I'd also worked as a cadet journalist and as an assistant director in both film and TV. And then, after the lesions of MS, both on my spine and in my brain, I was the opposite of bionic.

M. J. Hyland

If your mom is still around, you're so lucky.

M. J. Rose

I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries.

M. J. Rose

It's been more than a decade since I put that self-published novel, 'Lip Service', up on a website. Since then, many hundreds of authors have gone from self-published to traditionally published.

M. J. Rose

Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book.

M. J. Rose

One of the biggest differences between you and a traditionally published author is that a self-pubbed author is responsible for everything. Not just writing the book - but cover design, editing, producing, distribution, and publicity as well.

M. J. Rose

A comprehensive marketing plan involves both online and offline efforts to use and broaden your existing platform to promote your book.

M. J. Rose

Sometimes what you mustn't do is just as just as important as what you must do.

M. J. Rose

When writers stop to sharpen pencils or get up and make coffee to procrastinate, they still stay in their heads with their characters. But when you zip over to read email or check your Facebook page, you get zapped out of the fictive dream. It's brutal on my writing.

M. J. Rose

Twitter is worth it if you like tweeting. Same is true of Facebook. Or Pinterest. Nothing wrong with having a social presence.

M. J. Rose

Smart authors, faced with storms, chose to create umbrellas. That's why a diverse group of authors banded together to create The Fiction Writer's Co-op, which will work to find innovative ways to promote each other's work and cheer each other on in a very competitive field.

M. J. Rose

In 'Power Play', Finder uses the thriller structure to make pointed observations about gender in the workplace, the corporate caste system, and the true nature of risk in the global business environment.

M. J. Rose

A mystery is a whodunit. You know what happened, but not how or who's behind it. A thriller, or a suspense, is a howdunit. You know what happened, and you usually know who did it, but you keep reading because you want to know how they pulled it off.

M. J. Rose

One Tweet can be heard 'round the world if the right people retweet it and the right people notice it on their feeds.

M. J. Rose

I thought if I put my book up on the Internet as a file that you could download, and I told people about it, maybe some people would download it and read it, and maybe I could get some response.

M. J. Rose

Books on their own aren't insanely expensive compared to other things; three large cappuccinos cost more than a paperback, and two and a half gallons of gas cost more than a paperback.

M. J. Rose

PR and marketing doesn't sell books. It gets attention for them. It sends readers to bookstores and websites to read a few pages.

M. J. Rose

I have favorite authors from a lifetime of reading, so there are some I'll automatically read every time they have a new novel. Included in them: Robert Goddard, Jeffery Deaver, Sophie Kinsella, Katherine Neville, Greg Isle, Laurie King, Lee Child, Lisa Tucker, Susan Howatch, Paul Auster. Barry Eisler, David Hewson, Tracy Chevalier.

M. J. Rose

There's almost no author alive who isn't weathering the tumultuous changes in the publishing industry.

M. J. Rose

I've had a dozen novels published and have made far more than a dozen mistakes. Which is why Randy Susan Meyers and I wrote a guidebook to help authors avoid making our mistakes.

M. J. Rose

When I was in advertising, I did a great deal of work on television commercials. A co-worker and I wrote a screenplay, which led to a few more screenplays, and some were optioned by production companies. I was advised to move to California but didn't want to make the move. I decided to use another form of storytelling, so I wrote a novel.

M. J. Rose

Vera Caspary wrote thrillers - but not like any other author of her time, male or female. Her specialty was a specific type that she pioneered - the psycho thriller.

M. J. Rose

I work on one book at a time. And yes, I am immersed. Six days a week for four to six hours a day. In between books, I stop writing for as much as two to three months, but during that time, I do research and think, plot and plan the book.

M. J. Rose

I've always been fascinated by how the past impacts the present. For the first half of my career as a novelist, I wrote psychological suspense mysteries. I wanted to be a therapist but was told that while I was a fine diagnostician, I would be a terrible therapist because I wanted to solve everyone's problems.

M. J. Rose

With so many millions of titles available, the books that will get talked about are the books that make readers talk about them.

M. J. Rose

I began tailoring my books to cater to one or another universe of readers. I found it incredibly boring; and frankly, it felt stultifying. I'd previously been in advertising. I felt if I was going to create something to fit a specific market, I might as well have stayed with advertising.

M. J. Rose

All the marketing and advertising sells the book as what it is and hopes that the book will be displayed so that your readers can find it.

M. J. Rose

I grew up in New York, and for the first ten years of my life, we lived across from the Metropolitan Museum. When I was an adult, I moved back to that neighborhood and lived there again.

M. J. Rose

You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.

M. J. Rose

We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine.

M. J. Rose

I'm realistic about my career as a novelist. I'm certainly not a superstar and far, far from a household name, but I feel successful.

M. J. Rose

I might have created the phrase 'memory tools', but people have always found talismans to help them meditate into a state of hypnosis where they can access their past lives.

M. J. Rose

There is no debate that social media is a great tool for networking with others in our industry. It can lead to friendships, support, and serendipitous connections with reviewers, agents, reporters, or editors.

M. J. Rose

Do send out a newsletter when you have a new book out or are going on tour. Also list relevant event dates and notifications of contests you are running.

M. J. Rose

Save yourself some grief. Check with the publicist you hire to see what other books he/she has coming out at the same time as yours.

M. J. Rose

It's so easy to look foolish online.

M. J. Rose

The marketability, the success of a book, ultimately rests with whether or not people will find the concept/characters/title/cover appealing.

M. J. Rose

I just want to sit in my room and write books.

M. J. Rose

When I was a kid, I read many of my mom's books. Sometimes, there were mysteries, but there were no delineations, and my mother never talked about book genres. Nor did we differentiate genres in school.

M. J. Rose

I think that we need to live our lives for the present... as if it is our one and only wild and wonderful life.

M. J. Rose

I placed my new novel, 'The Book of Lost Fragrances', in Paris, knowing it would be a challenge. But the book belonged in the city that is one of the greatest perfume capitals of the world and has been since for more than three centuries.

M. J. Rose

Your agent should be invested in the success of your book past the contract stage. After all, if it sells well, she's going to be getting 15 percent of every dime you make. She can be your best advocate in fighting for your book - not just with editing and the cover, but with marketing and sales as well.

M. J. Rose

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking our careers will come to a standstill, or worse, crash and burn if we aren't social media butterflies.

M. J. Rose

I always miss my mom. Mother's Day would be just one more day I'd feel her absence but for the relentless commercialization. Thanks to that, this day is even harder to deal with.

M. J. Rose

You shouldn't talk about yourself all the time - most of us aren't for sale. Our books are. Talk about them. It's not a question of whether or not you're fascinating on a personal level - it's that your trivia and trials might not have any connection to the tone, tenor and sense of your books.

M. J. Rose

Don't spend more than 10% of your marketing/PR budget on a trailer. Trailers have to be marketed, too. So, far too many authors wind up marketing their trailers instead of their books.

M. J. Rose

I know some authors who have gotten $25,000 advances and put it all into marketing, others who allocate $5,000 or $1,000.

M. J. Rose

Sales don't always have anything to do with good or brilliant or original. Sales are about appeal.

M. J. Rose

I was taught to think outside the box. Before my grandfather was one of the original Mad Men, he and a group of other Air Force Intelligence officers formalized brainstorming as a problem solving technique. He taught the concept that creativity can be taught at Buffalo University. My dad invented toys. My mom was a photographer.

M. J. Rose

I've always been fascinated by the concept of reincarnation. I learned that many brilliant people were interested in reincarnation, including Carl Jung. I'm a big Jungian. So I began writing novels involving theories integrating past and present, even if the past element in the novel took place 500 or 1,000 years ago.

M. J. Rose

MWA and The Author's Guild refused to accept me as a member.

M. J. Rose

A curious mind is the most important attribute any man or woman can possess.

M. J. Rose

Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Lee Child and George R. R. Martin write wildly different books. Their writing, plotting and styles have little or nothing in common. But they all write books and characters that readers find appealing.

M. J. Rose

As a general rule, when you comment on a blog, make it knowledgeable or witty and, most of all, relevant to that post - then, simply sign it with your name and your book title. Resist the urge to brag or sell your book.

M. J. Rose

There are many traditionally published authors who have hated the cover their publisher's decided on. Or the title or the marketing or the advertising. But there was nothing they could do about it.

M. J. Rose

Ask your agent to set up a meeting with either your editor or the marketing department of the house or both so you can find out what they're doing, what they aren't, and what you can do to help.

M. J. Rose

Back in 1999 and 2000, a few of us... a very few of us... Douglas Clegg, Seth Godin and I... offered free electronic copies of our books in an effort to reach an audience we otherwise wouldn't have reached and to test out a new marketing concept for books. Despite the industry screaming we were crazy, it worked.

M. J. Rose

Estimates are that in 2012, more than 32 million books were available - the explosion, thanks to the ease of self-publishing; 2013 could see even more titles grace our virtual bookstores! That means we are going to be awash in covers and titles, plot descriptions and characters.

M. J. Rose

Don't send out a newsletter just to send out a newsletter. One newsletter a year that is really interesting is more beneficial than 12 that are boring. If you write two or three boring newsletters in a row, your readers will start to think you write boring books.

M. J. Rose

Ask your editor or ask your agent to find out what the house's goals are for your book before it comes out. Get some sense of expectations so you are prepared.

M. J. Rose

In my novels, there are twelve ancient 'memory tools,' all now lost. Each of the 'Reincarnationist' books revolves around a different tool.

M. J. Rose

'Celluloid' is set in the 1930s. During the decade, the folk-classical genre seems to have been in vogue. It didn't take much effort to compose because my guru Neyyattinkara Mohanachandran and his guru, M. M. Dandapani Desikar, used to sing this genre.

M. Jayachandran

It's very important that your work reaches people and it is marketed professionally and guarded well against piracy. For all of those reasons, I take into account the credibility of the team I work with.

M. Jayachandran

Singing these days has become a mechanical exercise for many, and mostly this is because song situations that require effort from the heart are rare to come by.

M. Jayachandran

Educational institutions, which are the grooming grounds for creating responsible citizens have to be kept tobacco and smoke-free.

M. Jayachandran

In the past 20 years of musical journey, what I realized is that one need to respect their teachers, elders and parents and their blessings are more than enough for one to reach success. I believe it as my success mantra.

M. Jayachandran

'Kilikal Parannatho' sung by Rajesh Krishnan, who sung 'Julie I Love You' in 'Chattakari,' is a personal favourite of mine.

M. Jayachandran

Vijayalakshmi is one artiste whom I admire. There is something divine about her singing.

M. Jayachandran

Ramesh Vinayakam is a maestro music composer and a dear friend, too.

M. Jayachandran

The society has an obligation to protect younger generation and prevent them from the use of tobacco products.

M. Jayachandran

For me, music is God and each song I make is an offering at the temple of music.

M. Jayachandran

If a singer wants to improvise while recording a song, he has to get the permission of the composer.

M. Jayachandran

My work is music. That's why I could set to tune a song such as 'Kathirunnu Kathirunnu.'

M. Jayachandran

What really surprised me was that we had released the song 'Kondoram'... without any video and it still garnered so many views. The song had only lyrics and no visuals.

M. Jayachandran

I am familiar with the Odiyan legend, as my mother used to tell me that her grandmother would narrate the Odiyan tales while she grew up in Palakkad.

M. Jayachandran

Acting is not at all my forte.

M. Jayachandran

Music is my passion and career.

M. Jayachandran

Every song has a mood, a situation and a different kind of score.

M. Jayachandran

Usually all lullabies are featured on a mother and child. But in 'Kalimannu,' it is picturised on a mother-to-be who is singing to her unborn child. I found the entire concept so beautiful.

M. Jayachandran

I always try to look for variety in my work.

M. Jayachandran

Actors are given songs that suit their voice and skill. At the same time, those songs which have a complicated tune and need expertise to perform should be given to trained singers.

M. Jayachandran

It's alright to make an actor sing if the director already has an ideal sequence in his film. But I am totally against bringing in actors to sing in every film without any context and just for marketing purposes.

M. Jayachandran

In any art, unpredictability is the delightful factor.

M. Jayachandran

Usually people like experimental music which is usually not the case in Carnatic classical concerts.

M. Jayachandran

Times are such that poetry has been slowly drifting away from our songs and the language of conversation is used a lot more as lyrics. I believe such attempts create mundane songs, and they hardly stand the test of time.

M. Jayachandran

Be it flute, piano or any instrument, there would always be a reason to bring in the particular feel into a song.

M. Jayachandran

I don't know anything about politics or lobbying in the film world.

M. Jayachandran

I pick voices suitable for a particular song rendition and for that, it doesn't matter where they hail from.

M. Jayachandran

I think the reason composers aren't valued is because many act as servants rather than music directors. Instead of taking a stand based on their convictions, they sway to the opinions of others.

M. Jayachandran

But it can be tough for new composers as directors tend to block you out.

M. Jayachandran

Any composer needs opportunities, but now these chances are based on personal relationships, and not on talent alone. For that, you must keep calling directors and keep them happy. So, PR plays a major part now, more than talent or success.

M. Jayachandran

The songs of Raghavan Master are timeless. There are a lot of things that a student of music has to learn from them. He expressed his thoughts not through words, but music.

M. Jayachandran

The increased use of cigarettes and tobacco products among youth is worrying. Starting with cigarettes and tobacco, youngsters are soon lured into use of drugs.

M. Jayachandran

Writing's like gambling. Unpredictable and sporadic successes make you more addicted, not less.

M. John Harrison

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.

M. John Harrison

I've never been to the Himalayas, and I'm not really interested in them. I'm more interested in a dirty old quarry in Lancashire, and by god, they can be dirty.

M. John Harrison

A good ground rule for writing in any genre is, start with a form, then undermine its confidence in itself. Ask what it's afraid of, what it's trying to hide - then write that.

M. John Harrison

World-building numbs the reader's ability to fulfill their part of the bargain because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done. Above all, world-building is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn't there.

M. John Harrison

I've just always been fascinated by what our belief can do, and what happens when we misuse that.

M. K. Hobson

I really do believe some people are naturally novelists and some people are short story writers. For me, when I was in middle school or high school, I started with novels.

M. K. Hobson

I've really loved steampunk for a long time, ever since 'Wild Wild West,' and it's always been a genre and an era that's fascinated me. But so often it's set in England, and that doesn't really resonate with me, or maybe it just seems a little overdone.

M. K. Hobson

I love those books like 'Gone with the Wind,' the huge, sweeping family sagas.

M. K. Hobson

When you say 'fear of the unknown', that is the definition of fear; fear is the unknown, fear is what you do not know, and it's genetically within us so that we feel safe. We feel scared of the woods because we're not familiar with it, and that keeps you safe.

M. Night Shyamalan

There's a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?

M. Night Shyamalan

See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky?

M. Night Shyamalan

Always in life bad times will lead to great times.

M. Night Shyamalan

There is no one looking out for us. We are all alone.

M. Night Shyamalan

Anime is intended to have ambiguous features. That's part of the art form.

M. Night Shyamalan

I feel most akin as an artist, in my life and my career, to Agatha Christie.

M. Night Shyamalan

If ever I was feeling down I would go and write something. It's a form of escape.

M. Night Shyamalan

Movies will end up being this esoteric art form, where only singular people will put films out in a small group of theaters.

M. Night Shyamalan

I love my stories being multi-layered, and coming at it from different angles, so that you don't understand the film's true emotional motivation until the very end.

M. Night Shyamalan

When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope.

M. Night Shyamalan

I think I take what you might call a B-movie story, deal with B-movie subjects, and I treat it as if it's an A-movie in terms of my approach, my crew, my actors, my ethics and so on. I guess that's my trademark or one of them, anyway!

M. Night Shyamalan

Being insecure - I'm a master, a virtuoso - they can be handing me the keys to the kingdom and all I can think is, I hope I don't drop the key.

M. Night Shyamalan

Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

M. Night Shyamalan

When I was a kid, I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.

M. Night Shyamalan

I have a naive outlook on life. That's who I am.

M. Night Shyamalan

I'm a big believer in our connection to nature.

M. Night Shyamalan

I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself.

M. Night Shyamalan

The thing that's protected me creatively is that the movies have made profits.

M. Night Shyamalan

I don't like to chase an audience. You can smell when someone is chasing an audience and it's not good.

M. Night Shyamalan

My biggest fear in life is to be average.

M. Night Shyamalan

Are you in my dream too?

M. Night Shyamalan

I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and scary movies.

M. Night Shyamalan

'The Exorcist' is the scariest movie ever made. It just felt dead-on real, like you were watching the existence of the devil.

M. Night Shyamalan

There are a lot of things I can take, and a few that I can't. What I can't take is when my older brother, who's everything that I want to be, starts losing faith in things. I saw that look in your eyes last night. I don't ever want to see that look in your eyes again.

M. Night Shyamalan

I knew the moment it happened, it was a miracle. I could have been kissing her when she threw up. It would have scarred me for life. I may never have recovered.

M. Night Shyamalan

Movie making is not like other art forms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be digested or interpreted... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money.

M. Night Shyamalan

If I'm hesitant at all about an idea, then that's not the right idea.

M. Night Shyamalan

I've never had an issue with studios. I believe in them as true creative partners in the process.

M. Night Shyamalan

I don't want to pretend I'm any cooler or smarter than I am.

M. Night Shyamalan

That's something we should be taught as kids: To be okay with ourselves.

M. Night Shyamalan

For instance, 'The Sixth Sense' had mediocre to bad reviews. Slowly, the audience pushed it and it received critical attention.

M. Night Shyamalan

I have worked hard and learnt that I have to make a decision - whether I am going to conform and protect myself or not. I chose not to.

M. Night Shyamalan

'The Last Airbender' is genetically engineered for me. I love martial arts. I study it. The movie's based on a lot of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. I was raised Hindu.

M. Night Shyamalan

I offer originality: you don't know what my films are like until you go to them. I think that's the reason I've been getting all this attention.

M. Night Shyamalan

Over the course of history, the people who are not scared go into the woods and are mauled by a bear, are not going to survive.

M. Night Shyamalan

My normal cycle for movies is eighteen months and each part is separate.

M. Night Shyamalan

The combination of the CGI, 3-D, and sound effects, it's just impossible to separate them. It gives you a more immersive experience, and I prefer that.

M. Night Shyamalan

So 'The Last Airbender' 's philosophy and culture feels like a beautiful idea to me: That we inherently have connections to the elements and what they teach us, and to each other.

M. Night Shyamalan

If I had a big brother who was a year older than me or something, I probably wouldn't have ended up being a filmmaker.

M. Night Shyamalan

My secret to all casting, and specifically kids, is cast good human beings.

M. Night Shyamalan

The first two movies I directed failed, when I was 21 and 23, and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.

M. Night Shyamalan

It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always.

M. Russell Ballard

I believe that every human soul is teaching something to someone nearly every minute here in mortality.

M. Russell Ballard

We have taken a giant step forward in correcting some of the misconceptions people have about the church. I think that we've made a lot of friends.

M. Russell Ballard

Very few have the talent to make others laugh without being laughed at.

M. S. Narayana

In my career spanning over two decades, I've never felt that comedy is a department everybody can excel in because it's an art and only a few are blessed with the talent to entertain.

M. S. Narayana

Of course, all my films are high on comedy, but I ensure there's something for the audience to take back home.

M. S. Narayana

You can't just expect anyone to turn comedian because it's something that should come naturally, but not when forced on someone.

M. S. Narayana

From the very beginning I knew I had to be a comedian, and thus preferred being one.

M. S. Narayana

If 'Crazywala' is about the state of politics in our country, 'Nawab Basha' is about how money controls most of our lives.

M. S. Narayana

Most of our lives are dictated by money and when we lose or gain some, we change so much as an individual.

M. S. Narayana

It doesn't matter if I'm playing a lead role or that of a comedian; I want my audience to have entertainment worth their money.

M. S. Narayana

If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right.

M. S. Swaminathan

Agriculture is the backbone of the livelihood security system of nearly 700 million people in the country and we need to build our food security on the foundation of home grown food.

M. S. Swaminathan

Agriculture can trigger job-led economic growth, provided it becomes intellectually satisfying and economically rewarding.

M. S. Swaminathan

There are two major challenges before Indian agriculture today: ecological and economical. The conservation of our basic agricultural assets such as land, water, and biodiversity is a major challenge. How to make agriculture sustainable is the challenge.

M. S. Swaminathan

Farming is the riskiest profession in the world since the fate of the crop is closely linked to the behaviour of the monsoon.

M. S. Swaminathan

Contract farming can be promoted if it is structured on the basis of a win-win situation both for the producer and the purchaser.

M. S. Swaminathan

All kinds of excuses have been given by governments for not implementing this recommendation like food price inflation. But the question is, do the farmers of this country, who constitute nearly half of the working population, also not need to eat?

M. S. Swaminathan

Agriculture involves crop husbandry, animal husbandry, forestry and fisheries. Your income will go up only if you look at the system, and not from one crop alone.

M. S. Swaminathan

Micronutrient deficiency in the soil results in micronutrient malnutrition in people, since crops grown on such soils tend to be deficient in the nutrients needed to fight hidden hunger.

M. S. Swaminathan

Organic farming and other earlier methods can be effective, provided they can help us improve soil health and plant health. Plant pesticides like neem and tobacco need to be promoted.

M. S. Swaminathan

I have frequently pointed out that the future belongs to nations with grains and not guns.

M. S. Swaminathan

The air pollution in Delhi has become a matter of public health concern nationally and internationally.

M. S. Swaminathan

Most pesticides lose their efficacy after a few years, because of pest resistance to pesticides. This is why companies go on changing the varieties.

M. S. Swaminathan

A life cycle approach to food security will imply attention to the nutritional needs of a human being from conception to cremation. The most vulnerable but neglected segment is the first 1,000 days in a child's life - the period from conception to the age of two, when much of the brain development takes place.

M. S. Swaminathan

You want to live in harmony with nature and with each other.

M. S. Swaminathan

You can classify farmers into two major groups. One who saves seeds for the next crop and the other who purchases seeds from the market. Most of the commercial farmers like the US farmers are people who purchase seeds.

M. S. Swaminathan

The purpose of developing a methodology for what they call genetic control over seed, is mainly to ensure that F1 hybrids are pure and that every year you have to buy the seed.

M. S. Swaminathan

Rice, wheat and other grains can help to address protein-calorie under-nutrition. But only attention to horticulture, milk and eggs can help to overcome hidden hunger caused by the deficiency of micro-nutrients like iodine, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B12, etc.

M. S. Swaminathan

When politicians talk of loan waiver, they are accepting that agriculture is not economically viable. They are giving a wrong signal that farming is not economically viable. It's true. That's where the loan waiver comes in.

M. S. Swaminathan

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Bengal Famine, Parliament is likely to pass the National Food Security Bill which will be the world's largest social protection measure against hunger.

M. S. Swaminathan

One of India's major blessings is the rich store of experience and knowledge available in the rural and tribal areas.

M. S. Swaminathan

In the current scenario of climate change, predictions of extreme weather events are becoming difficult.

M. S. Swaminathan

Farmers, young and old, educated and uneducated, have easily taken to the new agronomy. It has been heart-warming to see young college graduates, retired officials, ex-armymen, illiterate peasants and small farmers queuing up to get the new seeds.

M. S. Swaminathan

It will be very foolhardy and suicidal for a country like India to forgo food security.

M. S. Swaminathan

Genetic modification is a very powerful tool. But like any powerful tool, when using it, you have to take into account the environmental impact, the food safety aspects and so on. There must be a strong regulatory mechanism.

M. S. Swaminathan

To ensure food security for all, we should be clear about the definition of the problem, the precise index of measuring impact and the road map to achieve the goal.

M. S. Swaminathan

There is an urgent need for regeneration of fisheries and fostering a sustainable fisheries programme. What I mean is, designing new fishing vessels and nets so that they do not disrupt the fish lifecycle by catching young ones and also do not destroy sea grass beds, which serve as habitats for dugongs.

M. S. Swaminathan

To sum up, agriculture has made important progress and our farmers have now shown that they are second to none in terms of improving production and productivity.

M. S. Swaminathan

I always ask the farmers, when you get up in the morning, is there some information which you are lacking which you would like to have? Invariably they talk about weather, the market price.

M. S. Swaminathan

Without the wholehearted involvement of farmers, particularly of young as well as women farmers, it will be impossible to implement a Food Entitlements Act in an era of increasing price volatility in the international market.

M. S. Swaminathan

When in 1963 we started large-scale research and testing with semi-dwarf varieties of wheat obtained from Mexico through Norman Borlaug, the new plant types attracted media attention immediately.

M. S. Swaminathan

Ultimately, multiple livelihood opportunities alone can insulate farmers in rainfed areas from the debt trap.

M. S. Swaminathan

Training of farmers in integrated pest management is exceedingly important to protect them during the use of pesticides.

M. S. Swaminathan

Famines were frequent in colonial India and some estimates indicate that 30 to 40 million died out of starvation in Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Bengal during the later half of the 19th century.

M. S. Swaminathan

Waiver of farm loans is not an ideal solution. To ensure that the situation is not repeated, the government should focus on creating a robust system to extend the necessary ingredients of farming such as water harvesting systems, seed and fertiliser supplements.

M. S. Swaminathan

Looking ahead, the bright spot in Indian agriculture is the availability of a large untapped production reservoir.

M. S. Swaminathan

The government only gives subsidies for nitrogenous fertilisers. With the result, farmers do not apply balanced fertilisers.

M. S. Swaminathan

I was chairman of the steering committee for agriculture when we set up the target of 4% growth rate. I had written that if you want to achieve 4% growth rate in agriculture, you should have 8% growth in animal husbandry and fisheries and 8% in horticulture.

M. S. Swaminathan

In Punjab wheat production it is a 'gamble of temperature' unlike other parts of the country where there is a 'gamble of rainfall'.

M. S. Swaminathan

Land tenure is key to protecting land rights. The Central and State governments should have accessible systems for registering, tracking and protecting land rights, including customary rights and common property resources.

M. S. Swaminathan

After the Green Revolution, I came up with the concept of the Evergreen Revolution. In this we will see increase in farm productivity but without ecological harm.

M. S. Swaminathan

Land is becoming a diminishing resource for agriculture, in spite of a growing understanding that the future of food security will depend upon the sustainable management of land resources as well as the conservation of prime farmland for agriculture.

M. S. Swaminathan

Rain harvesting should be made mandatory and should be made more systematic to ensure that every drop of rain is preserved.

M. S. Swaminathan

See, technology can advance yield and productivity, but only public policy can advance the income of farmers. There has to be a synergy between technology and public policy.

M. S. Swaminathan

We have to devise ways to lower the cost of production and reduce the risks involved in agriculture such as pests, pathogens, and weeds.

M. S. Swaminathan

The more powerful a technology greater care should be used to benefit fro it. India should not be left behind the world. From the past revolution of nuclear technology we saw how it could destruct and at the same time were useful for medical science.

M. S. Swaminathan

My own motivation has come from the fact that all the indicators in the world, the hunger index or whatever index you say, shows a high prevalence of malnutrition.

M. S. Swaminathan

Where there is a challenge there has to be a response.

M. S. Swaminathan

Leadership is something which other people have to recognize. You cannot demand that I am a leader.

M. S. Swaminathan

In any case, if I grow hybrid maize or hybrid pearl mallet or any hybrid, I have to sow fresh seed every year. I cannot keep the seed of the same plant. If I keep the seed of the same plant, yield will be much less and there will be a wide variation in the field, like maturity period, quality and so on.

M. S. Swaminathan

Hybrids have become an important method for improving productivity or yield in many crops including the self-pollinated crop like rice.

M. S. Swaminathan

In India, unlike in the United States and Australia, agriculture is not just a food producing enterprise but also the backbone of the livelihood security of nearly 60 per cent of the population.

M. S. Swaminathan

Aberrations in monsoon behaviour are not uncommon, having been with us throughout our agricultural history.

M. S. Swaminathan

The rain-cum-solar energy centre functioning in Chennai is a source of credible public information on rainwater harvesting and solar energy use. Such centres need to be replicated in all our cities, towns and block headquarters.

M. S. Swaminathan

The goal of my University education was to get into a medical college and equip myself to run a hospital in Kumbakonam left behind by my father, M.K. Sambasivan, who died at a young age in 1936.

M. S. Swaminathan

The Green Revolution was criticised by social activists on the ground that the high-yield technology involving the use of mineral fertilizers and chemical pesticides is environmentally harmful.

M. S. Swaminathan

The future of food security will depend on a combination of the ecological prudence of the past and the technological advances of today.

M. S. Swaminathan

Green Revolution technologies are scale-neutral but not resource-neutral. Inputs are needed for output; therefore market-purchased inputs become important in providing soil and plant healthcare for higher yields.

M. S. Swaminathan

The smaller the farm, the greater is the need for marketable surplus, so that the family will have cash income to meet their needs.

M. S. Swaminathan

In spite of the dominant role played by women in both farming, they are denied credit as they lack land titles. Only a small percentage of Kisan Credit Cards goes to them.

M. S. Swaminathan

A number of non-banking finance companies have entered the rural microcredit market. Many microcredit agencies have been charging interest rates not very dissimilar to those charged by moneylenders. Borrowing then becomes more to meet pressing consumption needs, rather than for farming or small-scale enterprises.

M. S. Swaminathan

Denying a child even at birth an opportunity for the full expression of its innate genetic potential for physical and mental development is the cruellest form of inequity.

M. S. Swaminathan

The loss of land for food security has to be measured not only in quantitative terms but also in respect of land use.

M. S. Swaminathan

India's future has to be built on the foundation of social protection of the economically and socially handicapped sections.

M. S. Swaminathan

Floods will become more serious and frequent in the Indo-Gangetic plains. Drought induced food and water scarcity will become more acute. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the small islands will be the worst victims.

M. S. Swaminathan

India unfortunately has the unenviable reputation of being the home to the largest number of undernourished children, women and men in the world.

M. S. Swaminathan

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. We can classify our crops into those which are climate resilient and those which are climate sensitive. For example, wheat is a climate sensitive crop, while rice shows a wide range of adaptation in terms of growing conditions.

M. S. Swaminathan

Integrated coastal zone management procedures involving concurrent attention to both the landward and seaward site of the ocean and to coastal forestry and agro-forestry as well as capture and culture fisheries are urgently needed.

M. S. Swaminathan

There is talk about the need for a second Green Revolution. However, such a revolution is nowhere in sight.

M. S. Swaminathan

The National Policy for Farmers calls for a paradigm shift from measuring agricultural progress merely in terms of growth rates, to measuring it in terms of the growth in the real income of farm families.

M. S. Swaminathan

I had the privilege of knowing and working with Norman Borlaug - who has been aptly described by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee as the greatest hunger fighter of our time - for nearly 50 years.

M. S. Swaminathan

At least five cents in every acre should be reserved for the construction of ponds to store rainwater.

M. S. Swaminathan

Where two or more crops are taken normally, it is time to begin preparation for a good rabi crop by assembling the seeds, soil nutrients, and other agronomic inputs needed for timely sowing and good plant population.

M. S. Swaminathan

The Climate Risk Managers can be trained in the science and art of managing uncertain rainfall patterns leading to drought or flood.

M. S. Swaminathan

We have to initiate a bio-shield movement along the coastal areas by raising mangrove forests, plantations of casuarina, salicornia, laucaena, atriplex, palms, bamboo and other tree species and halophytes - all that can grow near the sea.

M. S. Swaminathan

The government should promote community nurseries of mangrove species and other appropriate tree species chosen under the coastal bio-shield and agro-forestry programmes.

M. S. Swaminathan

The construction of permanent sea walls can be taken up only in places where there is sea erosion due to heavy anthropogenic pressures. The locations for such non-living barriers should be determined on the basis of a carefully conducted erosion-vulnerability analysis.

M. S. Swaminathan

Farmers in rain-fed, dry areas such as Vidarbha and parts of Andhra Pradesh may own several hectares of land but their farm produce depends on the vagaries of the monsoon.

M. S. Swaminathan

Farmers are happy so long as their net income will not be adversely affected. In organic farming, in the first couple of years you may drop in yield until you build up the soil fertility - you need inputs for output.

M. S. Swaminathan

Wireless technology has completely revolutionized information transmission and exchange in India. If you go in the coastal areas, small-scale fishermen who go out in small boats, they now carry a cellphone, which has GPS data on wave heights, where the fish are, et cetera.

M. S. Swaminathan

Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.

M. Scott Peck

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

M. Scott Peck

Ultimately love is everything.

M. Scott Peck

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

M. Scott Peck

You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.

M. Scott Peck

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

M. Scott Peck

Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.

M. Scott Peck

Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.

M. Scott Peck

Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.

M. Scott Peck

A significant regret is that I was not as good a father as I would have ideally liked to be. I was not, I think, a bad father.

M. Scott Peck

The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.

M. Scott Peck

In some ways, I am grateful that I was raised in a secular home, because that meant that I didn't have any old religious baggage to carry with me. I was free to go and think what I wanted.

M. Scott Peck

The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.

M. Scott Peck

I do not think that everybody has to struggle. But to probably at least half of the people, it never seems to enter their minds that they might be engaged in a struggle or that there might be something to struggle with.

M. Scott Peck

Multiple personality disorder and possession are not necessarily mutually incompatible disorders. There's some evidence that you can have both.

M. Scott Peck

I've gone to great lengths not to be a guru. I think the notion of guruhood is utterly pathological, and I couldn't live that way. I am just a person.

M. Scott Peck

Since the early 1960s, since what's been called the charismatic movement within the Christian church, a significant number of Christians believe that virtually every problem a human can have is of demonic origin.

M. Scott Peck

I never thought I would ever be middle-of-the-road anything, much less a middle-of-the-road Christian, but it actually ended up I'm extremely middle of the road.

M. Scott Peck

As far as I am concerned, virtually all psychological diseases have their origin in our conscious minds. And that is not what we are taught.

M. Scott Peck

One extends one's limits only by exceeding them.

M. Scott Peck

Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.

M. Scott Peck

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

M. Scott Peck

We know a great deal more about the causes of physical disease than we do about the causes of physical health.

M. Scott Peck

We cannot let another person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness.

M. Scott Peck

We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.

M. Scott Peck

One thing I loved when I was growing up, you maybe saw one review from a magazine like 'Rolling Stone,' but now there are 150 reviews before an album even comes out. There are so many opinions out there, but the only one that really matters is your own.

M. Shadows

The reality is you either step into the future, or you become a dinosaur.

M. Shadows

I went to this vocal coach, Ron Anderson, who has worked with Axl Rose and Chris Cornell, to train my voice and learn a whole new way of singing.

M. Shadows

I was a fan of 'Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,' and I got into 'Call Of Duty: Black Ops,' which was my favorite 'Call Of Duty' game of all time.

M. Shadows

I feel like our whole discography up through 'Hail to the King' was young, fun, and exciting. It was aggressively driven. 'The Stage' was the first step in the band becoming a more mature musical entity.

M. Shadows

I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'

M. Shadows

We grew up with every type of band from Primus to Mr. Bungle to Elton John to pop music to metal, and we try to throw it all in a blender. And whatever comes out of that is more Avenged Sevenfold than metal or metalcore.

M. Shadows

The idea of turning an album into a living piece of art and adding new installations is really intriguing. It expands the journey.

M. Shadows

Those who are not very good at understanding mental health issues are not going to know what other people are going through in depression. You have to kind of put yourself in somebody else's shoes.

M. Shadows

Everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be entitled to say whatever they want.

M. Shadows

All I can say to people who don't think depression is a real thing, or say 'just suck it up and get over it' - they just really have no idea. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're doing the best they can to get through it.

M. Shadows

I think the cool thing about being alive in 2017 is that you can literally put out music as soon and as frequently as you want to because of streaming services.

M. Shadows

If you're going to put out a record just to get a No. 1 and then forget about it after the first week, it's the tail wagging the dog: it doesn't make any sense.

M. Shadows

The world is changing, and the way we consume music is obviously changing. I was one of the biggest CD advocates you will find, but when Apple music and digital options came out, like for everyone else, it was more conducive to my lifestyle.

M. Shadows

Most people know we're kind of one of the only bands around right now that will admit that we're Republican.

M. Shadows

If you make money, what's it worth if you can't be with your family?

M. Shadows

I think Kanye West is brilliant at what he does: he's got a different live show, different merch for every tour, different vibes, and he just puts out great records.

M. Shadows

Always from day one, we were the band on Warped Tour with a fog machine, and our backdrop had to be up - everyone thought we were the biggest idiots for that, total posers. But for us, we wanted to be over the top.

M. Shadows

I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, the Doors, Elton John, Sabbath, Metallica, GN'R, Megadeth - just classic rock, classic metal stuff.

M. Shadows

We just found that in 2016, if you announce a record, and it's coming out in three months, and you're just giving people breadcrumbs, it's the most boring, drawn-out experience.

M. Shadows

People think this is a competition between bands, when the reality is the more successful bands the better.

M. Shadows

The Brexit thing to me just looks like a difference of opinion. I know things were lied about, but that should be a wake-up call to get all the information before you vote about something. Educate yourself.

M. Shadows

When you look at metal, it's probably one of the healthiest genres when you look at it in a worldwide perspective - every single country listens to metal.

M. Shadows

The more kids that we can meet or kids that are terminally ill, we try to do it because it's really important, and you can see the hope in their eyes and in their families and their parents.

M. Shadows

When you think of rock and roll and metal, a lot of it is based around the riff. If you can sing over the riff and what the arrangements are going to be like, you have to leave space for what most people consider one of the most key essential parts, which is the vocalist.

M. Shadows

We want metal to be dangerous again. How cool would that be?

M. Shadows

What made 'Dark Side Of The Moon' so great is some of the mystique and where it was coming from and just the authenticity of it.

M. Shadows

I just think that a metal band covering a bunch of metal songs is so boring, so 'done before.'

M. Shadows

The metalcore has been left behind. It's not something that any of us find enjoyment in listening to, so it's obviously not the direction we would write songs in.

M. Shadows

I think 'The Stage' is kind of left field.

M. Shadows

'This Means War' is up there with 'Hail to the King' in terms of crowd reaction and kids chanting for it.

M. Shadows

We have this yearning to know the answers to the big questions about space and why we're here; we can't evolve fast enough to figure these answers out on our own, but we can do it through artificial intelligence. But there's also some very scary downsides that could come if we don't put the right safety precautions in there.

M. Shadows

I think everyone in the band has had someone that's served in their family. I wouldn't say that anybody has a military family, but both of my grandfathers were in the military.

M. Shadows

I go online, and I love watching heavy metal bands and guitar players play heavy metal versions of the 'Zelda' theme, and people do all the 'Zelda' music, which is one of my favorite soundtracks.

M. Shadows

When we were writing the 'Stage' album, we realized we'd never really done proper covers, where we were taking songs and making them our own and kind of playing around with them. I came up with the idea of doing a cover of 'Wish You Were Here,' but we didn't really want it on the record.

M. Shadows

A lot of times, people just want to be more extreme than the next band or the next person, and that's all they focus on. That's kind of lost on me.

M. Shadows

Honestly, I never thought we'd get a nomination for a Grammy, period. To be honest, we felt that if we were ever going to get one, we thought we had 'City of Evil' and 'Nightmare' and 'Hail to the King,' and those were all big records, and they never even sniffed at us.

M. Shadows

When I was very young, it was Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I'd play air guitar on my bed. They've been the thread throughout my life.

M. Shadows

Someone sent me an article on AI that was written by Tim Urban on the website Wait but Why - that was kind of where I stuck my toes in the puddle, and I said, 'OK, I've gotta learn about this!' I felt like this is one of those things that our generation is going to have to answer for, eventually, and I just wanted to educate myself on it.

M. Shadows

We are ever evolving and never repeat ourselves.

M. Shadows

If there's something I really like or a chord progression, I write a note in my Blackberry, and maybe a year later, I'll revisit it and ask, 'What did I like about that?' I really don't try to think too much about it. I like to be fresh.

M. Shadows

Growing up, I was always playing with video games.

M. Shadows

Our band has always been really big on imagery. We've kind of used that as one of our strengths; we tend to do that pretty well.

M. Shadows

I wanna write a classic metal record, a classic rock record, in 2013.

M. Shadows

We're really excited to be even talked about in the same breath as Foo Fighters or Metallica.

M. Shadows

I've never made a comment on a message board in my life.

M. Shadows

Sometimes, I feel like my lyrics meander a little bit, and our songs are so big I need to write more words than are necessary.

M. Shadows

We're trying to change the whole way our merch is viewed, in terms of just not a bunch of skulls interlaced; you know, every album can look the same, so they're going to be stylized and different.

M. Shadows

If people respect us as artists, they know we'll give them something different every time; they know we're pushing ourselves.

M. Shadows

Every once in a while, we can touch somebody's life in a way just by writing a melody or writing some music, which is always really special.

M. Shadows

Unless someone physically tries to attack me, I don't care what anyone does.

M. Shadows

Music and space collide for me, as I find them incredibly stimulating.

M. Shadows

I used to get a huge kick out of walking into a record store and finding something I didn't know was out.

M. Shadows

I recall us selling out L.A.'s 5,000-capacity Gibson Amphitheatre and flying straight to Germany to play a 300-capacity room where we'd only sold 120 tickets. This was when 'City Of Evil' was really taking off in the U.S., but it seemed like Europe was less interested.

M. Shadows

I've had friends who've had depression or been on medication because their pituitary glands aren't giving out enough hormones - so I've been around a lot of people who've had problems like that. I've always been open to talk about that.

M. Shadows

I've always been a really open person around my friends.

M. Shadows

The thing about covers is that the first thing you're going to notice is the vocals, because it's not the same person.

M. Shadows

I got an email saying we were nominated for a Grammy, and I instantly thought it was a joke. So I started Googling the nominees, and there we were!

M. Shadows

I know that sometimes we, as Americans, we reach outside of our means, and every once in a while we like to 'police the world,' but I think we do a lot of good as well.

M. Shadows

I want to stay away from trends and do what we want to do musically.

M. Shadows

We write music because we have to; it's a part of our very being.

M. Shadows

As we develop, I just see us following our heart on this musical journey.

M. Shadows

A lot of the metal bands that were around when Metallica put out 'The Black Album,' now they're playing clubs, and Metallica is playing stadiums.

M. Shadows

The song 'Paradigm' talks about nanobots - and how they can potentially be used to cure diseases and help you live forever. But how much of a human being would you be at that point? If you're 70 percent machine and 30 percent human, are you going to lose yourself?

M. Shadows

We kind of reached this point in life where we don't really want to put out anything just to put something out. We really don't want it to be like, 'Two years are up. You've had your break; now do another record and get it out there.'

M. Shadows

I'm kind of a geek when it comes to talking about chord structures or melody, so I always loved in-depth conversations with musicians about things. I also enjoy when a fan can just put something on, and they really know nothing about music other than they like it and it touches them in some way.

M. Shadows

Musically, I just like when people are knowledgeable about music and they can talk to you about it.

M. Shadows

One thing that was frustrating to us, always, was having to do so much press building up an album, and you're asked so many questions about, you know, is it more melodic, is it heavier, are you doing your old stuff, is it new?

M. Shadows

I think one of the biggest sleepers that people are going to be able to dig into later is 'Fermi Paradox,' it's the song before 'Exist.' To me it's got the coolest, it's just so bizarre because it's got one of the most melodic vocal melodies, but we put it over a black metal blast beats.

M. Shadows

We write when the time comes, and we try to be exciting, and stuff that excites us usually makes the record.

M. Shadows

We don't want to become like country artists where there's a formula.

M. Shadows

We really like having songs where we think the arrangement is just as important as the melodies, even though they're typically not.

M. Shadows

To me, a lot people really get wrapped up in the technical side of metal and what's metal and what's not and more double-kick and more blast beats and more technicality, but for me, I'm a song person. So I think you can write good songs in any type of style of rock and any type of style of metal, and that's kind of what I'm a fan of.

M. Shadows

Personally, I just want to hear good songs.

M. Shadows

It really does help everyone when there are some big bands leading the charge.

M. Shadows

For me, 'Far Beyond Driven' just had an oomph that kicked it over the edge and just pure aggression. And I always appreciated that.

M. Shadows

When we were growing up, we listened to all sorts of music, but the first band that really grabbed all of us live was AFI.

M. Shadows

We love the idea of putting out music in a non-conventional way.

M. Shadows

We always want to do covers, but we found it kind of boring to do covers of bands in our genre, and we were always asked to do those.

M. Shadows

It's important to know the ins and outs of the music business, but you can also dive too deeply into it and forget that you're really here to make music.

M. Shadows

Usually, when you're putting out a record, you have reviews from people a week before, and you have a vibe 'cause everyone's heard it - you've heard feedback from everyone, and they've listened to your single for a couple of months. Radio's playing it.

M. Shadows

People want things now. People in the rock world seem to not want to give it to them - they want to keep doing things the old way - and one thing that has always bummed me out is when we get a single three months out, and then you have to keep getting fed with bread crumbs.

M. Shadows

We go out there and kill it every night, and you can see what this means to people.

M. Shadows

I'm glad that we can add something new to the fold that Metallica's not going to bring to the table, and they're going to do what they do.

M. Shadows

We like to wait to a point where we have to get in there and write a record because we're just so built up.

M. Shadows

If we can inspire a kid to pick up a guitar - and less and less kids are doing so these days - it'd be really cool because I know how it felt growing up and how special that was for me.

M. Shadows

We do a lot of things that kind of annoy people and our fan base. We try not to get overloaded on it. For us, that means we don't do social media stuff - we have an Avenged Sevenfold social media, but none of the band members have Facebooks or any sort of Twitter.

M. Shadows

The first Maiden record I ever got was 'Piece of Mind,' and I only got it because I thought the artwork was cool, and everyone talked about Iron Maiden. But they weren't necessarily the most popular metal band in America for a 12-year-old kid when I discovered them.

M. Shadows

The 'Black Album' was my real first introduction to Metallica. I was, like, 12 or 13 at the time. We were just getting into music, and I liked that album a lot, but it didn't necessarily change my life. But when I started picking up all the other Metallica records, 'Master of Puppets' was the one to me that stuck out with its songwriting.

M. Shadows

If I was to play any song for anybody asking, 'What is metal about?' I'd just play 'Master of Puppets.' The progressions and the bridge are brilliant.

M. Shadows

If I ran the Grammys, it would probably go bankrupt.

M. Shadows

For me, a band like Gojira brings something really cool and new to the table.

M. Shadows

When I'm by myself asking the questions that many of us do at some point in our lives, I look to the stars knowing that the answers are somewhere out there waiting to be discovered.

M. Shadows

Games helped me a lot when The Rev died. It was something I able to go do and stay in the house and not have to be outside and deal with people. But I also found a community online that I was able to escape the feeling I was having of losing a best friend.

M. Shadows

No. 1 records are fine, but in 2016, they just don't mean as much any more - the currency has changed.

M. Shadows

We live in the realm where all the metalheads and rock fans know us, but we're not giants like Linkin Park or Black Sabbath.

M. Shadows

I've said the Grammys messed up metal because it's not on TV. What I'm saying is when you're in a metal category, it's not televised, and it doesn't move the needle forward for metal artists, and I wish they had more respect for the genre.

M. Shadows

Metal needs to be exposed to more people, so it's good for rock if there's bigger bands.

M. Shadows

Ever since 'Hail to the King,' we've been more cognizant of our chord progressions, our key changes, drama in songs, a lot of dynamics - we've really added a lot of that in there.

M. Shadows

The latter 1940s and early '50s were a time of tense, explosive conflict, in the world at large and in the politics of our nation.

M. Stanton Evans

If inequalities of taxable wealth backing up a government service are construed as denying equality before the law, then there is no solution but to have every government service whatever financed out of Washington.

M. Stanton Evans

In 1775, no fewer than nine colonies had established churches, ranging from Congregational establishments in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts to Episcopal churches in the southern states from Maryland on down.

M. Stanton Evans

When 'our people' get to the point where they can do us some good, they stop being 'our people.'

M. Stanton Evans

I was never for Richard Nixon until Watergate.

M. Stanton Evans

When you get older, two things happen to you. You begin to lose your hearing, and I forget what the other one is.

M. Stanton Evans

I call it the 'House of Reprehensibles.' We don't have any real political resistance to this growth of the domestic state across the board. So I'm much more focused on that than on the Patriot Act, which is a real effort, however inept, to deal with a real problem.

M. Stanton Evans

Every congressional committee that does an investigation has documents, papers and things that it collects in the course of that investigation - the backup to everything it does.

M. Stanton Evans

I entered Yale in the fall of 1951, and about November of that year, Bill Buckley published 'God and Man at Yale.'

M. Stanton Evans

I tell my students, even if you are an opinion journalist, your opinion should be based on facts.

M. Stanton Evans

From the beginning, the Continental Congress had official chaplains, prayers, and days of fasting and Thanksgiving. When sessions opened in 1774, fear was voiced that the religious diversity of the country would make it hard to choose a form of worship.

M. Stanton Evans

The trouble with conservatives is that too many of them come to Washington thinking they are going to drain the swamp, only to discover that Washington is a hot tub.

M. Stanton Evans

As is well known, 'McCarthyism' was an alleged focus of political evil in the 1950s: Accusations of Communist taint, without factual basis; bogus lists of supposed Communists who never existed; failure in the end to produce even one provable Communist or Soviet agent, despite his myriad charges of subversion.

M. Stanton Evans

Tax cuts are like sex: When they are good, they are very, very good. And when they are bad, they are still pretty good.

M. Stanton Evans

I didn't agree with what Joe McCarthy was trying to do, but I sure did admire his methods.

M. Stanton Evans

I've written a lot of books in my time, and to write a book about Joe McCarthy and have some of the major media paying attention, I'm not used to that.

M. Stanton Evans

A document was drafted in the State Department in July 1946 by an official named Samuel Klaus. This indicated that there were then 20 alleged Soviet agents, 13 alleged Communists, about a dozen sympathizers, and about 75 suspects in the department, according to the FBI.

M. Stanton Evans

Annie Lee Moss was a black woman who worked for the Army as a code clerk in the Pentagon. She was identified by an undercover agent of the FBI as a member of the Communist Party. Moss denied it, the Democrats sprang to her defense, and she has been treated ever since as an innocent victim of McCarthy.

M. Stanton Evans

It is fast becoming an article of political faith that financing America's public schools by way of the local property tax is a shame and a civic scandal.

M. Stanton Evans

The demand that school finances be transferred away from local school districts to the state and/or federal government has been a long-time favorite of the educationist lobbies.

M. Stanton Evans

Demands for equal financing of sewers, streets, and garbage collection would make more sense than proposals for equal financing of the schools, since some plausible connection may be inferred between the amount of money expended, e.g., for roads, and the quality of service resulting to the taxpayer.

M. Stanton Evans

Containment, as everyone will recall, was a rough plan for stopping the Communists any time they crossed a certain line dividing our half of the world from theirs.

M. Stanton Evans

Soviet expansionism in Europe, the battle for control of China, and the 1950 invasion of South Korea would shatter once-euphoric dreams of post-war cooperation with the Kremlin.

M. Stanton Evans

Under the new government of the Constitution, beginning in 1789, all of the peacetime measures were repeated: chaplains, prayers, memorials of Thanksgiving, the Northwest Ordinance, funding for the Christian education of Indians.

M. Stanton Evans

My grandparents are from Mexico, so I grew up with great Mexican food.

M. Ward

I don't like the way recording to digital sounds. Most of the time, when I'm recording to two-inch tape, I still have a romantic vision of how songs sounded coming out of the radio when I was younger, and how they sounded coming out of my little four-track cassette player.

M. Ward

One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel - you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time.

M. Ward

I do watch 'American Idol' sometimes. It's not really that pleasurable... I take that back. It is the epitome of a guilty pleasure. Sometimes there's some good singers on that show.

M. Ward

I love the idea that I planned my career. I did not. It started out by getting invitations from artists that I really love and respect, to share a stage... I've been very lucky in that I haven't had to create a five-year plan. It's evolved.

M. Ward

Certain things you have to stumble on to. They can't be preprogrammed.

M. Ward

I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog. I had fun trying to duplicate what I was hearing on these records, only using the instruments I had at hand - an acoustic guitar, and that's all. It was endlessly amusing to me to try to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney's harmonies using the guitar.

M. Ward

When I first started making music, it was learning other people's songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.

M. Ward

I learned a long time ago that fame and money is not a ticket to happiness.

M. Ward

I've worked with just as many talented women as I have talented men, and I feel fortunate enough to have that great balance.

M. Ward

I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.

M. Ward

I always prefer other people's interpretations over my own, so I'm not very quick to make explicit what exactly a song or record is about.

M. Ward

I get most of my inspiration from older records. Most of the records that I listen to were probably made before I was born, and I was born in the mid-'70s. I don't know why, exactly, I'm drawn to those sounds.

M. Ward

I'm somebody who doesn't feel the need to be in the driver's seat all the time. I appreciate the perspective of being in the passenger's seat sometimes, and I feel fortunate for that because I've learned a lot from that perspective.

M. Ward

I get most of my inspiration from older records and older production styles, and that ends up rearing its head in the records that I make.

M. Ward

I believe in working with songs that have personal value for me.

M. Ward

When you work on a record for three years, it's a great sense of relief when it is finally out in the world. It just feels good.

M. Ward

It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.

M. Ward

I'm somebody who gets a lot of inspiration from dreams.

M. Ward

I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.

M. Ward

The South of France is one of my favorite places in the world.

M. Ward

I don't really watch TV series because I don't want to get hooked on them and have them suck up all my time.

M. Ward

I love the sound of Elmore James, the sound early guitarists like him got just by using minimal means.

M. Ward

There's a relationship between music and spirituality and inspiration and to a certain extent improvisation that draws me in, because I don't totally understand it. I know that those relationships have been telling me, since I started making records, where to go. What to write down.

M. Ward

I find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.

M. Ward

It's no fun for me to cover a song and produce it the exact same way as it already exists. When I hear that happening, I have to say, 'What's the point?'

M. Ward

I have a very strong belief in God.

M. Ward

The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.

M. Ward