Quoted Archive for May, 2008

Wonder

Wonder, rather than doubt, is the root of knowledge.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The universe …

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
– Eden Phillpots

Indy through the years

Indiana Jones. I always knew some day you’d come walking back through my door.
– Marion
__________________________
We do not follow maps to buried treasure and X never, ever marks the spot.
– Indiana Jones
__________________________
“Since I’ve met you I’ve nearly been incinerated, drowned, shot at and chopped into fishbait.
– Indiana Jones
__________________________
If you think I’m going to Delhi with you or anyplace else after all the trouble you’ve gotten me into, think again buster! I’m going home to Missouri where they never feed you to snakes before ripping your heart out and lowering you into hot pits! This is NOT my idea of a good time!
– Willie
__________________________
You know, for an old man you ain’t bad in a fight. What are you, like 80?
– Mutt

Indy

“I can say that if you liked the other Indiana Jones movies, you will like this one, and that if you did not, there is no talking to you. ”
Roger Ebert

High Spirits

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes,
than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.
Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination;
do not become the slave of your model.
– Vincent van Gogh

Shhhh …

Shhh … my common sense is tingling …
– Iron Man (comic book)

Superheroes Speak

“With great power there must also come — great responsibility!”
– Spider Man
___________________________
“Wars are never won, regardless of who might be the victor. The very act of war is itself a horrible defeat.”
– Guardian of the Universe (Green Lantern)
___________________________
“In this world, there is right and there is wrong, and that distinction is not difficult to make.”
– Superman
___________________________
“Are arbitrary labels more important than the way we live our lives, what we’re supposed to be more important than what we actually are?”
– X-Men

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon