Shocking Quotes - page 10
I think these are some of the common themes [of my work]: a) life is hard, brutal, capricious and unfair, b) sometimes there is a benefit to seeing it clearly, and acknowledging it truthfully..., and c) other times it is best to find something to laugh about, lest despair crush one completely. I find a lot of humor in shocking or so-called taboo things: castration, excrement, violence (usually self-inflicted or inflicted on the narrator, "[Martin] Scorsese" being an exception), sex and sexual perversions... etc.
John S. Hall
The Internet is a giant international network of intelligent, informed computer enthusiasts, by which I mean, 'people without lives.' We dont care. We have each other.... While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the most settings, uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our 'CONFIG. SYS.'
Dave Barry
[On its Oscar entry]It was very shocking for me because a movie called Black had released and I was working with Rani for a movie called Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. It was New York, very cold, raining, and Rani came running, saying, "Shah, Shah, we got nominated, we got nominated!" And I thought she was talking about Black-and Rani's very close to me, one of my best, bestest friends- and she came and hugged me and I said congratulations because one thought she was talking about Black. Because Paheli hadn't fared very well commercially, though it was very close to my heart. Suddenly she said, "No, no, no, Paheli has won!" And everyone -Karan [Johar] was there- said, "No, no don't joke, don't hurt him like this." And we were really shocked.
Shahrukh Khan
Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite, it is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one's vulnerability, one's perilousness, one's smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering.
Nick Cave