106 quotes found
"წითელი ღვინო, სტალინი, შევარდნაძე, ქეთი მელუა."
"It's so funny because when you do smoke weed and write a song, you're like, 'Yeah, this is brilliant, this is excellent!' - and the next morning you go back and often find that really it's not very good at all... I've never done anything like acid or cocaine and I hope I don't. But I guess you have to try things once in a while... just once. I think you have to be very wary of falling into that trap of getting addicted."
"A fucking good tune"
"When I was 14 or 15 I was into the whole Spice Girls and I was a huge fan, but two years ago I heard The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and I was like - fucking hell, I've been born in the wrong bloody decade!"
"Dancing is an important function of music, but so is crying."
"I get guilty when I spend money on silly things like clothes and stuff... Having experienced a completely different extreme of wealth, and I don't mean me being poor or rich, I mean knowing that 40 quid that gets spent on a pair of shoes could go a long way for a family in Georgia for a week or even a month, having experienced that, you're a bit more [guilty]."
"As a family, we have been very fortunate to find a happy lifestyle in this country and we feel we belong. We still consider ourselves to be Georgian, because that is where our roots are, and I return to Georgia every year to see my uncles and grandparents, but I am proud to now be a British citizen."
"I do know that there are some things that exist in this world that you just can't prove. That could be the case with God or whoever might be up there, but I don't follow any one religion."
"I think I am easy to make fun of. I try not to pay too much attention. You can't let critics dictate what you do... The thing that fascinates me, is the emotion in music, the way it can make me cry or laugh or be angry. I'm not trying to be hip or cool, and I'm not scared to put everything I have into songs. Passion is the greatest thing that music can evoke. We live in a society where I think people often find it hard to express themselves, but sometimes a song can do that for you. It might not be groundbreaking, but there is something about the simplicity of presenting songs where it's all about the lyric and the melody. People don't need to get through a whole lot of production to get to the root of the song. It's just music doing what music does best... A lot of things in the mainstream are repetitive and soulless and have been churned out without any real conviction. It is really unfair to call Coldplay insufferable, when they obviously care about what they do. James [Blunt] too. Too much of the music industry is controlled by lawyers and businessmen, making music like it's a product on the factory line. That's what I call insufferable."
"Of course [Kate Bush] is still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like "Wuthering Heights" still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician."
"Promo? It's a fucking nightmare!"
"I spend eight to nine months working abroad and cram in a holiday when I have the odd week off. This year, three of those months were spent in America playing gigs with my band, so we got to visit all kinds of places from Arizona to New York. After a few weeks, I really began to miss family and friends not to mention baked beans!"
"Buying books is probably my biggest vice when I travel. I bought a great one in America called An Incomplete Education, which covers everything from fashion to philosophy in quite a humorous way. It’s a bluffer’s guide, but pretty extensive. Because I never went to university, it’s my attempt to bone up on subjects I don’t know much about."
"I don't think I could see myself with someone who's famous. I don't like the lifestyle and everything it stands for. Too superficial. That attention is too much. For me to go home and be surrounded by that sounds like a fucking nightmare. But a musician or someone who's into music is different."
"Some people think it's got a double meaning, but as my mum's in the audience tonight, it doesn't."
"...after all we don't want the radio star to kill video."
"The last verse [In My Secret Life] completely got to me, about how we all have great ideals but in reality we end up conforming, following everyone else. We want to be stronger so we lead that life inside, thinking of ourselves as these great brave souls. I literally thought when I was 15 that I was a musical genius and I could change the world, but in fact you're not and you can't and you don't, and that realisation is almost heartbreaking."
"Don't come into the music industry. It's almost inevitable that you'll psychologically be quite screwed up. Fame isn't a natural, human, behavioural thing. You get alienated. You're not really surrounded by truth."
"I've never had paparazzi follow me and I rarely get recognised. I dress like a tramp when I'm not working. My hairdresser calls me the Romanian window cleaner. That's just the way I am."
"Wanking housewives"
"Earth is my home!"
"I just think war is fucked up"
"She is one of the most intelligent singers I've worked with for a very long time, - there are little reminders in her voice, of all sorts of other singers like Eartha Kitt and Edith Piaf, - of whom she has never heard. She exudes a modest confidence, she is completely sure of herself and has a maturity far in advance of her age."
"She enjoys extremes, but in life her emotions are always in check."
"I'm a songwriter but she [Melua] has her songs written for her... She must think it's her fucking lucky day... It's not like she's singing old songs like Jamie [Cullum], she's singing shit new songs that her manager writes for her."
"The only trouble is that there's absolutely no passion, no soul and no excitement to be found here...Yet all good music should provoke some sort of emotion, and this [Nine Million Bicycles] provokes none whatsoever."
"[Melua] makes music that's easy on the ear and even easier on the brain. She's the perfect good girl in the middle of the road. I'm not keen to make things too easy for anyone."
"I've got a ticket, To the fast city, Where the bells don't really ring, Getting off the plane the cold air, Rushes like bullets through my brain, And I'm divided between penguins and cats, But it's not about what animal you've got, It's about being able to fly, It's about dying nine times."
"Because the line between, Wrong and right, Is the width of a thread, From a spider's web. The piano keys are black and white, But they sound like a million colours in your mind."
"We are 12 billion light-years from the edge. That's a guess — no-one can ever say it's true, but I know that I will always be with you."
"We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe; that's a good estimate with well-defined error bars and with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you."
"Any discussion of Muslim intellectual life in the twentieth century must take into account the defining context of modernisation, with its dislocating effects on structural, economic, societal, political and cultural realities in Muslim countries."
"In recent decades, new voices have appeared on the contemporary Islamic intellectual map, vying for a place with the now hugely influential Salafi approach to Islam, generally characteristic of Islamism, and that of its traditionalist opponents. These are the voices of new Muslim intellectuals which, taken together, capture an emerging trend in Muslim interpretation."
"In its distinctive strategy and internal dynamics and its rich intellectual tradition, Hizb al-Tahrir points up the heterogeneity of twentieth-century Islamist protest movements in the Middle East."
"While modern changes were intrinsic to Western historical development, they were largely seen by Muslims as alien and enforced."
"But the most vocal and articulate on anti-democracy views among these groups is Hizb al-Tahrir, founded in Palestine in the 1950s but currently active internationally, in particular in Britain, Pakistan and some Arab countries...Hizb al-Tahrir calls for a campaign of education and intellectual debate which would lead to the re-establishment of the khilafa. While employing the concept of the 'Islamic State', Hizb al-Tahrir espouses the traditional belief that the restoration of the khilafa is both necessary and sufficient to resolve the problem of governance. Even Hizb al-Tahrir, however, could not resist the seduction of democratic procedures. The khalifa has to be elected, and consultative councils form part of the structure of power."
"I loved the opportunity to think about the big questions philosophy asks, and the rigorous way in which philosophy trains the mind to answer them. What is ultimately real? Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there a necessary being or are all beings contingent? What is knowledge and what can we know? Is there something which is objectively right or wrong, or is everything relative? Most people, at some point, will be confronted with some of these questions and will try to answer them in a more or less informal way. Philosophy has been tackling them over the centuries in a formal, rigorous way, engaging in a deep, fascinating, and exciting conversation which continues nowadays."
"Production systems which are technologically the most advanced are also the least adaptable and work to the longest time scale of decision making. These are the process industries (chemical plants, oil refineries and so on) in which vast resources are invested in the creation of a closely programmed and tightly controlled process which will continue to perform the same task over a very long period."
"The number of levels of authority in the management hierarchy increased with technical complexity, while the span of control of the first-line supervisor decreased."
"A breakdown of management into its basic functions — development, production and marketing — revealed that the character of the functions, their chronological sequence, the closeness with which they had to be integrated and their relative importance to the success and survival of the business, all depended upon the system of techniques in the firm concerned."
"Those responsible for marketing had to sell, not a product, but the idea that their firm was able to produce what the customer required. The product was developed after the order had been secured, the design being, in many cases, modified to suit the requirements of the customer. In mass production firms, the sequence is quite different: product development came first, then production, and finally marketing."
"As technology advances the entire concept of authority in industry may have to change. In process firms the relationships between superior and subordinate was much more like that between a travel agent and his clients than that between a foreman and operators in mass production. The process foreman's job was to arrange things within limits, set by the plant, which both he and the operators accepted."
"In some firms role relationships prescribed by the chart seemed to be of secondary importance to personal relationships between individuals."
"There was a particular form of organisation most appropriate to each technical situation."
"Organizational theorists, at least since the pioneering work of Burns and Stalker, 1961 and Joan Woodward, 1965 and others in what came to be called the contingency school, have recognized that centralization is appropriate for organizations with routine tasks, and decentralization for those with nonroutine tasks. For an early statement see Perrow 1967, and Lawrence and Lorch, 1967."
"For Woodward, the main research question is the following: How and why do industrial organizations vary in structure and why do some structures appear to be associated with greater success for the organizations than others?... In order to analyze this question, Woodward needs to establish a model according to which the companies participating in her study can be categorized. She starts by observing that several people working within this field (incl. Taylor) come from a manufacturing industry background, and that they tend to generalize on this basis. Referring to Dubin (1959) she analyzes different dimensions that can be part of a model used to categorize different companies:"
"As open systems, organizations faced an environment that might be placid and benevolent, or turbulent and harsh. Economic, social, political, and technological changes could come rapidly or slowly, and some organizational arrangements might be better able to cope with the changing environment than others. Could it be that there was no one way to structure an organization that design was influenced by environmental factors and could vary, depending on technology?"
"The ‘fit’ between organisation and technology has long been a theme of interest for academics. A key piece of work in this vein is Joan Woodward’s 1958 report which links the manufacturing set up an organisation operates with not only the structure the organisation adopts but also the way people within the organisation communicate and work together. This work gives a relationship between the organisational world and the technology it deals with, it moves beyond the simple assumption of technological determinism often used in economics that Langlois (2002)refers to, by providing a mechanism."
"Obviously, the health benefits of being vegan are written in stone but I honestly believe the most benefit to me being vegan is that I do not carry the burden of guilt that I would have to endure knowing that I abused others for my own 'benefit'. … Veganism is everything to me. It touches every part of my life. It is my life. I could not begin to imagine living my life any other way. … Often people think we are weak in body and mind. They mistake our compassion for weakness. … My strengths as an athlete are that I am not an athlete for myself. I am doing it for the benefit of others, which makes me work much harder to achieve. I am not selfish enough to want something this badly for myself. It makes me push myself that bit harder knowing that by doing well I can possibly convince others to consider a vegan lifestyle."
"The effectiveness of our democratic society depends on freedom of expression, and the expression of offensive and intolerant opinions is generally not unlawful. Boris Johnson's use of language in this instance, which risks dehumanising and vilifying Muslim women, is inflammatory and divisive. Political figures should lead by example, conducting debates in a responsible manner, and language such as this can inhibit legitimate dialogue."
"The sectarianization of Bahrain’s domestic conflict, and its hypersensitivity to Iranian interference in its affairs, mean that Qatar’s pragmatic relationship with Iran is far more likely to hold the key to Manama’s concerns."
"It's worth considering wearing thongs for short periods of time, rather than all day every day. It's also important to see what material your thong is made of."
"Women in the public eye and on TV are often scrutinized for how they look so I know how easy it would be to fall into the trap of taking on board this negativity."
"At 6 foot 7 Peter Crouch isn't as tall as he looks."
"The butterflies will be jangling."
"When I sat down to write this book, I was really not keen on the idea of writing a biography that charted my life in a regular, linear fashion.Largely because I thought that nobody would be interested in how well I did in my maths GCSE ( C ) or what my first dog was called (Sadie).But looking back over my life I realise we are all a product of the things that happen to us along the way, even the most fleeting of conversations with a stranger, and by gathering my turning points and life-changing moments together, I have found a way of telling the story of my life - a story of family, love, loss, determination, devastating lows and the highest of highs."
"As the Indian sages pondered on the problem of good and evil, they were confronted with the apparent injustices and cruelties of the world around them, and this state of affairs was finally reconciled with their idea of Brahman by the conception of a universal ethical law applymg to all life. This law as proclaimed as the law of karma. In the words of the Upanishads, "As is a man's desire so is his will, and 1\S is his will so is his deed, and whatever deed he does that he will reap." "India held a strange and irresistible attraction for the whole of Asia in the first millennium. People in the most primitive stage of development as well as the Chinese with a civilization as ancient and illustrious as India's own, acknowledged India as first in the supreme realm of spiritual perception. Yet the civilization of India, transplanted abroad, did not have a deadening effect of suppressing or stifling native genius, as the imposition of a foreign culture often does. On the contrary, it called out the best that others had to give.As a result of India's fertilizing influence, new and distinctive types of culture everywhere arose, and each new colony was able to create and contribute fresh treasure, to be added to the great Asiatic heritage. How Indian religions and Indian culture blossomed anew in foreign environments and endured for many centuries is a fascinating and little appreciated chapter of Indian history." ... "The Indian colonies which began to grow up all along the periphery of the motherland were essentially cultural and religious, rather than political or racial. Yet they were subject to strong Indian influences. These swept outward like tidal waves. They passed south to Sri Lanka and beyond to the remote islands of the Pacific. They inundated Burma, Malaya, Siam and Indo-China. They overwhelmed Nepal and Tibet. From Afghanistan, they passed along to central Asia and China. They lapped at the far shores of Korea and Japan. Indian religious ideas and literature, Indian conventions of art and architecture, Indian legal codes and social practices ... all took root in these outer territories." "For a long time Indians seem to have held the monopoly of maritime commerce in both the southern and eastern seas of Asia. They possessed large ocean-going vessels, in which they first ventured to Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaya and gradually they extended their journeys to Java and Sumatra and then to southern China."
"untrue and completely unsupported by the evidence"
"Wouldn’t it be worth working out what the actual criteria are?"
"If Woodcock’s nose had been shorter…"
"... Victoria Woodcock, Operations Director, known as Vics, who was the most indispensable person in the campaign. If she’d gone under a bus, Remain would have won. When comparing many things in life the difference between average and best is say 30% but some people are 50 times more effective than others. She is one of them."
"If you think you are one of the a small group of people in the world who are truly GREAT at project management, then we want to talk to you. Victoria Woodcock ran ' — she was a truly awesome project manager and without her Cameron would certainly have won. We need people like this who have a 1 in 10,000 or higher level of skill and temperament."
"Poverty in the UK is too high and the experiences of many people in poverty are now getting worse. Governments of all colours have worked hard to change that picture, but as a society, we have failed to make significant progress."
"Everyone in 21st-century Britain should be able to afford the basics they need to avoid poverty. It’s shameful that instead millions of families are on the edge of destitution. In recent years, we’ve made little progress in tackling the causes of poverty: low wages, an inadequate social security system and sky-rocketing housing costs. As the commission shows, the solutions are there to tackle these issues. What we need now is the collective will."
"[From MacNamara's written statement about a meeting in the prime minister's study on on Friday, 13 March 2020] I have just been talking to the official Mark Sweeney, who is in charge of coordinating with the Department for Health. He said I have been told for years that there is a whole plan for this. There is no plan. We are in huge trouble. I have come through here to the Prime Minister’s office to tell you all that I think we are absolutely f-----. I think this country is heading for a disaster. I think we are going to kill thousands of people. As soon as I have been told this, I have come through to see you. It seems from the conversation you are having that that is correct."
"[Boris Johnson's "breezy confidence" about COVID in March 2020] It was the day on which there was a question about whether the Prime Minister should shake hands with people on a visit to the hospital and there was a jokey discussion about alternative greetings to handshakes. The Prime Minister felt - not unreasonably - that it was a bit ridiculous for him to suggest alternative greetings. But the jovial tone, the view that in implementing containment measures and suspending work and schooling, the Italians were overreacting, and the breezy confidence that we would do better than others had jarred with me. I remember saying that I thought that all people wanted to know was what was the right thing to do - and that was not clear."
"[Referring to the Cabinet Office and No. 10 Downing Street] I would find it hard to pick one day when the regulations were followed properly inside that building. [...] I know that because ... there was one meeting where we absolutely adhered to the guidance, to the letter, and that was the cabinet meeting, and everybody moaned about it and tried to change it repeatedly. So I know how exceptional it was to really, really, really properly follow the guidance."
"[MacNamara provided a Karaoke machine for a lockdown-defying gathering for someone who was leaving No. 10 Downing Street] My profound regret is for the damage that’s been caused to so many people because of it, as well as just the mortifying experience of seeing what that looks like and how rightly offended everybody is in retrospect. [...] I absolutely knew and thought it was actually important for there to be space for - particularly the private office - to be able to gather together and spend time together. That was entirely because of the kind of culture that they were working in and entirely because I was really worried about individuals breaking and suffering, and whether they were going to be okay, and how important their colleagues were to each other. I'm saying none of that in excuse of my own misjudgment. I'm saying none of that in excuse of thinking any of these things were okay. But it was a much more complex situation than has allowed to be presented for lots of different reasons."
"I do not remember anyone working in the centre or who was part of the conversations who had a detailed understanding of the way the NHS operated. This is not unusual or unique to that time. Social policy and the "operational" management of the state is always under-represented in the centre of power whereas HM Treasury, foreign policy and national security are over-represented in line with what is normally the focus for a Prime Minister."
"[From MacNamara's written evidence] In terms of the policy response the exclusion of a female perspective led to significant negative consequences, including the lack of thought given to childcare in the context of school closures. There was a serious lack of thinking about domestic abuse and the vulnerable, about carers and informal networks for how people look after each other in families and communities."
"[From MacNamara's written evidence] For example, the long-term impact of a generation of young people being deprived of schooling and peer-group contact for an extended period of time were hard to bring in as a balancing argument because the harm was not immediately quantifiable, or amenable to being reduced into a data set and presented in a diagram. Similarly, less visible impacts suffer in this format. I remember it being far too difficult to get people to pay attention to domestic violence and lockdown - and the No 10 Private Secretary (Hannah Young) having to push back against the assertion that it was not an urgent problem because it was “not showing up in the data"."
"[At the start of 2020] [T]he Cabinet Office in Whitehall had developed some unhealthy habits in terms of ways of working and it was a low trust environment in terms of relationships between the civil service and the prime minister and his political team."
"If I think about working for [[Theresa May|[Theresa] May]], I don't think there's any world in which we could have got from January to May [2020] and had this sort of culture, because it just wasn't there in the DNA of the organisation at that time."
"[On the mass closure of children's playgrounds during the pandemic lockdowns] It was a decision taken by people who have no real life experience of what it's like to be stuck at home with a toddler."
"We hope, most fervently, that such better understanding may ultimately mean that the transvestite and the transsexual can walk freely abroad in Society, offending no-one, better understood by some, and, we hope, tolerated by all."
"For many who attended the conference it was a weekend of "firsts" - the first meeting with others of the same type, the first opportunity to be dressed outside one's own bedroom and for a whole day, the first meal in a public restaurant, the first time one could discuss the state with others and to find out what sort of people we were. And all of this we owed to June."
"You can’t expect people to live in cities, to trade in cities, to exchange ideas in cities, if they don’t have the basic right to shelter in those cities."
"I think that’s the work that curator’s do. I see it less as a challenge, it’s just the task at hand."
"There are moments when you’re driving or walking around, and you find yourself in that meeting point."
"The ruthless answer is do I want to keep reading because my reading pile is huge... Is there a story or character I’m compelled by?"
"Doing this job is like studying for an exam that you are never prepped for. The workload never ever goes away. I’ve got literally hundreds of scripts, any time of a given month or week."
"Engage with other women, both younger and older, and stand firm against any negativity. I wish someone had shared this wisdom with me."
"Equality and diversity require collective attention and commitment. Those with industry experience should focus on creating opportunities for diverse talent."
"If I can deliver a strong script, compelling characters, and ensure they are well taken care of during their time with us, everything will fall into place."
"“Tell the truth, even if that truth is sometimes unpalatable.”"
"How do you get your boss to like you? It’s now developed into something more, because it’s earned the right to do that. So I’m really looking forward to the audience getting to see storylines that are opening up more."
"I think really what we look for are good stories, well told, with something to say. We tend to really lean into strong female characters, and we look for something that has a moral center, even if sometimes that moral center looks like a cold, dark heart."
"I think it’s gut instinct, really. Sometimes, in something like Industry, that was inspired by wanting to look in that world."
"There are lots of things in life that happen that we need to address, and we shouldn’t shy away and just think, ‘Okay, well, that’s a bit tough’ or ‘That’s a bit that is very out there,’ but actually it’s all based on stuff that actually happens."
"I sat down and talked to everyone, from the staff and trustees to the volunteers, stakeholders and celebrities, about what they did and what the charity was doing right and wrong.""
"The restructuring of the fundraising team has been crucial. It had been almost entirely focused on events, so Horton set it the goal of developing new funding sources such as individual giving and corporate donations."
"You have to invest up front to raise money through things like individual giving, and you don't always see the returns in the first year"
"That enthuses staff as they see the benefits, which lifts morale, making people happier and more motivated.""
"I'm a risk-taker, there's no doubt about it."
"You do need an element of madness."
"You spend an awful lot of money, and then you're at the mercy of the critics. But you think about today; you don't think too much about tomorrow. I'll tell you what it is: on the inside you're calm, and on the outside, you're buzzing. So it belies what you feel inside. If anything does get too much, too outrageous, I let myself go calm inside, even though on the outside I might be this buzzy woman. It's an art; you learn it."
"I was the worst actress in the world - ever"
"I knew I wasn't very good. I'm interested in being the proactive person. I don't want to walk into a room and just be judged on what I look like"
"Some shows make money and some don't, and it 'sort of evens out in the end."
"For years ahead, anyone you ask will be able to tell you where he was and what he was doing when he first learned of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination"
"When I left two hours later, my overwhelming feeling was one of shame that this monstrous act should have happened in proud, beloved Texas. And for all the stricken Dallas citizens, who had tried so hard, a sense of pity came even before the feeling of grief for the country’s loss. It was evident on many faces that the keen edge of shame cut deep"
"I am passionate about chemistry and really keen to ensure that opportunities are available to young people from all different backgrounds to become chemists. We need diversity of opinions, different perspectives and the best talent to take the discipline forward into the future."
"My mentors have been incredibly important to me. I trusted them to give me the best advice, whether I had asked for it or not, and they also gave me confidence to take up opportunities I might otherwise have declined. It’s really important that we take the time to do the same for the next generation of chemists."
"The Hindoos, apparently not having Gods enough of their own, worship those of other sects whenever they come in their way. They also appear to observe not only their own festivals, but those of the Christians and Mahometans, and indeed the whole year round was nothing but a succession of different mysteries and mummery, in honour of some Saint, or of some holiday.… The Hindoos must certainly have the organ of veneration very strongly developed, for not only do they perform poojah to their own deities, but they are very ready also to join in the religious rites of other nations; they will follow the Mussulman’s taboot, and at our Christmas, they will bring an offering of cakes, flowers, and sugar-candy to the Christian Sahib…"
"I cannot help remarking the extreme mildness of the native character. Every one seems to walk slowly and lightly; all speak low, even in the market; there is a sort of gentleness in their voice and manner – those who were not employed sat squatting at their doors, smoking their hookahs. The games of the children seem to partake of the native character; they, too, squat, in little parties, about the doors, and, though they look lively, you scarcely ever hear their little voices, and none of their amusements appear at all of a riotous nature."
"The Hindoo character is highly deserving minute study; for I know no other people who resemble them, or any known principles to which their peculiarities can be referred. The Hindoo has a most perfect and enviable command of countenance: whether in joy or sorrow, he never betrays feelings he may desire to conceal; and the calm and serene appearance of his features, would induce an observer to believe him an apathetic being, whom the ordinary passions of our nature could not assail. Yet, how superficial is this judgment! See him in his temples, joining in some of the wild and startling ceremonies of his idol worship, his eye kindling with enthusiasm, and his form writhing with excitement before the altars of his gods; see him at his festivals, garlanded with flowers, covered with unguents and perfumes, half mad with mirth, shouting and feasting in these joyous saturnalia: and then wonder, as we must, at the calm eye, and quiet aspect of the Hindoo, in his usual and public bearing. The absence of that fear of death, which is so powerful in the hearts of civilised men, is the most remarkable trait in the Hindu character; as a subject of contemplation and enquiry, this has great interest. Probably the inhabitants of civilised nations set an undue value on life…"