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Platoon (film)

Platoon is a 1986 film about a young recruit in Vietnam who faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
 * Written and directed by Oliver Stone.

The first casualty of war is innocence.

Chris Taylor

'''Somebody once wrote: 'Hell is the impossibility of reason.' That's what this place feels like. Hell. I hate it already and it's only been a week.''' Some god-damn week, Grandma. The hardest thing I think I've ever done is go on point three times this week - I don't even know what I'm doing. A gook could be standing three feet in front of me and I wouldn't know it, I'm so tired. We get up at 5 am, hump all day, camp around four or five, dig a foxhole, eat, then put out an all-night ambush or a three-man listening post in the jungle. It's scary, 'cause nobody tells me how to do anything 'cause I'm new and nobody cares about the new guys. They don't even want to know your name. The unwritten rule is a new guy's life isn't worth as much 'cause he hasn't put his time in yet - and they say, if you're gonna get killed in the Nam, it's better to get it in the first few weeks, the logic being you don't suffer that much. If you're lucky, you get to stay in the perimeter at night and then you pull a three-hour guard shift, so maybe you sleep 3, 4 hours a night, but you don't really sleep. I don't think I can keep this up for a year, Grandma. I think I've made a big mistake comin' here...

Of course, Mom and Dad didn't want me to come here. They wanted me to be just like them. Respectable, hardworking, a little house, a family. They drove me crazy with their goddamn world, Grandma. You know Mom. I guess I've always been sheltered and special. I just wanna be anonymous like everybody else. Do my share for my country. Live up to what Grandpa did in the first war and Dad did in the second.

Well, here I am, anonymous all right, with guys nobody really cares about. They come from the end of the line, most of 'em. Small towns you never heard of: Pulaski, Tennessee. Brandon, Mississippi. Pork Bend, Utah. Wampum, Pennsylvania. Two years' high school's about it. Maybe if they're lucky, a job waiting for 'em back in a factory. But most of 'em got nothin'. They're poor. They're the unwanted. Yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom. It's weird, isn't it? At the bottom of the barrel, and they know it. Maybe that's why they call themselves 'grunts', cause a grunt can take it, can take anything. They're the best I've ever seen, Grandma. The heart and soul...

Maybe I finally found it way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again and be something I can be proud of, without having to fake it, be a fake human being. Maybe I can see something I don't yet see, or learn something I don't yet know. I miss you. I miss you very much. Tell Mom I miss her too. Chris.

 * New Year's Day, 1968. Just another day, stayin' alive. There's been a lot of movement near the Cambodian border, regiments of NVA moving across. A lot of little firefights and ambushes. We drop a lot of bombs and then we walk through the jungle like ghosts in a landscape.
 * Day by day I struggle to maintain not only my strength but also my sanity. It's all a blur. I have no energy to write. I don't know what's right or wrong anymore. The morale of the men is low, a civil war in the platoon. Half the men with Elias, half with Barnes. There's a lot of suspicion and hate. I can't believe we're fighting each other, when we should be fighting them.
 * I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah calls "possession of my soul." There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers. But be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.

Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes

 * [to a wounded soldier] Shut up! Shut up, and take the pain! TAKE THE PAIN!
 * (pointing to a dead soldier) You all take a good look at this lump of shit. Remember what it looks like. You fuck up in a firefight and I goddamn guarantee you a trip out of the bush, in a body bag! Out here, assholes, you keep your shit wired tight at all times! (turns to Taylor) And that goes for you, shit-for-brains. You don't sleep on no fuckin' ambush! (turns to Junior) And the next sum'bitch I catch coppin Z's in the bush, I'm personally gonna take an interest in seein' him suffer. I shit you not. Doc, tag him and bag him!
 * You talking about killing? Hmm? Y'all experts? Y'all know about killing? I'd like to hear about it, potheads. [takes pipe and sniffs] Are you smoking this shit so's to escape from reality? Me, I don't need this shit. I am reality. There's the way it ought to be, and there's the way it is. Elias was full of shit. Elias was a crusader. Now, I got no fight... with any man who does what he's told. But when he don't, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain't gonna allow that... in any of you. Not one. [hands pipe back and spits] Y'all love Elias. Oh, you wanna kick ass. Yeah. Well, here I am, all by my lonesome. And there ain't nobody gonna know. Six of you boys against me. Kill me. [pause] Huh. I shit on all of you.

Dialogue

 * King: Hey, Taylor, how in the fuck you get here anyway? You look educated.
 * Chris Taylor: I volunteered for it.
 * King: You did what?
 * Chris: I volunteered. I dropped out of college, told 'em I wanted the infantry, combat, Vietnam.
 * Crawford: You volunteered for this shit, man?
 * Chris: Believe that?
 * King: You's a crazy fucker, giving up college?
 * Chris: Didn't make much sense, I wasn't learning anything. I figured why should just the poor kids go off to war and the rich kids always get away with it.
 * King: Oh, I see, what we got here is a crusader.
 * Crawford: Sounds like it.
 * King: Shiiit, you gotta be rich in the first place to think like that. Ever'body know, the poor always being fucked over by the rich. Always have, always will.

 * [Smoking marijuana]
 * Elias: First time?
 * Chris: Yeah.
 * Elias: Then the worm has definitely turned for you, man. Feel good?
 * Chris: Yeah, it feels good. I got no pain in my neck now.
 * Elias: Feelin' good's good enough.

 * Bunny: Hey Junior, you ever smoke any shit?
 * Junior: That's right dude. You see, ya'll been tryin' to keep the black man down and string him out on that shit. but time be comin' my man, the black man throw that yoke off. Simple, free your mind and your ass will follow.
 * Bunny: Hey, I can dig it, man. When you smoke that shit everything kind of gets weird, you know what I mean? You heard that story about the gooks putting chemicals in the grass so we don't fight and we become pacifists?
 * Junior: Yeah, but don't you worry Bunny, 'cos you's a killer anyway, man.
 * Bunny: Yeah, but I still like a piece of pussy once in a while. Ain't nothing like a piece of pussy, 'cept maybe the Indy 500.
 * Junior: The only way you get some pussy man, is if a bitch dies and wills it to you. And then, maybe!

 * Elias: Barnes believes in what he's doing.
 * Chris: And you?
 * Elias: In '65, yeah. Now, no. What happened today is just the beginning. We're going to lose this war.
 * Chris: Come on! You really think so? Us?
 * Elias: We've been kicking other people's asses for so long I figure it's about time we got ours kicked.

 * Chris: It's the way the whole thing works, people like Elias get wasted, people like Barnes just go on making up the rules any way they want. So what do we do? Sit in the middle and suck on it. We just don't add up to dry shit, King.
 * King: Whoever said we did, man? All you got to do is make it out of here. It's all gravy, everyday the rest of your life, gravy.

 * O'Neill: Bob, I got a bad feeling on this one, all right? I mean I got a bad feeling! I don't think I'm gonna make it outta here! D'ya understand what I'm sayin' to you?
 * Barnes: Everybody gotta die some time, Red.

 * Capt. Harris: Be advised, we got zips in the wire down here.
 * Phantom Pilot: Roger your last, Bravo Six. Can't run it any closer. We're hot to trot and packing snake and nape, but we're bingo on fuel.
 * Capt. Harris: For the record, it's my call. Dump everything you got left on my pos. I say again, expend all remaining in my perimeter. It's a lovely fucking war. Bravo Six out.
 * Phantom Pilot: Roger your last, Bravo Six. We copy, it's your call. Get 'em in their holes down there, hang tough Bravo Six. We are coming cocked for treetops.

Cast

 * Charlie Sheen - Chris Taylor
 * Tom Berenger - Sgt. Barnes
 * Willem Dafoe - Sgt. Elias
 * Forest Whitaker - Big Harold
 * Francesco Quinn - Rhah
 * John C. McGinley - Sgt. Red O'Neill
 * Richard Edson - Sal
 * Kevin Dillon - Bunny
 * Reggie Johnson - Junior Martin
 * Keith David - King
 * Johnny Depp - Gator Lerner
 * David Neidorf - Tex
 * Mark Moses - Lt. Wolfe
 * Chris Pedersen - Crawford
 * Tony Todd - Sgt. Warren
 * Corkey Ford - Manny
 * Ivan Kane - Tony Hoyt
 * Paul Sanchez - Doc Gomez
 * Corey Glover - Francis
 * Bob Orwig - Gardner
 * Kevin Eshelman - Morehouse
 * James Terry McIlvain - Ace
 * Dale Dye - Capt. Harris
 * Oliver Stone - Alpha Company major in bunker

Taglines

 * The first casualty of war is innocence.
 * The first real casualty of war is innocence. The first real movie about the war in Vietnam is Platoon.

title: Platoon (film)


text:
Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick (26 July 1928 – 7 March 1999) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer born in The Bronx, New York City who lived most of his life in England. He is widely recognized as one of the most significant movie directors of the 20th century.

Quotes

 * The first really important book I read about filmmaking was The Film Technique by Pudovkin. This was some time before I had ever touched a movie camera and it opened my eyes to cutting and montage.
 * Interviewed by Charles Reynolds, Popular Photography (1960)

 * The reason movies are often so bad out here isn't because the people who make them are cynical money hacks. Most of them are doing the very best they can; they really want to make good movies. The trouble is with their heads, not their hearts.
 * Quoted in Against the American Grain (1962) by Dwight Macdonald, p. 30

 * When I made my first film, I think the thing was probably helped me the most was that it was such an unusual thing to do in the early 50s for someone who actually go and make a film. People thought it was impossible. It really is terribly easy. All anybody needs is a camera, a tape recorder, and some imagination.
 * Interviewed by Charles Kohler, East Village Eye (1968)

 * The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
 * Interviewed by Eric Nordern, Playboy (September 1968); later published in Stanley Kubrick: Interviews'' (2001)

Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective — who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled — can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. … The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache … This shattering recognition of our mortality is at the root of far more mental illness than I suspect even psychiatrists are aware.
 * If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? ...
 * Interviewed by Eric Nordern, Playboy (September 1968)

 * I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.
 * Quoted in Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine (2013) by Phillipe Mather, p. 46

 * You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.
 * Newsweek (26 May 1980)

 * I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly.
 * "Kubrick on Barry Lyndon : An interview with Michel Ciment" (1982)

 * The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed.
 * Quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's and Video Viewer's Companion (1988), p. 403. Seems that this sentence first appeared in an 1968 Playboy Interview"Stanley Kubrick on Mortality, the Fear of Flying, and the Purpose of Existence: 1968 Playboy Interview"

 * Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.
 * Video acceptance speech of the D.W. Griffiths Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) - video and transcript

 * One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.
 * Quoted in The Edmonton Journal (8 March 1999), C3

 * Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.
 * Quoted in "After Stanley Kubrick" (18 August 2010), an interview of his wife Christiane Kubrick in The Guardian

 * Think [Schindler's List] was about the Holocaust?... That was about success, wasn’t it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. ‘'Schindler’s List’' is about 600 who don’t. Anything else?
 * Quoted in Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick (1999) by Frederic Raphael, p. 107

 * There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.
 * Quoted in Kubrick : Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) by Thomas Allen Nelson, p. 10

 * I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized "realistic" story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its "realist" style.
 * Quoted in Kubrick : Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) by Thomas Allen Nelson, p. 14

 * Include utter banalities.
 * Notebook regarding Full Metal Jacket, quoted in movie Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (2008) by Jon Ronson

 * Is it good or bad? Is it necessary? Can I get rid of it? Does it work?
 * As quoted at the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at the Design Museum in London in 2019

Quotes about Kubrick

 * [Kubrick] always said that it was better to adapt a book rather than write an original screenplay, and that you should choose a work that isn't a masterpiece so you can improve on it. Which is what he's always done, except with Lolita.
 * Diane Johnson, as quoted in Michel Ciment Kubrick : The Definitive Edition (Faber and Faber, Inc, 1980), p. 293

 * When you think of the visual style, when you think of the visual language of a film there tends to be a natural separation of the visual style and the narrative elements, but with the great, whether it is Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick or Hitchcock what you're seeing is inseparable, a vital relationship between the images and the story he's telling.
 * Christopher Nolan, Chistopher Nolan and David Fincher featurette on Movieweb

 * I love almost all of Stanley Kubrick, there’s almost no Stanley Kubrick I don’t love.  I love Lolita, I love Dr. Strangelove. I love A Clockwork Orange, obviously. I even like a lot of Barry Lyndon (laughs). And early stuff, like The Killing and Paths of Glory. … It’s ridiculous. Look, he made the best comedy ever, he may have made one of the best science fiction movies ever, he made the best horror movie ever. I couldn’t watch the end of The Shining. I went through half The Shining for years before I could finish, because I’m a writer and as soon as he starts writing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” I had to turn it off. It’s almost like Picasso in that he mastered so many different genres. … he took his time and patience and he had a crew of like 18 people. They were very handmade movies these were not large behemoths that he did; they were very thoughtful and his editing process was long. He’s kind of without peer really. If I was gonna settle on a director, probably Kubrick.
 * Gary Ross, after being asked if he had a favorite director, as quoted in "Director Gary Ross Talks The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Deleted Scenes, and a Lot More" by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub at Collider (22 March 2012)

 * You say, 'Gee, I wish he'd made more [films].' But these were enough. Because there's so much in each one. You know, there's so much. Yeah, it would've been nice for him to have made more. But that's not the process. That wasn't his process, and what he did make was something so special and unique, it's like a different movie every time you see it.
 * Martin Scorsese in Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Stanley Kubrick


text:
User talk:Sgt.Elias

Welcome to Wikiquote, and thanks for the contribution of quotations in Platoon. I am aware that a few images on a page can enhance its appeal, but am currently promoting a policy of avoiding them in the quotation articles, at least until a clear means to Wikimedia-wide access is established, so that redundancy and use of server storage space is minimized among the many Wikimedia projects. I won't delete the images you uploaded, but I intend to remove the links to them in the article, so as to not promote the use of images at this point. I am aware there are a few other articles I have neglected editing in this manner, and I might edit some of them this weekend. You are welcome to have a few images on your User pages, but an indication that the ones you uploaded are copyrighted images (as these apparently are), and are used under fair use provisions should be made. I hope you find Wikiquote an interesting site. ~ Kalki 22:07, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * Please note that your four Platoon images are currently being voted on for deletion. You might want to record a vote and/or comment there. There is a movement to delete images with no license information, especially as they are not essential to quote articles that have corresponding Wikipedia pages. I would suggest that you upload these images to Wikimedia Commons (if they or similar images aren't already there) with an appropriate "fair use" description in each, to make them properly available to many wiki projects. I'm no expert on Commons or licensing, but I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you might have about this. — Jeff Q (talk) 22:52, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * I did a little research on Commons and found that they do not accept fair-use images, so my suggestion won't work. I believe that Kalki's statement above was related to uploading images on Commons, so in all likelihood, this will never happen for fair-use images. I highly recommend, if you wish to keep these images, that you post a vote and comment in the VfD entry. — Jeff Q (talk) 23:08, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sgt.Elias


text:
User:Rdsmith4/sig

]]— Ðåñηÿßôý | [[User talk:Rdsmith4|Talk

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Wicked (musical)

Wicked is a Broadway musical that shows the untold story of the witches of Oz, and how two young women named Galinda and Elphaba became Glinda the Good and The Wicked Witch of the West. It shows Elphaba as the misunderstood girl that she is, and tells the story from her perspective.

 * Book by Winnie Holzman. Based on the best–selling novel "Wicked – The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire. Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.

"So much happened before Dorothy dropped in."

Elphaba Thropp

 * [Noticing the whole student body is staring at her green tint] What? What are you all looking at? Do I have something in my teeth? [Drops her suitcase] Alright, let's just get this over with. No, I am not seasick. Yes, I've always been green. No, I didn't eat grass as a child…

 * I don't cause commotions, I am one.

 * [to Glinda] Well, we can't all come and go by bubble!

 * [to Nessarose] There's no place like home.

 * [About Dorothy] Takes a dead woman's shoes? Must've been raised in a barn.

 * What could he get me? I clash with everything.

 * [To Dr. Dillamond] You shouldn't let statements like that bother you. I mean, I always do, but you shouldn't.

 * No good deed goes unpunished.

 * [To Madame Morrible] I'm the other sister, Elphaba, I'm beautifully tragic

 * [About Galinda] Blonde.

Galinda Upland

 * [Upon descending at the Munchkinland celebration of the Witch's demise] It's good to see me, isn't it? No need to respond! That was rhetorical.

 * [Commenting on one of Elphaba's outbursts] It seems the artichoke is steamed.

 * [Upon seeing Fiyero for the first time] Do you know who that is? It's that Winkie Prince whose reputation's so scandalacious.

 * [to Dr. Dillamond] I don't see why you can't just teach us history, instead of always harping on about the past.

 * [Talking about Fiyero] He's distant and moodified… and he's been thinking, which really worries me!

 * In solidarity, and to express my... outrage, I will no longer be known as GA-linda, but simply... Glinda.

 * Let the little girl go, and that poor little dog, Dodo.

 * I know you don't want to hear this, but someone has got to say it! You are out of control!

 * [With effort] I mean come on, they're just shoes. Let it go!

 * It's GA-linda. With a 'Ga'.

 * I'm Glinda. The 'Ga' is silent.

 * (after failing to transform Elphaba's dress into a ball gown) Oh, just wear the frock, it's pretty!

 * I will now transform your simple frock into a magnificent ball gown. [waves wand] Ball gown! [does not work, waves wand again] Ball gown!... [Galinda now slaps wand against her thigh] Hello? Is this thing on?

 * Oh, look, it's tomorrow!

 * You just take that one road the whole time...I hope they don’t get lost. I’m so bad at giving directions.

 * It's dreadful, it is to have a house fall on you...

 * [To Mme.Morrible] Madame, have you ever considered how you'd fare in captivity? Cap-tiv-i-ty. Pri-son. Personally I don't think you'll not hold up very well, you see, my personal opinion is that you do not have 'what it takes.' I hope you prove me wrong...I doubt you will.

Fiyero Tiggular

 * [after Elphaba casts a spell on their class] Alright, just don't move... and don't get mad at me!

 * What did you mean to do? And why was I the only one you didn't do it to?

 * There's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.

 * It's not lying, it's looking at things another way!

 * Let the green girl go!

 * [To Elphaba] It's just... you've been Galindafied.

 * [To Elphaba] Maybe the driver saw green and thought it meant go.

Nessarose Thropp

 * [to Elphaba] I can't harbor a fugitive, I'm an unelected official!

Boq

 * I have a personal score to settle with Elph-- ...with The Witch!
 * [to Galinda] You're touching me!

Madame Morrible

 * [Welcoming new students to Shiz University] ...I know I speak for my fellow faculty members when I say we have nothing but the highest hopes for some of you.

 * [to Elphaba] Careful, dear. You mustn’t get wet.

 * [To Glinda] Smile, wave... and shut up.

 * My personal opinion is that you do not have what it takes. I hope you prove me wrong... [she begins to walk away] I doubt you will.

The Wizard

 * The truth isn't a thing of fact, or reason. It's simply what everyone agrees on.

 * Where I come from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it history.

 * [after Elphaba discovers he's behind the anti-Animalism] Where I'm from, the best way to bring people together... is to give them a really good enemy.

 * Since once I had my own day in the sky, I say everyone deserves the chance to fly!

Dialogue

 * Madame Morrible: You must be Nessarose, you are tragically beautiful. [Turns to Elphaba and screams]
 * Elphaba: I'm the other daughter, Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic.

 * Nessarose: Mmm…What's in the punch?
 * Boq: Lemons and melons and pears.
 * Nessarose: Oh my!

 * Galinda: And now, I will transform your simple frock into a beautiful ball gown! Ball gown!
 * [Pauses and nothing happens. Repeats twice]
 * Galinda: Hmm... Must be broken...
 * Elphaba: Want me to try?
 * Galinda: No no! Wear the frock! It's pretty!

 * Fiyero: Boy, you must think I'm really stupid, don't you?
 * Elphaba: No, not really stupid.

 * Elphaba: Oh look, you're bleeding; it must have scratched you.
 * Fiyero: Yeah...or maybe it scratched me or something.

 * Fiyero: You know, I've been thinking—
 * Elphaba: Yes, I've heard.

 * Elphaba: You're the only friend I've ever had.
 * Glinda: And I've had so many friends. But only one—that mattered.

 * Galinda: Elphie – do you mind if I call you "Elphie"?
 * Elphaba: Well, it's a little perky.
 * Galinda: And you can call me –- Galinda!

 * Galinda: Now, let's tell each other a secret that we've never told anyone else before. I'll go first. Fiyero and I are getting married!
 * Elphaba: He's asked you already?
 * Galinda: Oh, he doesn't know yet.

 * Galinda: Really? Your first party ever?
 * Elphaba: Do funerals count?

 [Glinda has just slapped Elphaba, who looks shocked for a moment, then cackles]
 * Elphaba: Feel better?
 * Glinda: Yes I do.
 * Elphaba: Good... [she slaps Glinda] So do I!

 * Dr. Dillamond: Miss Elphaba, don't worry about me, go along and enjoy your friends.
 * Elphaba: Oh, that's alright, I have no friends.

Songs
NO ONE MOURNS THE WICKED
 * Ensemble: No one mourns the Wicked! Now at last, she's dead and gone! Now at last, there's joy throughout the land!

 * Glinda: Are people born Wicked? Or do they have Wickedness thrust upon them?

 DEAR OLD SHIZ
 * Ensemble: Ooooh hallowed halls and vine-draped walls The proudliest sight there is! When grey and sere our hair hath turned We shall still revere the lessons learned In our days at dear old Shiz! Our daaaaays at dear ooold Galinda: Oooooooooooooooold Shiz! Ensemble: Dear Old Shiiizzzzzzzzzzzzz

 THE WIZARD AND I
 * Elphaba: When I meet the Wizard Once I prove my worth And then I meet the Wizard What I've waited for since...since birth And with all his wizard wisdom By my looks he won’t be blinded Do you think the Wizard is dumb? Or like Munchkins so small minded No! He'll say to me I see who you truly are A girl on whom I can rely And that's how we'll begin The Wizard and I!

 * Once I'm with the Wizard My whole life will change 'Cause once you're with the Wizard No one thinks you're strange No father is not proud of you No sister acts ashamed And all of Oz has to love you When by the Wizard you're acclaimed! And this gift or this curse I have inside Maybe at last I'll know why When we are hand in hand The Wizard and I

 * Elphaba: And one day he'll say to me, 'Elphaba, Girl who is so superior, Shouldn't a girl who's so good inside Have a matching exterior? And since folks here, to an absurd degree, Seem fixated on your verdigris, Would it be all right by you If I "degreenify" you?' But of course that's not important to me 'Well all right why not!?' I'll reply Oh what a pair we'll be The Wizard and I Yes what a pair we'll be The Wizard and--

 * Unlimited My future is unlimited And I've just had a vision almost like a prophecy I know It sounds truly crazy And true the vision's hazy But I swear some day there'll be A celebration throughout Oz That's all to do with me!

 * And I'll stand there with the Wizard Feeling things I've never felt And though I'd never show it I'd be so happy I could melt And so it will be for the rest of my life And I'll want nothing else 'til I die Held in such high esteem When people see me they will scream For half of Oz's fav'rite team The Wizard And I!

 WHAT IS THIS FEELING?

 * Galinda: Dearest, darlingest Momsie and Popsical…
 * Elphaba: My dear Father…
 * Both: There's been some confusion over rooming here at Shiz...
 * Elphaba: But of course, I'll care for Nessa...
 * Galinda: But of course, I'll rise above it...
 * Both: For I know that's how you'd want me to respond; yes, there's been some confusion, for you see, my roommate is...
 * Galinda: ...unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe...
 * Elphaba: [Looks out at audience with a pained look]...BLONDE.

 * Elphaba and Galinda: Loathing! Unadulterated Loathing! For your face, your voice, your clothing. Let's just say I loathe it all! Every little trait how ever small, Makes my very flesh begin to crawl! With simple utter loathing There's a strange exhilaration In such total detestation It's so pure, so strong! Though I do admit it came on fast, Still I do believe that it can last, And I will be loathing, for forever, Loathing, truly deeply Loathing you, My whole life long!

 DANCING THROUGH LIFE
 * Fiyero: The trouble with schools is they always try to teach the wrong lesson Believe me, I've been kicked out of enough of them to know...

 * Galinda: It's really, uh, sharp, don't you think? You know black is this year's pink!

 * Boq: Listen, Nessa?
 * Nessa: Yes?
 * Boq: Uh, Nessa? I've got something to confess, a reason why, well, why I asked you here tonight. Now I know it isn't fair...
 * Nessa: Oh, Boq, I know why.
 * Boq: You do?
 * Nessa: It's because I'm in this chair, and you felt sorry for me. Well isn't that right?
 * Boq: No! No! It's because, uh because... Because you are so beautiful!
 * Nessa: Oh, Boq! I think you're wonderful! And we deserve each other, don't you see this is our chance? And we deserve each other, don't we, Boq?
 * Boq: You know what? Let's dance!
 * Nessa: What?!
 * Boq: Let's dance!

 POPULAR
 * Glinda: Whenever I see someone less fortunate than I, And let's face it - who isn't less fortunate than I? My tender heart tends to start to bleed And when someone needs a makeover, I simply have to take over I know, I know, exactly what they need. And even in your case Though it's the toughest case I've yet to face Don't worry, I'm determined to succeed! Follow my lead, and yes indeed You will be Popular! You're gonna be Popular! You'll hang with the right cohort, You'll be good at sports, Know the slang you've got to know. So let's start cuz you've got an awfully long way to go! When I see depressing creatures With unprepossessing features I remind them on their own behalf to think of Celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators - Did they have brains or knowledge?  Don't make me laugh! They were Popular!  Please! It's all about Popular! It's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed So it's very shrewd to be Very very Popular, like me." -

 * Glinda: Why, Miss Elphaba, look at you! You're... beautiful!
 * Elphaba: [obviously uncomfortable] ...I have to go. [rushes out]
 * Galinda: You're welcome.
 * Glinda: And though you protest your disinterest I know clandestinely You're gonna grin and bear it Your newfound popularity!

 I'M NOT THAT GIRL
 * Elphaba: I wasn't born for the rose and pearl There's a girl I know, He loves her so... I'm not that girl.

 * Elphaba: Don't wish. Don't start. Wishing only wounds the heart.

 A SENTIMENTAL MAN

 * The Wizard: I am a sentimental man, who always longed to be a father

 * The Wizard: So Elphaba, I'd like to raise you high 'Cause I think everyone deserves the chance to fly And helping you with your ascent allows me to feel so parental For I am... A sentimental man

 DEFYING GRAVITY
 * Elphaba: Something has changed within me. Something is not the same. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game. Too late for second-guessing - Too late to go back to sleep. It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap...
 * Elphaba: It's time to try defying gravity I think I’ll try defying gravity And you can't pull me down!
 * Glinda: Can't I make you understand? You're having delusions of grandeur
 * Elphaba: I'm through accepting limits 'Cause someone says they're so Some things I cannot change But till I try, I'll never know!
 * Elphaba: So if you care to find me, look to the western sky! As somebody told me lately, everyone deserves the chance to FLY! And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free; To those who ground me, take a message back from me... ...tell them how I am Defying Gravity! I'm flying high, Defying Gravity! And soon I'll match them in renown! And nobody in all of Oz, No Wizard that there is or was, Is ever gonna bring me down!
 * Glinda: I hope you're happy!
 * Ensemble: Look at her! She's wicked! Get her!
 * Elphaba: Bring me down!
 * Ensemble: No one mourns the Wicked, so we've got to bring her...
 * Elphaba: Ahhhhh!
 * Ensemble: Down!

 THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST
 * Nessarose: First of all, I can't harbor a fugitive; I'm an unelected official! And secondly, why should I help you? You fly around Oz, trying to rescue Animals you've never even met, and not once have you ever thought to use your powers to rescue ME!

 * Nessarose: All of my life I've depended on you, how do you think that feels? All my life I've depended on you and this hideous chair with wheels! Scrounging for scraps of pity to pick up, and longing to kick up my heels.

 * Nessarose: [to Boq] Lost your heart? Well we'll see about that! Did you think I'd let you leave me here flat? You're going to lose your heart to me, I tell you! If I have to... I have to, magic spell you!

 * Nessarose: Save him, please, just save him. My poor Boq, my sweet, my brave him. Don't leave me 'till my sorry life has ceased. Alone and loveless here, With just the girl in the mirror! Just her and me, the Wicked Witch of the East! We deserve each other!

 WONDERFUL
 * The Wizard: Elphaba, where I come from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it history.

 * The Wizard: A man's called a traitor, or a liberator. A rich man's a thief, or a philanthropist. Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader, it's all in which label is able to persist.

 * The Wizard: They call me wonderful, so I am wonderful. In fact, it's so much who I am, it's part of my name...

 * Elphaba: [to The Wizard] You and I are nothing alike and I will fight you until the day I die!

 AS LONG AS YOU'RE MINE
 * Fiyero: Maybe I'm brainless, Maybe I'm wise But you've got me seeing Through different eyes.

 * Elphaba and Fiyero: Just for this moment As long as you're mine Come be how you want to And see how bright we shine

 * Fiyero: What is it?
 * Elphaba: It's just for the first time I feel...(whispered) wicked.

 NO GOOD DEED

 * Elphaba: Fiyero!

 * Elphaba: Eleka nahmen ahmen atum atum eleka nahmen Eleka nahmen ahmen atum atum eleka nahmen Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain Though they beat him, let him feel no pain Let his bones never break, and however they try to destroy him let him never die, let him never die!

 * Elphaba:Eleka nahmen ahmen atum atum eleka nahmen Eleka nahmen ahmen atum atum eleka Oh what is this chanting??? I don't even know what I am reading. There is one trick I have yet to try. Fiyero, where are you already dead or bleeding?? One more disaster I can add to my generous supply! No Good Deed goes unpunished, No act of charity goes unresented. No good deed goes unpunished that's my new creed.

 * Elphaba: One question haunts and hurts, too much, too much to mention was I really seeking good? or just seeking attention? Is that all good deeds are when looked at with an ice cold eye if that's all good deeds are maybe that's the reason why no good deed goes unpunished.

 * Elphaba: All right, enough! So be it! So be it then... Let all Oz be agreed, I'm wicked through and through! Since I cannot succeed, Fiyero, saving you, I promise no good deed, will I attempt to do AGAIN! Ever again! No good deed, will I do again!

 FOR GOOD

 * Glinda: I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn, and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them, and we help them in return. Well, I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today, because I knew you.

 * Glinda: Like a comet pulled from orbit, as it passes a sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder half way through the woods. Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but, because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

 * Elphaba: It well may be, that we will never meet again, in this lifetime. So let me say before we part, so much of me is made from what I've learned from you. You'll be with me like a hand print on my heart. And now what ever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine, by being my friend.

 * Elphaba: Like a ship blown from its moorings, by a wind of the sea. Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But, because I knew you

 * Glinda: Because I knew you

 * Elphaba and Glinda: I have been changed for good.

 * Elphaba: And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness For the things I've done you blame me for.
 * Glinda: But then, I guess We know there's blame to share.
 * Elphaba and Glinda: And none of it seems to matter anymore...

 * Elphaba and Glinda: Who can say if I've been changed for the better? I do believe I have been changed for the better
 * Glinda: And, because I knew you,
 * Elphaba: Because I knew you
 * Elphaba and Glinda: Because I knew you I have been changed... for good.

 FINALE

 * Glinda: Fellow Ozians, friends. We have been through a frightening time and there will be other times and other things that frighten us. But if you let me I’d like to try to help. I’d like to to try to be – Glinda…the Good

Original Broadway Cast

 * Idina Menzel - Elphaba Thropp
 * Kristin Chenoweth - Galinda Upland
 * Norbert Leo Butz - Fiyero Tiggular
 * Carole Shelley - Madame Morrible
 * Joel Grey - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
 * Michelle Federer – Nessarose Thropp
 * Christopher Fitzgerald - Boq
 * William Youmans - Doctor Dillamond

title: Wicked (musical)


text:
Michael Badnarik

Michael J. Badnarik (August 1, 1954 – August 11, 2022) was an American software engineer, political figure, and educator. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 elections, and placed fourth in the race, slightly behind independent candidate Ralph Nader.

Quotes

 * If I give you a forty five percent chance at lethal injection, a fifty percent chance at the electric chair, and a five percent chance for escape which are you going to vote for? The electric chair, because you're likely to win?
 * Constitution Class

 * If he were alive today I would assasinate that S.O.B myself (Speaking of Franklin D. Roosevelt).
 * Constitution Class

 * Libertarians love their children at least as much as the Democrats and the Republicans, probably more.
 * An American Revolution

 * Allow me to dispel a myth. People in the Middle East do not hate us for our freedom. They do not hate us for our lifestyle. They hate us because we have spent many years attempting to force them to emulate our lifestyle. The US government overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran and replaced him with the Shah. The US government gave weapons, intelligence and money to Saddam Hussein. The US government also helped Libyan Col. Qaddafi come to power, propped up the Saudi monarchy and the Egyptian regime, and gave assistance to Osama bin Laden. Most Americans have forgotten these events. But the people of the Middle East will always remember. It was because of American troops in Saudi Arabia, lethal sanctions on Iraq, support for states in serious violation of International Law, and siding with Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians that terrorist leaders were able to recruit those individuals who caused 3,000 Americans to pay the ultimate price on September 11, 2001.
 * July 2004

 * The foreign policy of the US has been one of "empire building" ever since the First World War. The Constitution authorizes government to provide for "national DE-fense", not "international OF-fense". If Americans were really interested in promoting our national safety, they would realize that a policy of constant foreign intervention directly undermines that stated goal. Our country has military forces stationed in 135 countries around the world, and we are influencing their governments and economies either directly or indirectly in every case. That is the political equivalent of poking them in the eye with a sharp stick. It is little wonder then that dozens of countries and millions of people around the world harbor more than a little resentment against us. The recent mutilation of American civilians is just the beginning of the violence that will be directed toward us if we do not bring our troops home where they belong.
 * April 2004

 * The Patriot Act is the most egregious piece of legislation to ever leave Congress since the Alien and Sedition Acts, John Ashcroft and every member of Congress who voted for it should be indicted.
 * Source: Debate at Cornell University, October 6, 2004

 * The question is: How bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like. I'm quite sure that I will never experience that war - because dissidents are always the first to be eliminated.
 * Source: Good to be King (2004)
 * I am a very peaceful man. I love people and am known for my gregarious personality. However, if you try to confiscate my guns, I will feel compelled to give them to you, one bullet at a time.
 * Source: Good to be King (2004)
 * I have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest." This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland."
 * Source: Good to be King (2004)
 * The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, and in 1776, that's exactly what they meant. Women could not vote, women could not own property, and blacks were considered property. After 200 years of enlightenment, we have realized that gender and race are inappropriate distinctions for determining who has individual rights. Anytime Gov gives you permission they let you know that you have permission by giving you a permit or a license. If you have a marriage license, what permission do you have to do now that you did not have permission to do before, who gave you that permission, and who gave them the authority to give you that permission in the first place?
 * Source: Libertarian Party National Convention (2004)
 * Marriage partners, not government, should define the terms and spiritual orientation of their union in accordance with our nation's guarantee of religious freedom.
 * Source: Gay Rights http://badnarik.org/plans_gayrights.php
 * The Patriot Act [...] makes a mockery of the Sixth Amendment, which protects your right to a speedy and public trial, and your right to the assistance of counsel for your defense.
 * Source: Good to be King (2004)
 * People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase "constitutional rights." I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution "grants" them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all [...] The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn't have the slightest effect on the rights you've always had.
 * Source: Good to be King (2004)

title: Michael Badnarik


text:
Benoît Mandelbrot

Benoît B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Poland-born French-American mathematician known as the "father of fractal geometry".

Quotes

 * How Long Is the Coast of Britain?
 * Part of the title of his paper "How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension" published in Science (1967)

 * Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce.
 * Fractals : Form, chance and dimension (1977)

 * A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales...
 * As quoted in a review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature by J. W. Cannon in The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 9 (November 1984), p. 594

 * I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid — a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry — Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity … The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being "formless," to investigate the morphology of the "amorphous."
 * As quoted in a review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature by J. W. Cannon in The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 9 (November 1984), p. 594

 * Science would be ruined if (like sports) it were to put competition above everything else, and if it were to clarify the rules of competition by withdrawing entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are nomads by choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the subtle disciplines
 * Benoit Mandelbrot cited in James Gleick (1987) Chaos: Making a New Science p. 70

 * I conceived, developed and applied in many areas a new geometry of nature, which finds order in chaotic shapes and processes. It grew without a name until 1975, when I coined a new word to denote it, fractal geometry, from the Latin word for irregular and broken up, fractus. Today you might say that, until fractal geometry became organized, my life had followed a fractal orbit.
 * As quoted in ''Encyclopedia of World Biography (1997) edited by Thomson Gale

 * For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.
 * Lecture at the University of Maryland (March 2005)

 * Engineering is too important to wait for science.
 * As quoted in "Fractal Finance" by Greg Phelan in Yale Economic Review (Fall 2005)

 * If you have a hammer, use it everywhere you can, but I do not claim that everything is fractal.
 * As quoted in "Fractal Finance" by Greg Phelan in Yale Economic Review (Fall 2005)

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982)

 * Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

 * A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension.

 * Fractal geometry is not just a chapter of mathematics, but one that helps Everyman to see the same world differently.

New Scientist interview (2004)

 * Quotations from "A Fractal Life" by Valerie Jamieson in New Scientist (November 2004)

 * I always felt that science as the preserve of people from Oxbridge or Ivy League universities — and not for the common mortal — was a very bad idea.

 * There is nothing more to this than a simple iterative formula. It is so simple that most children can program their home computers to produce the Mandelbrot set. … Its astounding complication was completely out of proportion with what I was expecting. Here is the curious thing: the first night I saw the set, it was just wild. The second night, I became used to it. After a few nights, I became familiar with it. It was as if somehow I had seen it before. Of course I hadn't. No one had seen it. No one had described it. The fact that a certain aspect of its mathematical nature remains mysterious, despite hundreds of brilliant people working on it, is the icing on the cake to me.

 * There is no single rule that governs the use of geometry. I don't think that one exists.

 * The Mandelbrot set is the modern development of a theory developed independently in 1918 by Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou. Julia wrote an enormous book — several hundred pages long — and was very hostile to his rival Fatou. That killed the subject for 60 years because nobody had a clue how to go beyond them. My uncle didn't know either, but he said it was the most beautiful problem imaginable and that it was a shame to neglect it. He insisted that it was important to learn Julia's work and he pushed me hard to understand how equations behave when you iterate them rather than solve them. At first, I couldn't find anything to say. But later, I decided a computer could take over where Julia had stopped 60 years previously.

 * My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern.

 * What motivates me now are ideas I developed 10, 20 or 30 years ago, and the feeling that these ideas may be lost if I don't push them a little bit further.

 * The most important thing I have done is to combine something esoteric with a practical issue that affects many people. In this spirit, the stock market is one of the most attractive things imaginable. Stock-market data is abundant so I can check everything. Financial markets are very influential and I want to be part of this field now that it is maturing.

 * There is a problem that is specific to financial markets. In most fields of research, when someone makes an important finding, they publish it. In the case of prices, they set up a firm and sell advice about their discovery. If they can make money from it, they will. So the research into market dynamics is a closed field.

 * In a different era, I would have called myself a natural philosopher. All my life, I have enjoyed the reputation of being someone who disrupted prevailing ideas. Now that I'm in my 80th year, I can play on my age and provoke people even more.

 * My work is more varied than at any other point in my life. I am still carrying out research in pure mathematics. And I am working on an idea that I had several years ago on negative dimensions. … Negative dimensions are a way of measuring how empty something is. In mathematics, only one set is called empty. It contains nothing whatsoever. But I argued that some sets are emptier than others in a certain useful way. It is an idea that almost everyone greets with great suspicion, thinking I've gone soft in the brain in my old age. Then I explain it and people realise it is obvious. Now I'm developing the idea fully with a colleague. I have high hopes that once we write it down properly and give a few lectures about it at suitable places that negative dimensions will become standard in mathematics.

 * The Mandelbrot set covers a small space yet carries a large number of different implications. Is it a fitting epitaph? Absolutely.

A Theory of Roughness (2004)

 * Interview at The Edge (20 December 2004)

 * There is a saying that every nice piece of work needs the right person in the right place at the right time. For much of my life, however, there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone. So I spent much of my life as an outsider, moving from field to field, and back again, according to circumstances. Now that I near 80, write my memoirs, and look back, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years "ahead of my time.

 * My ambition was not to create a new field, but I would have welcomed a permanent group of people having interests close to mine and therefore breaking the disastrous tendency towards increasingly well-defined fields. Unfortunately, I failed on this essential point, very badly. Order doesn't come by itself.

 * My efforts over the years had been successful to the extent, to take an example, that fractals made many mathematicians learn a lot about physics, biology, and economics. Unfortunately, most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remained mathematicians, had been changed by considering the new problems I raised, but largely went their own way.

 * For many years I had been hearing the comment that fractals make beautiful pictures, but are pretty useless. I was irritated because important applications always take some time to be revealed. For fractals, it turned out that we didn't have to wait very long. In pure science, fads come and go. To influence basic big-budget industry takes longer, but hopefully also lasts longer.

 * One of my conjectures was solved in six months, a second in five years, a third in ten. But the basic conjecture, despite heroic efforts rewarded by two Fields Medals, remains a conjecture, now called MLC: the Mandelbrot Set is locally connected. The notion that these conjectures might have been reached by pure thought — with no picture — is simply inconceivable.

 * '''I always saw a close kinship between the needs of "pure" mathematics and a certain hero of Greek mythology, Antaeus. The son of Earth, he had to touch the ground every so often in order to reestablish contact with his Mother; otherwise his strength waned. To strangle him, Hercules simply held him off the ground. Back to mathematics. Separation from any down-to-earth input could safely be complete for long periods — but not forever. In particular, the mathematical study of Brownian motion deserved a fresh contact with reality.

 * When you seek some unspecified and hidden property, you don't want extraneous complexity to interfere. In order to achieve homogeneity, I decided to make the motion end where it had started. The resulting motion biting its own tail created a distinctive new shape I call Brownian cluster. … Today, after the fact, the boundary of Brownian motion might be billed as a "natural" concept. But yesterday this concept had not occurred to anyone. And even if it had been reached by pure thought, how could anyone have proceeded to the dimension 4/3? To bring this topic to life it was necessary for the Antaeus of Mathematics to be compelled to touch his Mother Earth, if only for one fleeting moment.

 * How could it be that the same technique applies to the Internet, the weather and the stock market? Why, without particularly trying, am I touching so many different aspects of many different things? A recent, important turn in my life occurred when I realized that something that I have long been stating in footnotes should be put on the marquee. I have engaged myself, without realizing it, in undertaking a theory of roughness. Think of color, pitch, heaviness, and hotness. Each is the topic of a branch of physics. Chemistry is filled with acids, sugars, and alcohols; all are concepts derived from sensory perceptions. Roughness is just as important as all those other raw sensations, but was not studied for its own sake. … I was not particularly precocious, but I'm particularly long-lived and continue to evolve even today. Above a multitude of specialized considerations, I see the bulk of my work as having been directed towards a single overarching goal: to develop a rigorous analysis for roughness. At long last, this theme has given powerful cohesion to my life … my fate has been that what I undertook was fully understood only after the fact, very late in my life.

 * To appreciate the nature of fractals, recall Galileo's splendid manifesto that "Philosophy is written in the language of mathematics and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which one wanders about in a dark labyrinth." Observe that circles, ellipses, and parabolas are very smooth shapes and that a triangle has a small number of points of irregularity. Galileo was absolutely right to assert that in science those shapes are necessary. But they have turned out not to be sufficient, "merely" because most of the world is of infinitely great roughness and complexity. However, the infinite sea of complexity includes two islands: one of Euclidean simplicity, and also a second of relative simplicity in which roughness is present, but is the same at all scales.

 * A cauliflower shows how an object can be made of many parts, each of which is like a whole, but smaller. Many plants are like that. A cloud is made of billows upon billows upon billows that look like clouds. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth but irregularities at a smaller scale.

 * Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory, and besides were my love when I was a young man. Cauliflowers exemplify a second area of great simplicity, that of shapes which appear more or less the same as you look at them up close or from far away, as you zoom in and zoom out. Before my work, those shapes had no use, hence no word was needed to denote them. My work created such a need and I coined "fractals."

 * Do I claim that everything that is not smooth is fractal? That fractals suffice to solve every problem of science? Not in the least. What I'm asserting very strongly is that, when some real thing is found to be un-smooth, the next mathematical model to try is fractal or multi-fractal. A complicated phenomenon need not be fractal, but finding that a phenomenon is "not even fractal" is bad news, because so far nobody has invested anywhere near my effort in identifying and creating new techniques valid beyond fractals. Since roughness is everywhere, fractals — although they do not apply to everything — are present everywhere. And very often the same techniques apply in areas that, by every other account except geometric structure, are separate.

 * When the weather changes and hurricanes hit, nobody believes that the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed. It's the same stock market with the same mechanisms and the same people.

 * A branch of physics that I was working in for many years has lately become much less active. Many problems have been solved and others are so difficult that nobody knows what to do about them. This means that I do much less physics today than 15 years ago. By contrast, fractal tools have plenty to do. There is a joke that your hammer will always find nails to hit. I find that perfectly acceptable. The hammer I crafted is the first effective tool for all kinds of roughness and nobody will deny that there is at last some roughness everywhere.

 * My book, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, reproduced Hokusai's print of the Great Wave, the famous picture with Mt. Fuji in the background, and also mentioned other unrecognized examples of fractality in art and engineering. Initially, I viewed them as amusing but not essential. But I changed my mind as innumerable readers made me aware of something strange. They made me look around and recognize fractals in the works of artists since time immemorial. I now collect such works. An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in "inventing" something. It's an arrogance that some enjoy, and others do not. Now I reach beyond arrogance when I proclaim that fractals had been pictured forever but their true role remained unrecognized and waited for me to be uncovered.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004, 2008)

 * With Richard L. Hudson. Second edition, 2008, ISBN 0465043577

 * Unfortunately, the world has not been designed for the convenience of mathematicians.
 * Ch. 2, p. 41

 * Contrary to popular opinion, mathematics is about simplifying life, not complicating it. A child learns a bag of candies can be shared fairly by counting them out: That is numeracy. She abstracts that notion to dividing a candy bar into equal pieces: arithmetic. Then, she learns how to calculate how much cocoa and sugar she will need to make enough chocolate for fifteen friends: algebra.
 * Ch. 7, p. 125

 * Given the profits he and Pharaoh must have made, one might call Joseph the first international arbitrageur.
 * Ch. 10, p. 201 (A reference to Genesis 41:48–49, 54–57.)

 * People want to see patterns in the world. It is how we evolved. We descended from those primates who were best at spotting the telltale pattern of a predator in the forest, or of food in the savannah. So important is this skill that we apply it everywhere, warranted or not.
 * Ch. 12, p. 245

 * It is beyond belief that we know so little about how people get rich or poor, about how it is they come to dwell in comfort and health or die in penury and disease. Financial markets are the machines in which much of human welfare is decided; yet we know more about how our car engines work than about how our global financial system functions. We lurch from crisis to crisis. In a networked world, mayhem in one market spreads instantaneously to all others—and we have only the vaguest of notions how this happens, or how to regulate it. So limited is our knowledge that we resort, not to science, but to shamans. We place control of the world's largest economy in the hands of a few elderly men, the central bankers.
 * Ch. 13, p. 254–255

The Fractalist (2012)

 * Georg Cantor claimed the essence of mathematics lies in its freedom. But mathematicians do not pick problems from thin air for the pleasure of solving them. To the contrary, a mark of greatness resides in the ability to identify the most interesting problems in the framework of what is already known.
 * Ch. 17, p. 178
 * Most of the world is of great roughness and infinite complexity. However, the infinite sea of complexity includes two islands of simplicity: one of Euclidean simplicity and a second of relative simplicity in which roughness is present but is the same at all scales.
 * Ch. 29, p. 299

Peoples Archive interview

 * Interview at Peoples Archive (Video and transcripts in 144 segments)

 * I was asking questions which nobody else had asked before, because nobody else had actually looked at certain structures. Therefore, as I will tell, the advent of the computer, not as a computer but as a drawing machine, was for me a major event in my life. That's why I was motivated to participate in the birth of computer graphics, because for me computer graphics was a way of extending my hand, extending it and being able to draw things which my hand by itself, and the hands of nobody else before, would not have been able to represent.
 * Segment 8

 * This difficulty — am I a mathematician because my degree says so? Am I an engineer because I'm interested in things? Am I a social scientist because I don't think there's a difference between the turbulence in stock markets in terms of unpredictability? At IBM I wouldn't have to worry about that. The names of departments were totally strange and totally meaningless, so it looked like a promising situation for a short time. As it turned out I was going to spend thirty-five years and twelve days at IBM, almost from the beginning to the day when IBM decided that successful research was no longer going to be carried on in that division.
 * Segment 44

 * Britain for a long time had a reflection of its class structure which meant that people like, well, J. B. S. Haldane who was the nephew of Lord Haldane, or Bertrand Russell who became Lord Russell, could do what they pleased, and it's interesting to think that Bertrand Russell never had a job, he never had to compete for a job. Haldane had four or five different jobs in his life, totally different. He probably could have — if he had been bothered — have just abandoned his job and went on to live otherwise. … But this no longer exists. IBM no longer exists. I don't see a place now where somebody like myself who combined, let's say, unusual gifts and unusual tastes and, who everybody said has promise, was certainly a misfit of the worst kind could find a position at this point and I think that a tragedy.
 * Segment 45

 * The word fractal, once introduced, had an extraordinary integrating effect upon myself and upon many people around. Initially again it was simply a word to write a book about, but once a word exists one begins to try to define it, even though initially it was simply something very subjective and indicating my field. Now the main property of all fractals, put in very loose terms, is that each part — they're made of parts — each part is like the whole except it is smaller. After having coined this word I sorted my own research over a very long period of time and I realised that I had been doing almost nothing else in my life.
 * Segment 67

 * I think it's very important to have both cartoons and more realistic structures. The cartoons have the power of representing the essential very often, but have this intrinsic weakness of being in a certain sense predictable. Once you look at the Sierpinski triangle for a very long time you see more consequences of the construction, but they are rather short consequences, they don't require a very long sequence of thinking. In a certain sense, the most surprising, the richest sciences are those in which we start from simple rules and then go on to very, very long trains of consequences and very long trains of consequences, which you are still predicting correctly.
 * Segment 70

 * The next thing which surprised us very much, is that both for Julia sets and even more so for the Mandelbrot set, the complication was not, how to say, arbitrary, and almost everybody found the impression that these shapes were hauntingly beautiful. These shapes resulted from the most ridiculous transformation, z2+c, taken seriously, respectfully and visually. And people thought at first that they were totally wild, totally extraterrestrial, but then after a very short time, they came back and said, "You know, I think they remind me of something. I think they're natural. I think they are like perhaps nightmares or dreams, but they're natural." And this combination of being so new, because literally when we saw them nobody had seen them before, and being the next day so familiar, is still to me extraordinarily baffling.
 * Segment 85

 * The extraordinary surprise that my first pictures provoked is unlikely to be continued. Many people saw them fifteen years ago, ten years ago. Now children see it on their computers when the computers do nothing else. The surprise is not there. The shock of novelty is not there. Therefore the unity that the shock of novelty, surprise, provided to all these activities will not continue. People will know about fractals earlier and earlier, more and more progressively. I think that the best future to expect and perhaps also the best future to hope for, is that fractal ideas will remain either as a peripheral or as a central tool in very many fields.
 * Segment 144

 * The thought that one unifying idea should continue forever is simply not realistic and therefore not to be hoped for, but I think that for quite a number of years still, perhaps if I am lucky to the end of my life, because I would hate to see that stop in my lifetime, those questions will become very active and still somewhat separate, as different branches of learning become accustomed to them. I cannot imagine that this idea would vanish, not because I am so proud of what I've been doing all my life, but because this is not an artificial thought coming from nowhere in no time and vanishing again rapidly in no time. It has in every one of its manifestations profound roots in the history of the various sciences and the various manners of human enterprise and those roots will not be broken. The continuity of these thoughts will continue, and if any substitute comes, if any other name comes, which is possible, the ideas will remain.
 * Segment 144

Quotes about Mandelbrot

 * If musical appreciation is a by-product of a more general pattern-processing propensity of the brain, then why are our senses heightened by pink noises? It is significant that the world around us is full of variations with 1/f spectra. Benoit Mandelbrot has pioneered the study of natural and computer-generated patterns that are scale-free. (He calls them fractals...) Mandelbrot draws attention to the fact that there is a pattern to the noise spectrum displayed by the human nervous system. At the extremities of the body... it tends to be of white-noise form; but, as one approaches closer to the central nervous system and the brain, these variations become 1/f-like. Our nervous system may act as a spectral filter to prevent the brain from being swamped with uninteresting white background noise about the world...
 * John D. Barrow, The Artful Universe (1995)

title: Benoît Mandelbrot


text:
K. Barry Sharpless

K. Barry Sharpless (born 26 April 1941) is an American chemist renowned for his work on organometallic chemistry. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001.

Quotes

 * We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by  asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us  who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.
 * Nobel Banquet speech, 2001

 * ...when I started doing chemistry, I did it the way I fished – for the excitement, the discovery, the adventure, for going after the most elusive catch imaginable in uncharted seas.
 * Nobel lecture, 2001

 * Chemists usually write about their chemical careers in terms of the different areas and the discrete projects in those areas on which they have worked. Essentially all my chemical investigations, however, are in only one area, and I tend to view my research not with  respect to projects, but with respect to where I’ve been driven by two passions which I acquired in graduate school: I am passionate about the Periodic Table (and selenium, titanium and osmium are absolutely thrilling), and I am passionate about catalysis. What the ocean was to the child, the Periodic Table is to the chemist; new catalytic reactivity is, of course, my personal coelacanth.
 * Nobel lecture, 2001

 * The discipline, nonetheless, is exacting: everything that can be observed should be observed, even if it is only recalled as the bland background from which the intriguing bits pop out like Venus in the evening sky. The goal is always finding something new, hopefully unimagined and, better still, hitherto unimaginable.
 * Nobel lecture, 2001

title: K. Barry Sharpless


text:
User:Nectarflowed~enwikiquote

See my wikipedia user page:

User:Nectarflowed

title: User:Nectarflowed~enwikiquote


text:
User:JimD~enwikiquote

I'm the same Wikipedia:User:JimD at

I'll fill this out with more interesting notes later; I was just driven here by the quote:

Brevity is the soul of lingerie attributed to Dorothy Parker

My web pages are at: Starshine Technical Services

title: User:JimD~enwikiquote


text:
Talk:Author:Douglas MacArthur

This is page well formatted and linked, but whole speeches belong at Wikisource, and these would probably go there at Wikisource:Wikisource:Authors-M. I don't have the time to transfer them at this point, but might do so sometime in the next week or two. ~ Kalki 16:30, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Author:Douglas MacArthur


text:
Talk:Eric Hoffer

Aphorism 215 from the Passionate State of Mind is: "To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance." Anybody know what section that's in? SyntaxPC 08:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC) Nevermind: I think 215 is the section! I'm putting it in the article... SyntaxPC 08:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a comment on the "unsourced" quote "The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto." This quote appears to be from Eric Hoffer's first book, The True Believer, in Section 61, "Factors Promoting Self-Sacrifice." The quote and the surrounding text is noted on this website: http://www.dailyrevolution.net/2006/06/friday-reflection-hoffer-on-fanaticism.html. - Steve

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote from this list please move it to Eric Hoffer. -- Antiquary 20:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

 * A man by himself is in bad company.

 * All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium.

 * Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.

 * Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.

 * Every intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are. Hence probably the imperiousness of the desire for fame, which is a desire for a self utterly unlike the real self.

 * Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter. By this test, absolute power is the manifestation most inimical to human uniqueness. Absolute power wants to turn people into malleable clay.

 * How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization.

 * I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
 * On German acceptance of Hitler in the 1930's

 * In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.

 * It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for," they do not feel like fighting.

 * It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.

 * It is not actual suffering but a taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

 * It is not at all simple to understand the simple.

 * It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense which cramps and restrains our nature.

 * It is the individual alone who is timeless. The individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged throughout the millennia.

 * Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.

 * Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

 * Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.

 * Old age equalizes — we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.

 * Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.

 * Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.
 * This is from Reflections on the Human Condition page 90

 * Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

 * Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.

 * Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

 * People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.

 * Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

 * Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication is the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, "it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves."

 * Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

 * Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.

 * Take man's most fantastic invention — God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.

 * The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.

 * The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations.

 * The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations.

 * The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.

 * The best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.

 * The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.

 * The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.

 * The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.

 * The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

 * The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us — the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.

 * The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.

 * The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.

 * The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

 * The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.

 * The role the unfit play in human affairs should make us pause whenever we are prompted to see man as a mere animal and not a being of an order apart.

 * The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.

 * There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.

 * There is no reason why humanity cannot be served equally by weighty and trivial motives.

 * Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

 * To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.

 * To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.

 * We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.

 * We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

 * We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

 * We almost always have something to prove when we act heroically. We prove to ourselves and others that we are not what we and others thought we were. Our real self is petty, greedy, cowardly, dishonest and stewing in malice. And now in defying death and spitting in its eye we grasp at the chance of a grand refutation.

 * We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have we must find the field in which he advocates absolute equality. By this test Communists are frustrated Capitalists.

 * We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.

 * We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.

 * We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

 * What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist.

 * When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.

 * When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

 * Whoever originated the cliché that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.

title: Talk:Eric Hoffer


text:
Nathan Lane

Joseph Nathan Lane (born February 3, 1956) is a two-time Tony and Emmy Award-winning American actor of the stage and screen. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in Mousehunt and his voice work in The Lion King and Stuart Little.

Quotes

 * I can remember seeing the movie for the first time at a revival house in L.A. and laughing with everyone else, and never imagining that I would be doing Max one day, even though by then I had already memorized the entire movie.
 * On his role in The Producers — reported in Amy Longsdorf (December 25, 2005) "Lane, Broderick play off each other", The Record, p. E01.
 * I think of myself as an actor and not a movie star. I like doing movies; I enjoy it. But, essentially, I'm a theater actor. That's the only place I feel like I actually am a star. In the theater, I can put people in the seats and sell tickets.
 * Amy Longsdorf (January 25, 2000) "Isnt' He Great? - Hollywood Sure Thinks So, But Nathan Lane Is Still More Comfortable Onstage Than On Celluloid", The Record, p. Y1.
 * I had to develop a sense of humor I'm sure it's a defense mechanism. It was, 'Before they make fun of me, I'll make a joke.' Being funny is just a point of view about life in general. Sometimes it's born out of difficult childhoods, where you have to develop a sense of humor. Ultimately, it's a gift.
 * Marshall Fine (January 24, 2000) "Nathan the 'Great'", The Journal News, p. 1E.
 * There's a freedom there and an understanding of my career and the things I've done. I'm seen here as primarily a comic actor, which is OK, but I can go to New York and I do something that's very emotional. It would be lovely at some point to do something like that on film.
 * Betsy Pickle (December 17, 1999) "If there's a mouse, call Lane - Actor didn't 'paws' before taking on film", The Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. 4.
 * But in order for anyone to become successful, sometimes you have to be that driven and focused, and maybe there isn't a lot left over for personal relationships—although I certainly have had them. It's not as if I cut myself off, but it makes them very difficult. This profession is very hard on relationships.
 * John Koch (July 11, 1999) "Nathan Lane", Boston Globe, p. 12.
 * I guess there's some sort of unspoken show business rule, [speaks in British accent] 'You do the theater, and then you move into television, and then, of course, that is your steppingstone to film stardom.' I've done it every which way. I've done theater for many, many years and then had some success in films. I would do television sporadically. I thought this was a good time to try it.
 * On his role in the television series Encore! Encore! — reported in Susan King, Los Angeles Times (October 27, 1998) "In Sitcom, Nathan Lane Isn't Taking Steppingstones In Order", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. D6.
 * A sitcom is the closest thing for me to doing stage because you work in front of an audience, and if it's well written it can be very satisfying.
 * Sunday Tasmanian staff (January 4, 1998) "This Is A Very Mice Story!", Sunday Tasmanian, p. 037.
 * My oldest brother used to take me to the theater. The first play he took me to see was 'Black Comedy,' then he took me to see 'Butley.' We'd see all these British plays. And 'Hello, Dolly,' with Pearl Bailey. I was unconsciously thinking, 'Gee, I would love to be able to do that.'
 * Ron Weiskind, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (December 21, 1997) "Lane can't stop his career or his repartee", Mobile Register, p. E3.
 * I was at a dinner party at Steve Martin's house not too long ago. Some very funny people were there - Steve, Marty Short, the whole gang. We sat around the table, like eight of us, and we laughed so hard that we were just sitting there laughing and crying. And I thought, 'This is great. This is what it's like when life is really good. Sitting around with people of that quality and that caliber, people being funny. Smart and funny.' It's great.
 * Amy Selwyn, Associated Press (December 21, 1997) "Nathan Lane: The String's The Thing", The Orlando Sentinel, p. F1.
 * I'll always go back to the stage.
 * Betsy Pickle (December 19, 1997) "Mouse Confusion", The Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. T10.
 * The more competition, the better. I hope to get snubbed again this year.
 * On the possibility of winning a Tony Award for his performance in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum — reported in Joan Vadeboncoeur (April 21, 1996) "Grasping For Stardom With The Success of 'Birdcage,' Nathan Lane Has Hopes (Again) For An Elusive Broadway Prize", Syracuse Herald American, p. 25.
 * Yes, I've been compared to Jackie Gleason often. I've been often compared to Lou Costello. … But after a while you start to go, 'Well, geez. Do I have a personality in there?' The funny thing about Gleason is, he always used to talk about watching Jack Oakie. And if you ever watch Jack Oakie in an old movie, it's very similar to Gleason. … I think we all steal from one another.
 * Laurence Chollet (November 19, 1991) "Knocking Them Dead Even As a Grave Figure, This Actor Has The Last Laugh", The Record, p. D05.

About

 * There isn't anyone else like Nathan. He is able to express more in a look or a word than most actors I've ever worked with.
 * Victor Garber — reported in Maureen Dezell (October 19, 2003) "Nathan Lane Goes Beyond Broadway", The Boston Globe, p. N1.
 * I think it really is all about technique, but it's where the intersection of acting and singing sort of meets. There has to be a musicality to the delivery of a line of dialogue that gives it impact. Somebody like Nathan Lane understands that. It's in his bones really. He can deliver a line five different ways, and each one has incredible impact and intonation and rhythm.
 * Rob Minkoff, on Lane's ability with voice acting — reported in Evan Henerson (July 19, 2002) No Vocal Yokels - When Animated Characters Need That Extra Dimension, Stars Step Up To The Mic", Daily News of Los Angeles, p. U6.
 * When Nathan read aloud one of his lines, 'I'm a lying, despicable crook, but I have no choice. I am a Broadway producer,' they all howled. And then they started to throw money at the project. They all wanted to produce the show.
 * Susan Stroman, on the casting of Lane in The Producers — reported in Iris Fanger (April 13, 2001) "'Stro' is once again at center stage", Christian Science Monitor, p. 20.
 * He is a theater animal who is ignited by his synergy with an audience. Audiences are only beginning to see the tip of the iceberg of what Nathan can do.
 * Lynne Meadow — reported in Michael Sommers (May 26, 1996) "Nathan In The Fast Lane, From Broadway to `Birdcage' to hosting - the Tonys, 'Forum' star rules", The Star-Ledger, p. 12.
 * I've seen most of Nathan's work, but it was seeing both 'Lisbon Traviata' and 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' that I realized just what a superb physical comic he was.
 * Mike Nichols — reported in Kenneth M. Chanko, Entertainment News Wire (March 11, 1996) "Dragged Into The Limelight", Press-Telegram, p. D1.

title: Nathan Lane