Top 100 Direct Quotes
#1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Make the fault easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.
Dale Carnegie
#2. The charms of the passing woman are generally in direct proportion to the swiftness of her passing.
Marcel Proust
#3. The good I do is not a matter of the direct benefits I cause. Rather, it is the difference I make.
William MacAskill
#4. I'm not interested in making movies only with female protagonists. I think it's ridiculous to think that a female director can't direct men. That makes no sense to me.
Elizabeth Banks
#5. There are things that must evoke our anger to show we care. It is what we do with that anger. If we direct that energy we can use it positively or destructively.
Desmond Tutu
#6. In the wake of the Supreme Court of Canada decision (Chaoulli-Zeliotis), the Canadian Medicare system is about to be redesigned. Physicians must not just sit at the table, but must position themselves at the head, where they can lead and direct the nature of that design.
Brian Day
#7. Sookie," Eric said. I didn't think he'd heard a word. "Yield to me."
Well, that was pretty direct.
Charlaine Harris
#8. To direct actors is difficult. To direct actors in another language is more difficult, but directing non-actors in another language is one of the craziest things that I have done and one of the most rewarding experiences I have had.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#9. When I was given the opportunity to direct 'Senna,' I decided the film had to work for audiences who disliked sport or had never seen a Formula One race in their lives. It had to thrill and emotionally engage people who had never heard of Ayrton Senna.
Asif Kapadia
#11. When the U.K. or U.S. government issues bonds to fund a deficit, the buyers are not solely in the U.K. or the U.S. - they're in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Investment banks provide direct access to these buyers.
Bob Diamond
#12. When we were trying to get the money for Driving Miss Daisy, everyone kept saying no one could direct it well enough to entertain an audience for 100 minutes essentially watching three people chatting in the kitchen.
Bruce Beresford
#13. Yes, I definitely plan to direct at some point.
Stephen Dorff
#14. I wish I was like you! You know startled by direct sunlight.
Dylan Moran
#15. Blue Book was now under direct orders to debunk ... I remember the conversations around the conference table in which it was suggested that Walt Disney or some educational cartoon producer be enlisted in [the] debunking process.
J. Allen Hynek
#16. Don't let an outside influence, especially one as powerful as the media, direct your energies to the wrong place.
Susan Polgar
#17. No writer of a portion of the Bible was perfect. It was the direct and miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit that what they wrote is without mistake.
Walter Lang
#19. peculiar, or sad, and yet still deserve a place within the circle of familial love. The parents would thus have created an invaluable wellspring of courage from which those children would eventually be able to draw to sustain the confessions and direct conversations of adult life. Rabih
Alain De Botton
#20. No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
Walter Lippmann
#21. There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
#22. Manage your mind. When we direct our thoughts and words toward the outcome we most desire, we ignite grace.
Cheryl Richardson
#23. Direct your mind where you want it to travel instead of always going for the ride.
Kris Carr
#24. I don't really want to direct myself, but I'm certainly torn in that direction.
Paul Reubens
#25. It's a great luxury for me to be able to write on the films that I direct, and kind of a nice thing to be able to write enough to get credit, which is difficult for a director.
Harold Ramis
#26. I'm not in a race with anybody to make the biggest hit movie anymore. I am just trying to tell stories that I can stay interested in for the two years it takes me to supervise the writing and to direct them.
Steven Spielberg
#27. A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts - for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work.
Andrei Tarkovsky
#28. There is an overwhelming mass of authentic evidence which can be cited as: direct observation, indirect observation, and supporting evidence or indication ...
Morris K. Jessup
#29. Choosing to leave the lesbian life brings us into direct conflict with the satanic realm.
Janette Howard
#30. Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.
Robert M. Pirsig
#31. The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability.
Edgar Allan Poe
#32. The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.
Nelson DeMille
#33. I've already felt that I want to direct. Being an executive producer is like the best job in the world because you make all these executive decisions and then you leave the money to other people. You don't have to be on set and counting beans.
Robbie Coltrane
#34. My refrigerator is powerful. In fact, it has a direct link to my overall well-being.
Kris Carr
#35. Truth is a matter of direct apprehension-you can't climb a ladder of mental concepts to it.
Lawrence Durrell
#36. Direct religious experience is threatening to organized religion, which often mediates it with a rabbi or priest.
Rodger Kamenetz
#37. We need to teach people that the environment has a direct bearing on our own benefit.
Dalai Lama
#38. I don't act, I don't direct, I don't design.
Tom Stoppard
#39. I love to direct my daughter, and act with her, and we both want to work with Jane again.
Peter Fonda
#40. Most people do not have the guts to direct their own movie - let alone star in it.
Tom Robbins
#41. I write a lot too, so I would like to write or direct in the future if I can.
Alexis Bledel
#42. A lot of people ask me to produce or direct, but I don't think I'm qualified. It's hard enough for a person to do just one thing well in their life. I don't want to do too much.
Gong Li
#43. Wine was given us by God, not that we might be drunken, but that we might be sober. It is the best medicine when it has the best moderation to direct it. Wine was given to restore the body's weakness, not to overturn the soul's strength.
Saint John Chrysostom
#44. The audience will teach you how to act and the audience will teach you how to write and to direct. The classroom will teach you how to obey, and obedience in the theatre will get you nowhere. It's a soothing falsity.
David Mamet
#45. I know it doesn't seem like much now, but sometimes the biggest problems are solved in bits and spurts. Solutions from the universe aren't always detailed, or direct for that matter.
D.A. Henneman
#46. They may direct the construction of the body and brain in the womb, but then they set about dismantling and rebuilding what they have made almost at once - in response to experience.
Matt Ridley
#47. Fly fishing is the most beautiful way of trying to catch a fish; not the most efficient, just as ballet is the most beautiful way of moving the body between between two points, not the most direct. Fly fishing is to fishing as ballet is to walking.
Howell Raines
#48. We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#49. America is one of few advanced nations that allow direct advertising of prescription drugs.
Robert Reich
#50. I'm talking to you and it's basically a direct communication, whereas if I'm writing a letter to you and you read the letter, there are like 12 extra deconstruction and reconstruction steps in the communication.
Kevin J. Anderson
#51. As much as I'd like to pretend that I'm not performing, I think any actor sometimes has themselves outside of themselves and is trying to direct themselves and control what you're seeing and thinking.
Patrick Fabian
#53. There is absolutely no solidarity in the West towards its own victims, and the recent 'refugee crises' is direct proof of it.
Andre Vltchek
#54. When we direct our attention toward our suffering, we see our potential for happiness. We see the nature of suffering and the way out. That is why the Buddha called suffering a holy truth. When we use the word "suffering" in Buddhism, we mean the kind of suffering that can show us the way out.
Thich Nhat Hanh
#55. In fiction, a reaction shot is a brief portrayal of how your character reacts to something that someone else has done. In contrast to more direct character building, your guy doesn't initiate the sequence; he completes it. Exactly how he completes it can tell readers a lot about him.
Nancy Kress
#56. This is where the world is going: direct access from anywhere to any type of data, whether it's a small piece of data or a small answer but a long algorithm to create that answer. The user doesn't care about this.
Hasso Plattner
#57. I was keen to direct an action film, and when Reliance approached me for the remake of 'Singham,' I saw an opportunity to return to my first love.
Rohit Shetty
#58. Conversations are the most direct way to connect with people.
Padgett Powell
#59. Almost all Europe, for many centuries, was inundated with blood, which was shed at the direct instigation or with the full approval of the ecclesiastical authorities.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
#60. Is the game plan you are currently running the most direct path to your destiny?
Josh Linkner
#61. The past is what we have to learn about how to direct America to the future.
Rudy Giuliani
#62. We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive
Martin Luther King Jr.
#63. Even in the investigations into direct production of calcium peroxide in an alkali melt with highly compressed oxygen, it was found to be necessary to bring the high-pressure gas into contact with the suspension of lime in caustic alkali melt by agitation or some other means of mixing.
Friedrich Bergius
#64. Everyone that I meet always wants me to direct, but whenever I think of directing, I think of aligning shots. I'd definitely have to write and direct something. But I don't know if I could.
Chris Colfer
#65. I have no desire to direct at all. I know how much pressure it is, and, trust me, it's so much easier and so much more fun to be an actor.
Jewel Staite
#66. An artist finds his happiest combination in a play of complementary colors. They are direct contrasts yet do not jar; they awaken the beholder, but do not disturb him.
Charles E. Burchfield
#67. New media is ... an amazing form of direct marketing in that you really get a sense of who your customer is, and you also get to know those people who may not be your customers yet but are aspirational and are hoping to be.
Ivanka Trump
#68. Persons drinking coffee, as a general rule, eat less, though coffee, and also tea, have little direct food value; but they retard the waste of the tissues, and so take the place of food.
Maria Parloa
#69. Lesli Glatter directed an episode of 'Mad Men' and then came in to direct an episode of 'House.' And she didn't recognize me at all.
Anne Dudek
#70. The atrocities in Cambodia are a direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system.
Noam Chomsky
#71. I would definitely like to direct at some point. I've been very fortunate to work with some amazing talent and study them. But when the right time and the right story arrives, and I feel like I'm compelled to tell it, then I'll do that.
Mark Wahlberg
#72. I'm very interested in directing actors - many directors direct cameras.
Richard Marquand
#73. The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence.
Tom Landry
#74. God says if we will direct our worship to Him, He will give us strength to turn from the mistakes of yesterday and provide portions for our needs of today.
Lysa TerKeurst
#75. I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.
Werner Herzog
#76. Men? We don't leave a lot of room for doubt: You're a dick. You fucked my girlfriend. You killed my dog. I hate you. Direct. Clear. Unambiguous. You girls should try it sometime. It would bring us all one step closer to world peace.
Emma Chase
#77. Something about not waiting for the laugh of a laugh track allows you to take lines that otherwise might be seen as just direct jokes, and make them seem realistic.
Mitchell Hurwitz
#78. My life is the direct product, if you will, of the legacy of the blood, sweat and tears of the NAACP and so today I'm particularly mindful that the NAACP has made America what it is, and certainly made my life possible and we are all grateful heirs of that legacy.
Cornell William Brooks
#79. Nature seems to have treasured up the depth of our mind talents and abilities that we are not aware of; it is the privilege of the passions alone to bring them to light, and to direct us sometimes to surer and more excellent aims than conscious effort could.
Francois Alexandre Frederic, Duc De La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
#80. That is the paradoxical power of the scale model; a child holding a globe has a more direct, more intuitive grasp of the earth's scope and variety, of its local vastness and its cosmic tininess, than a man who spends a year in circumnavigation.
Anonymous
#81. Every once in while, a person will do something obvious and direct that is no more than it appears to be. I think they do it to throw you off.
Steven Brust
#82. Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me ... " As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.
Brennan Manning
#83. The exchange of words is a lot like a virtual handshake. Is the writer's grasp of the language strong and bold? Are the words gripping? Direct? Inventive? Sincere?
Allison Mackie
#84. Authentic faith is lived wisdom, exact cognition, direct experience.
Samael Aun Weor
#85. If a better politics were in the direct and obvious interest of the old, wealthy and powerful, it would already exist.
Danny Dorling
#86. The possibilities of thought training are infinite, its consequences eternal, and yet few take the pains to direct their thinking into channels that will do them good, but instead leave all to chance.
Brice Marden
#87. Avon invented the concept of direct marketing and direct selling beauty. And that's still very valid to us. We'll have a firm that will be around for another 114 years as strongly as it was the first 114.
Andrea Jung
#88. I've never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.
Leonard Nimoy
#89. My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral
Ulysses S. Grant
#90. I never thought I wanted to direct. I love the control of it. I love to dream of scenes.
Salli Richardson
#91. I've done two 'Hamlets,' two 'Lears,' three 'Midsummer Night's Dreams' - I've done most of these plays more than once, and every time I direct them, I learn things.
Jack O'Brien
#92. At the end of the day, flirting is a pretty universal language. Americans are more direct. British people are more indirect about everything
Rachel Weisz
#93. 'As Long As I Know I'm Getting Paid' is a satire. Lyrically, I want to be direct. With my history in Fall Out Boy, there's some expectation that I'm going to be lyrically obtuse. But that song is a straight-faced satire of consumerism.
Patrick Stump
#94. I don't want to direct a movie as good as Antonioni, or Kubrick, or Polanski, or whoever. I want it to be my own. I think I've got the seed of it and, what's more, that I can make movies that are different and informed by my taste.
Jack Nicholson
#95. This was the sort of cruelty that only came from turned backs, from being ignored. Well-aimed lashes and direct blows were more easily understood. At least then the stricken knew their anguished cries were being heard.
Hugh Howey
#96. The goodness of our intentions was in direct correlation to the heights from which we condescended to each other.
Adam Levin
#97. Life is unrest, and its passage at best a zigzag course, that only straightens to a direct line when viewed across the years.
Elbert Hubbard
#98. Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.
Henry Watson Fowler
#99. I have Twitter auto-post to my Facebook page, and I occasionally post things directly to Facebook as well. I've always noticed that the direct-to-Facebook approach generates far more likes, but I've never actually gone back and run the averages.
Michael Arrington
#100. You have to direct change; if you don't do so, change will direct you. Guess ... the direction change will offer you is not a comfortable one. But the direction you can offer change will be the most comfortable. Go, make a change now!
Israelmore Ayivor
