It's Not About Quotes

#1. And, anyway it's not always about fitting in."
"It's not?"
"Nope. Sometimes, it's about reading your environment real quick, and then finding the bits that fit you.

Melissa Keil

#2. When you break into song, it's not about dialogue, it's not about how you would speak in a naturalistic sense-it's about expressing your inner torment or your inner joy.

Julie Taymor

#3. And it's true. It's so true. All those years of loving Zik because he never asked about Eve ... I never realized, I never understood. It was his job as my best friend not to ask.
But it was my job as his best friend to tell him without being asked.

Barry Lyga

#4. You should write about your life. It's kind of funny. When it's not depressing as hell.

Jeni Decker

#5. It's life, that's all. There are no happy endings, just happy days, happy moments. The only real ending is death, and trust me, no one dies happy. And the price of not dying is that things change all the time, and the only thing you can count on is that there's not a thing you can do about it.

Jonathan Tropper

#6. Style is anti-fashion; it's not about following trends,

Amanda Harlech

#7. I see all these people talking about acting as a great spiritual thing. It's not. There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do, but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

Eddie Marsan

#8. A lot of progressives really believe that if we can turn out one more white paper with bullet points about how to fix Problem X, we can fix it. But that's not primarily the way you reach people or move them. You reach the heart first.

Robert Greenwald

#9. One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for may people, is not that he's socially inept - because everybody's been there - but rather his complete lack of embarrassment about it.

Neal Stephenson

#10. The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times.

Molly Ivins

#11. The thing about interviews is that if someone interviews you, and they're an idiot, then they make you sound like an idiot, too. They ask you stupid questions, and they bring you down to their level. It's tempting to not ever want to talk to anybody, but you can't do that.

Dean Wareham

#12. Five women working together is never going to be easy. It's a lot. But God is so incredible, in terms of the timing, because we are all married with kids, in our late 30s and 40s. It's a different stage in our lives. It's not about who is going to be the one that's going to pop.

Roselyn Sanchez

#13. I thought I could make a sarcastic joke about it. But it's based on my own struggle with how much to give, how much it's really helping or not, and how foolish or not I feel. Giving sometimes backfires ...

Nicole Holofcener

#14. It's not realistic to live in the country at this stage. I've got a business in London. I beat myself up about it all the time.

Stella McCartney

#15. I guess that's the thing about a hero's journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to. I had changed.

Kami Garcia

#16. It's not about Obama, it's about the Democrats and their policies that cause consternation on the right.

Elizabeth A. Sherman

#17. You shouldn't talk about yourself all the time - most of us aren't for sale. Our books are. Talk about them. It's not a question of whether or not you're fascinating on a personal level - it's that your trivia and trials might not have any connection to the tone, tenor and sense of your books.

M.J. Rose

#18. When you act, you've got to be like a poet or a musician. It's not about evidence before court. It's not a forensic subject. It's poetry; it's a completely different place.

Rhys Ifans

#19. My point is,' Jamie continued, 'not everything's perfect, especially at the beginning. And it's all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it ... that's when you get into trouble.'
pg 169-170

Sarah Dessen

#20. I'm very serious about what I write and who I allow to produce the music, because I want to make sure it's a true album, and not just something pushed out there to create hype and more fame for myself.

Alyson Stoner

#21. I've attended many concerts where I felt let down and I was wishing it would be something else. Not that it's their duty to please me, but at the same time, I think a lot about what it's like through the eyes of the consumer, the fan. I want not to pander to the audience, but to be aware of them.

Trent Reznor

#22. Anything that is as old as racism is in the blood line of the nation. It's not any superficial thing-that attitude is in the blood and we have to educate about it.

Nannie Helen Burroughs

#23. Great companies are formed by great people. It's not about attracting great people; it's about retaining them.

Ziad K. Abdelnour

#24. It's not simply about reading fairytales as you grow older. It's about still finding the magic in fairytales when the world tells you you're too old to believe either.

Elle Alexander

#25. It's not about what you wear, but about how you live your life

Oscar De La Renta

#26. I'm just flowing through, when I see things, I talk about 'em. And it's cool. I don't want any title. I just say what I say, and hopefully somebody gets it. I'm not perfect, and I'm just here and trying to make a dollar, and being real at the same time

Nas

#27. I honestly do not think about celebrity or image or sexual expectations on me. It only comes up when people have a list of questions. But what I am told is that there is a quality that I have onscreen, where it's a little bit of everything.

Richard Gere

#28. It's not about finding great people, it's about becoming a great person

Mark Yarnell

#29. For me, I love food. It's my greatest pleasure and also the thing that could ruin you as well. It's one of those things where, if you're not thoughtful about it, it could be unhealthy. But if there's a mindfulness about it; it actually is a wonderful tool of emotional expression.

Jon Favreau

#30. When it comes to true dance, it's not about how you look, it's all about the joy you feel.

David Levithan

#31. The nice thing about working for a label like Domino is that there's no pressure: They've got a roster of 40 active bands, and they can bang out an album or single in a week, so it's not the end of the world to not have a Max Tundra album in 2005.

Max Tundra

#32. The good thing about the truth is it's true, and there's no arguing with the truth. You may not like it, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Kami Garcia

#33. I don't necessarily want to know what people are saying when I'm not around, especially if it's about me. I just don't need to hear extra garbage.

Laura Vandervoort

#34. I'm very much to blame for not seeing it before, but who on earth goes about suspecting an impossible outlandish thing like murder? That's something that happens in books, not among people you know.

Mary Stewart

#35. Life is not about things we do or do not have to do; it's about doing what we should do, about doing the right thing.

Quinn Loftis

#36. Did I express my personality? I think that's quite unimportant because it's not people's selves but what they have to say about life that's important.

Paul Strand

#37. The idea is to become an old wizard; to live a long and fruitful life and have family and be healthy and enjoy the ride. And speaking of the ride, why not let it rip, at least a little bit? Everyone I know who's really stoked about getting out of bed in the morning does that to some extent.

Laird Hamilton

#38. I used to pride myself on being the first in the office in the morning and one of the last to leave at night. Now, that's so dated: It's not about effort, it's about outcomes.

Maynard Webb

#39. I believe if people understood each other more, if people took the time and realize it's not 'all about me' and I'm on a big planet with a lot of other people and concerns, maybe we can learn how to get along with each other.

Esai Morales

#40. The Venus Project is not about new cities or new architecture. It's about a way of thinking

Jacque Fresco

#41. One of the things that's fascinating about making movies is a movie when it's done and you start showing it to people, it reveals its impact, which is often times not what you thought.

Peter Berg

#42. The feathers have been retired to the London Hard Rock Cafe. I don't obsess about it as much. Also, it's strange - the better physical shape I get in, the less I care about what suit I'm covering myself up in. I'm not really out to flaunt it, but I'm just more comfortable in my own skin.

Brandon Flowers

#43. Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. It's about a man and a woman. So the pain and the struggle in the blues is that universal pain that comes from having your heart broken. Most blues songs are not about social statements.

Wynton Marsalis

#44. Popularity's a weird thing. You can't really define it, and it's not cool to talk about, but you know it when you see it. Like a lazy eye, or porn.

Lauren Oliver

#45. I'm not even that upset about the rejection any more. What bothers me most is that I haven't got to the end of my story, and I can't start over with someone else, it's too hard.

Paula Hawkins

#46. It's not about what the equipment does, it's about what you can do through that equipment. That's where the soul is.

Richie Hawtin

#47. This is not a book about Australia. No, it's about somewhere entirely different which happens to be, here and there, a bit ... Australian. Still ... no worries, right?

Terry Pratchett

#48. Life, Stormy says, is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It's about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.

Dean Koontz

#49. You say, "Well, I am not going to be anyone's 'yes man.' If I see something wrong in a person, I'm going to warn others about it." Fine. But beware that what you are calling "courage to speak out" is not more truly a deception masking a rebellious, dishonouring attitude.

Francis Frangipane

#50. It's not our mistakes that define us, but what we do about them.

Lindsay J. Pryor

#51. Here's the funny thing about the response I've been aware of to my dating famous people: It's been very negative. I'm either not good-looking enough, not a good enough actor or not successful enough for these people.

Dax Shepard

#52. I went to visit my father to tell him that I was going to go to college and become an architect - that was my dream. I was like, yeah I graduated from school, but it's not like you showed up for that. But all he was worried about is whether or not I wanted money from him.

Jake Roberts

#53. It's not always about tomorrow and the day after that - what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it's about today.

Carrie Ryan

#54. It's really hard when people write nasty things about you all the time. As much as good things are said about you, it's always those one or two bad comments that really stay with you and gnaw at you. I try not to read that stuff if I can.

Jordin Sparks

#55. If I come across an issue, or something I feel strongly about, and I happen to think of a song that would go in that direction, then I do it. But that's not what I start out, necessarily, to do. Sometimes I may have an idea for a song - Well, I'm going to write about a thing.

Charlie Daniels

#56. It's not about speed and gold medals. It's about refusing to be stopped.

Amby Burfoot

#57. Being outspoken about my faith isn't just something that I do; it's who I am because my faith isn't just a little piece of my life. It is my life. It's not a question of whether I'm outspoken about it or not. I'm definitely not ashamed of it.

Tim Tebow

#58. We're not doing one of those things where you need me to ask you a bunch of questions so you can get comfortable talking about your feelings, are we?" Alex laughed. "That never works." "So let's not do it." On

James S.A. Corey

#59. I've left the Church - for many reasons that I've written about publicly - but it's still a large part of my identity, and I still have my faith, if not my Church.

Julianna Baggott

#60. It's scary when it's real. When it's not just thinking about a person, but, like, having a real live person in front of you, with, like, expectations. And wants.

Jenny Han

#61. If you take care of yourself, 60 is nothing for women these days. In today's world you can be the kind of woman you want to be ... Of course, I've aged a bit in the face, but not enough to worry about it. I've common sense enough to know that if I'm nearly 70 something has to give.

Tina Turner

#62. My story of success and failure is not just about music and being famous. It's about living and loving and trying to find purpose in this crazy world.

Wynonna Judd

#63. Sometimes, it's not so bad to listen to some one talk about weapons or horses - or medicine. Honestly, when someone is trying to talk to you about those things, the important thing they're always saying is that they care enough about what you think to try to share themselves with you.

Breeana Puttroff

#64. Life is about choices, and you have the ability to choose. You always have had this ability. I suggest that not only do you have the ability, you have the responsibility to make choices for yourself. It is your life, and you are in the driver's seat, if you choose to be.

Lou Tice

#65. It's not about winning or losing a competition, it's about beating the doubt from within yourself and knowing at the end of each day you are one step closer to your goals.

Jonathan Horton

#66. It's about lessons for life. It's not just about winning either.

Lynn Davies

#67. I know what it means to go to the stream to fetch water ... what it means when people are poor and don't have enough to eat. It's not enough to say you know about poverty. You have to live it.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

#68. Real success in the kingdom of God is not about being strong and looking good and knowing all the right answers. It's about continually yielding oneself to Jesus and determining to take purposeful little steps of obedience, and the ragged reality that it's all about God and His grace at work in us.

Mary Beth Chapman

#69. I wasn't convinced I was crazy, though I feared I was. Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a mark of sanity, but I'm not sure that's true. I still think about it. I'll always have to think about it.

Susanna Kaysen

#70. I really enjoy acting, and whether it's TV or films, I feel lucky to be doing it at all. In the end, I'd love to do films, but I'm not going to work just to do work. I only want to do something that I feel right about.

Amanda Bynes

#71. It sounds so perfect. He's defending me because Carey would want him to. It's not about me. It never is, with these two boys. Blake lets me take the blame, and Carey uses me.

Corrine Jackson

#72. Theological error is the most pernicious of errors; it strikes at man's center and separates him from his Creator and Redeemer. God insisted not only that Israelites should judge their own hearts and cast aside falsehood about Him but that they should also confront it wherever it emerged.

Max Anders

#73. It's not just about what I can SEE for our future, or humanity; it's about what I can DO for our future and humanity.

Steve Maraboli

#74. It's just that I've never seen you care about anything in your life.'
I zip my fly.
And Michael goes, I mean, I've watched you spend your while life not feeling bad about anything you're ever done.

Jason Myers

#75. I'm not an environmentalist. I'm a cultural repairman. It's all about efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, prosperous and life-sustaining.

Amory Lovins

#76. Sometimes it's not about making a ton of money in one night, just to spend the rest of your life waiting on the next payday. You will fare better investing time, planning, strategic thinking in order to secure a stable, fruitful future.

Carlos Wallace

#77. It's not about becoming a movie star. It's about the down-in-the-dirt art of inhabiting the person you aspire to be while carrying on your shoulders the uncertain and hungry man you know you are.

Cheryl Strayed

#78. People roll their eyes and say, "Oh god, he's not rich or famous." I say it's relative. I mean, look at me: I'm 115 pounds and I grew up without money. To me, I'm rich because I don't have to worry about paying rent. I don't think about money now.

Bradford Cox

#79. Here's the thing about movies, all movies end up on television. That's their life. Whether you like it or not, I don't care how much money you spend on it, or how big or broad the film is, or who the actors are in it, eventually it's all coming out of the box.

Greg Kinnear

#80. luck is not entirely about chance; it's about the human ability to spot opportunities and make the most out of them.

Ashwin Sanghi

#81. Apart from The Holiday, I haven't really spent a huge amount of time in LA. Not that I avoid it, it's just that I don't often go there unless I'm doing press. The one thing I have discovered about LA with kids is that it's really great for children. They really like the sun and making sand castles.

Kate Winslet

#82. The job of the artist is to make a gesture and really show people what their potential is. It's not about the object, and it's not about the image; it's about the viewer. That's where the art happens.

Jeff Koons

#83. We writers don't really think about whether what we write is good or not. It's too much to worry about. We just put the words down, trying to get them right, operating by some inner sense of pitch and proportion, and from time to time, we stick the stuff in an envelope and ship it to an editor.

Garrison Keillor

#84. Being able to provoke a different point of view to the standard current ideological or political perspective as played out in conventional newspaper or radio reportage is what a public intellectual does. But it's not merely about being oppositional, because that's too negative.

Susie Orbach

#85. It's not about the destination. It's getting there that's the good part.
- Leonard

Morgan Matson

#86. The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything.

Jo Walton

#87. The Chinese mom is not the helicopter mom. I would never do their homework for them. It's all about: Take responsibility, don't blame others. Be self-reliant. Never blame the teacher.

Amy Chua

#88. If it all just happens like this for the rest of my life, it's going to be one endless Groundhog Day. I determined that I was not prepared to submit to this regime, so I thought I had to do something about it.

Bruce Dickinson

#89. It's not that he doesn't appreciate beauty, he just appreciates it in his own way. I mean, if a poet sees a daffodil he stares at it and writes a long poem about it, but Twoflower wanders off to find a book on botany.

Terry Pratchett

#90. I don't want to be in boardrooms talking about hiring hairdressers and minivans. I'm not good at it, and I don't like to hire and fire people. I hate that. It's horrible.

Kim Cattrall

#91. I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?

Liam Neeson

#92. We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It's impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

Cristiano Ronaldo

#93. I have made a number of movies that I have never seen. It's not a matter of ego. It's a matter of being disappointed. It's really a shame. It's just as difficult to make a movie that no one cares about as to make a hit.

Christopher Walken

#94. I've known a lot of religious people. My mother is very religious, but she also is very private about it. When I was growing up, she never went to church. She just prayed and read her Bible and kept it to herself. I'm not from a background of flamboyant believers. It's much more a personal issue.

Michael Shannon

#95. We ask actors to come to work ready to open a vein, to be emotionally thin-skinned. If someone screams, 'What about my coffee?' it's not about the coffee; it's because they're working in an emotional state. It ain't easy being an actor.

Don Scardino

#96. There are people who live inside their heads and their intellects. It's something one is born with and stuck with. It's not something you make a decision about.

Charles Simic

#97. I could go away five or six weeks in a row and never touch a club. I would just look at them and say, 'I just don't want to; it's not that important.' And it wasn't that important. Golf - I don't want to answer loosely - I pay a lot of attention to it, but I don't ever really think about it.

Fred Couples

#98. Even as kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It's about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.

Ron Taffel

#99. The Christian life is not about finding safety and comfort; it's about finding yourself in a dangerous place of vulnerable compassion.

Ed Stetzer

#100. It is hard to tell whether he's being honest or following the high school commandment of Thou shalt not show thy uncoolness by openly caring about something, which I have never been good at.

Anna Breslaw