“Patience is really the act of letting things take the time that they take. It becomes more important as the world accelerates and as we have the opportunity technologically to do things faster and faster. There are many things that can't continuously be accelerated, or which can only be accelerated to a certain point.”— Oliver Burkeman
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
I flew home with this profound sense of the simultaneity of human suffering; I've never been able to get over that sense that even as I'm talking to you right now, there are people who are living unbearable lives.
— Richard CurtisBritish Film Director & Screenwriter of Romantic Comedies
It's always been the job of comedy to point out hypocrisies and problems – it's a long historical tradition that goes all the way back to Aristotle and Jonathan Swift.
— Richard CurtisBritish Film Director & Screenwriter of Romantic Comedies
He was playing it and people were dancing. They didn't need to know who the band was, they didn't know what Nile Rodgers… didn't mean anything. They were just going crazy.
— Nile RodgersLegendary Guitarist & Producer: Chic Founder, Producer for David Bowie, Madonna
I walked into a club that I didn't even know had my record – thought it was a demo – the engineer who recorded it also happened to be a DJ, he'd been playing it for 2 weeks and it'd become the biggest song in the club, this unknown group called Chick or Cheek or whatever, he didn't even know what to call it.
— Nile RodgersLegendary Guitarist & Producer: Chic Founder, Producer for David Bowie, Madonna
I was talking to some kids last night and they were asking me 'do you remember that first moment that you knew you'd made it', and I said, 'of course I remember that moment, I'd been chasing it all my life'.
— Nile RodgersLegendary Guitarist & Producer: Chic Founder, Producer for David Bowie, Madonna
When you don't know your self-worth, you're more docile and easier to control by the 'machine.' That's the cult-like structure society is built around.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
We are all creative beings, but we're brought up being told not to colour outside the lines – but why? It's OK to be different…. It's more than OK to be different, and we need to encourage that.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
The key component of bravery is integrity. What I saw growing up was the reality that people would often give their integrity to make life more comfortable in the short term; but guess what, that leads to your integrity being chipped away until you are left with nothing.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
Individuality is my biggest fight, not #MeToo. People need to realise their own power, their own freedom, and their own ability to be better.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
People in power live in fear of their power being taken away, and they fight like bears in a cage that are being backed into a corner. I had no idea how hard those in power would fight me, and it's an extraordinarily difficult thing to be on the receiving end of.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
In postmodernism, there are no absolute truths; everything is relative, of course other than the one absolute truth that there are no absolute truths. This is a form of intellectual terrorism, nihilism.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
Our mate choices are the ultimate form of consumer choice. I can pretty much fit most of our purposeful behaviours under the umbrella of consumption.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
I argue that the ecosystem where idea pathogens originate from is the university; it takes intellectuals to come up with some of the most moronic ideas possible.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
Humans can be parasitized by actual brain worms, but also by idea pathogens that cause them to behave in profoundly maladaptive ways.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
I can't advertise chewing gum to my children because it's unethical, but I can feed them all sorts of narratives that will have a profound impact on their personal trajectories. It's quite an extraordinarily hypocritical position.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
The primacy of overtly scientific approaches to understanding life has come at a tremendous cost; in some ways we see the world in shades of grey rather than in full colour.
— Dr. Jordan B. PetersonClinical Psychologist, Author of "12 Rules for Life," Public Intellectual