Francis Ford Coppola: You as a person, you may not realize it – though I’m sure you do realize it – but there’s a lot of money being spent on you liking a certain kind of potato chip that you can’t stop eating or a certain kind of fast food. But the same thing is being done with movies. They’re teaching you that in the first few minutes, you have to know who the protagonist is and who the antagonist is very clearly. In other words, you are being given the formula of what a movie is so that when you then go to the movie that is the same as when you eat at a McDonald’s. You’re eating something isn’t particularly nutritious for you, but it satisfies what you have been taught to expect. And that’s the same thing the movie industry does, which is why they love sequels over and over again, because you are become their perfect audience.

So when you see a movie that doesn’t do that, you say, “What the hell is that?” Even if it’s interesting and engaging. You don’t know what it is because you’ve been taught that it should be something else. That’s my personal theory.

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could only have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank, and thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.

Sydney Smith (1771 – 1845)

To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic.

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird

And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.

If you’re a bird, be an early bird-

But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

“If you always do what you always did –

you’ll always get what you always got.”

Unknown

(This gem of advice could have come from any mother to her child who will not learn from past mistakes.)

The world, said Horace Walpole, is a tragedy to him who feels, and a comedy to him who thinks.

During the American Civil War the very men Confederates were trying to kill could not help honoring them. On hearing the news that Jackson had been killed at Chancellorsville, Union General Gouverneur Warren wrote, “I rejoice at Stonewall Jackson’s death as a gain to our cause, yet in my soldier’s heart I cannot but see him the best soldier of all this war, and grieve his untimely end.”

“Youth is wasted on the young.”

The source of this quote is discussed here quoteinvestigator.com

As we age, the wisdom of this quote becomes more apparent. With almost endless energy and plenty of wasted time spent on stupid stuff, the young have little concept of how short their lifetimes are, while some of us older folks watch and are wistful, remembering all the time we wasted when young.