112 Validation Quotes

To me, if you are in the same building with Peter Sellers or John Cleese, or any of those guys and holding your own making other people laugh, that's a compliment.

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

In mid-life the man wants to see how irresistible he still is to younger women. How they turn their hearts to stone and more or less commit a murder of their marriage I just don't know, but they do.

It is always so, I guess, validating when you meet somebody that you esteem -- and then they turn out to be everything [you thought] and more.

With impressive proof on all sides of magnificent progress, no one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system.

I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Nobody kicks on being interrupted if it's by applause.

A flower may be beautiful all on its own, but a person is never truly beautiful unless someone's eyes show him that he is beautiful.

First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.

Whether they give or refuse, it delights women just the same to have been asked.

Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.

I feel that there are great minds up there who would like to see what I can do with an Oscar nomination. I guess many people would change after a nomination in the way they see things. In my case it's really irrelevant in terms of what I do. Still, it was an incredible experience which I will put in my memories, like everything else.

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.

Eventually every man gotta face the problem of tryin' to figger if it's worthwhile to prove that he is himself.

It wasn't until the Nobel Prize that they really thawed out. They couldn't understand my books, but they could understand $30,000.

A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.

No one wants advice, only corroboration.

'But I tried though,' he says. 'Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?'

Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard.

I don't get no respect!!!

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication.

Here's a bumper sticker I'd like to see: 'We are the proud parents of a child whose self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn't need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.'

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about the success.

No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren't.

If you have formed a circle to go into, Go into it yourself and see how you would do.

O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause Being for a woman's sake. Enough if the work has seemed, So did she your strength renew, A dream that a lion had dreamed Till the wilderness cried aloud, A secret between you two, Between the proud and the proud. What, still you would have their praise! But here's a haughtier text, The labyrinth of her days That her own strangeness perplexed; And how what her dreaming gave Earned slander, ingratitude, From self-same dolt and knave; Aye, and worse wrong than these. Yet she, singing upon her road, Half lion, half child, is at peace.

Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.

THE ROCK: 'Before you come in here and start putting little stickers on the Rock's shirt and putting little streamers all over the Rock, the Rock just wants to know-- what is your name?' CLOWN: 'I'm--' ROCK: 'It doesn't MATTER what your name is!' MANKIND: 'Hey, hold it right there! It certainly does matter what her name is, and I'll tell you why! I tried real hard and I went to a lot of expense and time and effort to make this night real special for you! And one by one, you're going to insult my guests and make this night a bad night for me? Sometimes I think you're a very ungrateful little man, Rock!'

Why do I need 1,000 people validating my existence?

The thing that makes it all worth it is when someone comes up and says, 'I had a really hard time in my life and your album really helped me.' As long as that happens, all the idiots in the world and all the stupid press can say what they want to; it just doesn't matter.

It is other people who want me to win medals.

At this point, I don't need my records to be Number One or sell as many as this person or that person. That's not fundamentally important - I don't believe that sustains you.

Success: 'The successful often expect others to esteem their accomplishments as they do, but find contempt in its place. This is because success is hard for many to relate to. For some, longsuffering is easier to respect because it reminds them of their own lives.'

We've been called a 'no-hit wonder.' We don't care.

It is precisely because we can never really know ourselves, but only guess, that we are so vehement about the good and the evil ascribed to us by others. In maintaining ourselves against all comers, we are maintaining something that is unknown, uncertain, and never wholly provable. We need a chorus of consent, and we are engaged in an unceasing proselytizing campaign in our own behalf.

The greatest feeling is to have [fans who are] so happy to see you.

Fame is something you get from other people. It's not that I have some intrinsic thing that makes me famous. If your self image depends on that fame, you're in trouble.

So I was at liberty, let us say, to write something about Coney Island in winter. If they liked it it would appear in print, my name would be signed to it, and I could show it to my friends, carry it about with me, put it under my pillow at night, read it surreptitiously, over and over, because the first time you see yourself in print you're beside yourself, you've at last proved to the world that you really are a writer, and you must prove it to the world, at least once in your life, or you will go mad from believing it all by yourself. And so to Coney Island on a wintry day. Alone, of course. It wouldn't do to have one's reflections and observations diverted by a trivial-minded friend. A new pad in my pocket and a sharp pencil.

Orthodoxy derives from this axiomatic foundation, and the two systems are mutually reinforcing: hence each is doubly validated.

A similar situation occurred in astronomy, where the Newtonian law of gravitation had been found to predict the orbits of the outer planets with great accuracy, but had failed with the orbits of Mercury and Venus. The relativity theory of gravitation had provided the necessary modification of Newton's law, and in working out the details of the new theory, Einstein had utilized the fact that Newtonian law gave the right result at great distances from the sun. Heisenberg, confronted with a similar problem, was able to avail himself of the fact that the classical mechanics gave the right result at great distances from the atomic nucleus. Here, and here alone Heisenberg's theory made contact with the world of the older physics.

'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses.

I feel like a soul mother in my prime, even if Columbia doesn't.

The star of that year's conference was undoubtedly the Swedish conservative leader-since Prime Minister-who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation.

One tabloid had an article about how I was an irresistible sex- and man-magnet and how men flock to me. Of course, they were absolutely correct...

So there he was with... No career, and, to put it candidly, no life. It was as if he had been running a long, long race and finally realized that there was nobody else in it with him, he had crossed the finish line years ago and didn't notice it because not a soul was there to cheek for him and clap him on the back and say 'Good run... Good run!' Or come to think of it, maybe they were there, only [he] himself didn't care what they thought of him and so he sloughed off their praise and their friendship because he was waiting for the one voice he'd never hear again.

It's a lie in the end, you only satisfy your friends. ~ 'So Much Work'

Nooooooah. No, that was a big joke in the family. When I was 16, 17, I started drifting away from everything else and picking up a guitar, and it was like, 'What are you doing? You can't sing and you can't play a guitar', right up to the day we got signed by Rough Trade. And then it was like, 'Go on play us a song', whereas before it was, 'Shut up, fucking racket.'

We decided that my character had a pre-show tradition, like a ritual, which was to sing the lyrics to 'I Want You To Want Me' by Cheap Trick into the mirror. Because, more than anything else, as much as he says he's bringing the truth, he just wants to be liked.

The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now!

The public has been my friend. The public discovered Mickey Mouse before the critics and before the theatrical people. It was only after the public discovered it, did the theatrical people become interested in it; and did the critics become interested. Up to that time, the critic wouldn't have bothered using any space, you see? So it all comes down that newspapers and people who write for newspapers are only interested in people after the public is interested. The key to it is the public.

You gotta win to get love. I mean, that's just life. Look at...look at Don Shula. Legendary coach. Look at that Asian guy who holds the world record for eatin' all those hot dogs in a row. Look at Rue McClanahan. From The Golden Girls. Three people, all great champions, all loved.

I believe in my work and am eager for others to know about it.

Nobody could believe in me the way I believed in myself.

I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?

The following is decreed and ordered to be carried into execution as soon as convenient: I. That a suspension bridge be built from Oakland Point to Goat Island, and then to Telegraph Hill; provided such bridge can be built without injury to the navigable waters of the Bay of San Francisco. II. That the Central Pacific Railroad Company be granted franchises to lay down tracks and run cars from Telegraph Hill and along the city front to Mission Bay. III. That all deeds by the Washington Government since the establishment of our Empire are hereby decreed null and void unless our Imperial signature is first obtained thereto.

it's so damn sweet when Anybody- :makes you feel :for once (imag -ine) You

Then soon after my delight with Stein was jolted; a political critic of the reddest persuasion condemned Stein in a newspaper article, calling her decadent, implying that she reclined upon a silken couch in Paris smoking hashish day and night and was a hopeless prey to hallucinations. I asked myself if I were wrong or crazy or decadent. Being simple minded, I decided upon a very practical way of determining the worth of the prose of Stein, a prose I had accepted without qualms or distress. I gathered a group of semi-illiterate Negro workers into a Chicago basement and read them Melanctha aloud. They were enthralled, interrupting me constantly to tell where and when they had met such a strange and melancholy gal. I was convinced and Miss Stein's book never bothered or frightened me after that. If Negro stockyard workers could understand the stuff when it was read aloud to them, then surely anybody else could if they wanted to read with their ears as well as their eyes. For the prose of Stein is but the repetitive contemporaneousness of our living speech woven into a grammarless form of narrative...

But what's it really done? Where have we really come to? Lying in a hospital bed in Munich, Germany, watching my ear being thrown out into a garbage can, not being able to take it on the trip back because I don't know the German word for formaldehyde, and having a nurse walk into my room, looking at that piece of my body that's laying in the bottom of the garbage, and saying 'es ist alles ein Schauspiel', which means it's all a big joke. Excuse me, I didn't know, do you open up the lungs of a smoker and say 'oh my golly, I thought smoking was supposed to be good for you?!' Do you open up Terry Funk's non functioning liver and say, 'Oh! I didn't know that four decades of heavy drinking took this kind of toll?!' So if they show that much respect to the patients, then what made me any different? Because I was a wrestler. And professional wrestling will never be respected, no matter how many teeth I lose, no matter how many ears I lose, no matter how many brain cells have to die!'

He hadn't realized how much he needed the honor of others until he finally got it

So I believed all that stuff about pleasing myself. Can't be done. You can't please yourself by doing what you want. Because it doesn't mean anything if it's just you. There has to be somebody it matters to. I think... I think that in my heart I needed that to be [her]. I needed her to care about what I did

Was that disloyal of me? To look forward to the day when I could show you my work? Who else but you would understand what I achieved? Who else but me could know how far beyond our dreams you succeeded? We changed the world

I was wondering the other day, why it is we turn pop figures into idols? I have a theory, of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren't. And it is very, very important that we are cool. So. when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associationg ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool. In other words, who cares what I believe about life, I only care that I am cool. Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culture is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aid society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether of not they are cool.

Uh, Brandy, it sounds like you're giving me alot of crap and yet somebody wrote a song about you. You heard of that? Yeah? Well, you don't deserve it; you don't deserve it at all.

I'm very hip, I'm very 'now'. I get it- I'm 'with it', the kids think I'm cool.

And this is medicine?

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.

We want to be recognized, yes, but not with a glowing epitaph on our tombstone...

A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.

There are too many leaders anointed because they have a public voice - television, radio, or record, or whatever. That even includes myself. In the past, I'd say, 'Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.'

I love beautiful women, and beautiful women love me. It has to be both ways.

Dear Mary, We all knew you had it in you!

'Pele called me the greatest footballer in the world. That is the ultimate salute to my life.'

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no.

The invisible thing called a Good Name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you.

I thank God for the Apollo Theater. When I saw those people, that was the awards.

In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.

'You don't remember when you was my sweetest? You don't remember I called you Reese's Pieces? 'Cause there's no wrong way to do you know what!'

Insanity - to have to construct a picture of one's life, by making inquiries of others.

I don't ask writers about their work habits. I really don't care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they're actually trying to find out, 'Is he as crazy as I am?' I don't need that question answered.

By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.

I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant.

Best by test.

Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

Jack's a great musician, and I'm a great actor. It takes a great actor to say Jack Benny is a great musician. ~ Bob Hope

Ashlee Simpson told me she had our CD

Will it play in Peoria?

Am I no a bonny fighter?