B.S. Johnson Quotes

I very much wanted to be editor of the 'New Statesman!' But I never wanted to be prime minister, except maybe as a little boy.

If I see a door ajar, I push on it to see how far it will open, and if it opens wide I go through it.

The man who called it "near beer" was a bad judge of distance.

Pick very few objects and place them exactly.

The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.

I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life.

Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

From the very fact the universe is on the whole orderly, in a manner comprehensible to our intellect, is evidence that we and it were fashioned by a common intelligence.

So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.

I get between nine and ten hours of sleep. Go to bed at 8:30 and get up at 6:00 or 6:30 if I oversleep.

American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.

I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?

The best thing to do with water is to use a lot of it.

In our universal experience unintelligent material processes do not create life

Some of the opera houses in Italy had to be burnt down because people could neither see nor hear. They gave up seeing years ago, but they did enjoy the music.

Truth as such is not a particularly important concept in naturalistic philosophy.

To philosophical materialists God is no more than an idea in the human mind, and not a very important idea.

A crush is just as simple as admiration. You get attracted to another person and time can allow feelings to grow more into something more than that.

All the most prominent Darwinists proclaim naturalistic philosophy when they think it safe to do so.

In short, the proposition that God was in any way involved in our creation is effectively outlawed, and implicitly negated.

Darwinism is not merely a support for naturalistic philosophy: it is a product of naturalistic philosophy.

Failure is our most important product.

Being boring is just wrong, isn't it? You wouldn't have got anywhere being boring.

I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

I don't mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.

I am a total coffee snob and bore. If anyone makes the mistake of offering me 'a coffee' they tend to regret it - I'm worse than Mariah Carey, and the hot milk rider is completely non-negotiable.

I want 'The Lady' magazine to be restored to its traditional place in the pantheon of weekly magazines.

I'd like to see women get on to boards and run companies despite the fact that men occupy the citadels of power.

There was a time when no difficult subjects were ever aired in the 'Lady', and sadly, life isn't like that.

If you tell the truth you get into trouble, and that's why politicians are extremely dull.

The Lady' is a piddling little magazine that no one cares about or buys.

So I had the opportunity to do what the kids in the Hershey program do, except that the Hershey program lets them do it on such a larger scale, with the regional and national competitions.

I don't care if I never see Texas again.

I learned a lot from not having success, and realizing when you do have success, how hard it is to maintain it, and what you have to do to maintain it.

I had a million-dollar arm, but I wasn't thinking enough about how to be a pitcher.

A lot of heavyweights, with the exception of a few Eastern Europe fighters, they really look like being a heavyweight is just like, who can eat the most Pizza Hut and McDonalds.

I listened to all types of music, and obviously when I got to Seattle I was very much aware of the music scene there.

We're at the crossroads, ... where we need to win to stay alive.

At the end of the day, a television, a computer, or a smart phone is just a device through which one can access content. The content itself is what matters, not the device.

What really shocks me, what I can honestly sit back and ponder for hours in a lot of cases is just, 'Why would you film yourself doing that? Who put you up to that? What are you getting out of that?

The Super Bowl is something you can't put into words. It's such a great feeling. I wish I could put it into words, but you just have to be there to know the experience.

I enjoy seeing anybody do good. I have no hard feelings.

It's more mental in the NFL than it was in high school. In high school you just line up and close the gap. In the NFL you have to do the right things so the team can win.

I don't really watch that much TV. I have training camp to worry about.

You come out of each movie just thinking, "God, if we can fool them into letting us make just one more, we can get it right."

Writing sucks. I think it's terrible. Writing is not fun, and don't trust anyone who claims to enjoy it. Liars!

Writing in a lot of ways feels more like excavation than construction. It feels like you're uncovering this thing bit by bit, discovering what it is, instead of constructing it upwards.

Showing your movie to an audience... it's like your kid doing a piano recital. 'Just let it not fail. Please.

If I spend a year and a half writing a script, the first year will be outlining in notebooks. It's just the way I work, definitely not necessarily the best way.