R.E. Butler Quotes

Consider We are born Not with purpose, But with potential.

I love English girls! I adore all their different accents. Who knows, I could find a British girlfriend on my travels!

Without a doubt, Ozzy is the craziest person I've ever met. Son of Sam is a close second.

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.

The history of art is the history of revivals.

I've spent a lot of time and money trying to keep my anger in control.

You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.

I'm trying to speak--to write-the truth. I"m trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.

Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.

The hare grows old as she plays in the sun And gazes around her with eyes of brightness; Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done She limps along in an aged whiteness.

All through the years of our youth Neither could have known Their own thought from the other's, We were so much at one.

My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary, Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler.

The desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained.

Bid imagination run / Much on the Great Questioner; / What He can question, what if questioned I / Can with a fitting confidence reply.

What society needs is broad men sharpened to a point.

He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.

In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.

Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.

I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning, but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.

Doctrine is to be the balm of a healing experience of God, not a theological scalpel to wound and exclude people.

One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life.

The living can assist the imagination of the dead.

We need to be I think equally sensitive to the injurious power of certain kinds of speech acts but also to the subversive and possibly liberatory effects of certain kinds of play.

The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.

As this world was not intended to be a state of any great satisfaction or high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a mere scene of unhappiness and sorrow.

Popular sovereignty has to be given by a people to itself, and this is the important meaning of self-determination.

When I was a kid and I would play pretend, I would end up with blood everywhere and I would cut my feet up. I love the feeling of it being real.

Though pedantry denies, It's plain the Bible means That Solomon grew wise While talking with his queens.

Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.

For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

I went through a period when I was rebellious and a mess of a person.

Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.

A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.

My grandfather was a cop in Long Island. I often try to draw on things that I've heard about him.

I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.

If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.

This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.

A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

When I'm making a movie, it's making use of my creative juices, and it fills me up with what really is - I think my purpose here is to tell stories.

The only lasting truth is change. God is change.

Choosing the right mask helps you... We went through many masks. It was very particular leather that as soon as you smudged it, you had to get a new one. We went through about 55 masks.

You are horror and beauty in rare combination.

There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind.

Ozzy wanted to get us back together. It's been 20 years. We did a couple of songs during his farewell in 1992 and that got the ball rolling.

I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Invar Amargin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away.

All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will