R.S. Thomas Quotes

I think there's an intricacy in doing something that's meant to look really simple and having it actually be quite complicated.

Journalism and the questions of journalistic ethics, and why certain stories are put on the air, when, how and for what reasons, are big questions in our culture and society.

Criticism is something that you have to take, regardless of what you do.

Having the audience know more than the characters is precisely where you want to be in terms of drama. You can engage them much more when that is the case.

I have always been politically active and vaguely dissatisfied with the state of news, but I wasn't sure why.

Even if you go out there and try to make the most vanilla, non-offensive TV show possible, people are going to criticize you for doing that. It's just part of the game. You can't let it get to you.

As an actor playing a character, I can't come in with my judgement, or else I can't play it honestly. My judgement has to be reserved for later.

I'm so super interested in what it is to stir things up and to listen to people.

I am very interested in asking questions, and I am very interested in being involved in shows that ask people to think and feel.

There's always been an ongoing struggle between commerce and art.

To pray against temptation, and yet rush into occasions, is to thrust your fingers into the fire, and then pray they might not be burnt.

Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread

There is no dispute managed without passion, and yet there is scarce a dispute worth a passion.

Lying's a certain mark of cowardice.

An oath is a recognizance to heaven, binding us over in the courts above to plead to the indictment of our crimes.

Words may be counterfeit, false coined, and current only from the tongue, without the mind; but passion is in the soul, and always speaks the heart.

The reason so many problems do not get solved in Washington is that solving those problems is not the No. 1 priority: Re-election is.

Politics is largely the process of taking credit and putting the blame on others - regardless of what the facts may be.

Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.

Young people in general - and young women in particular - need to understand that they cannot retrieve in their forties the opportunities they threw away in their twenties.

What 'eminent domain' laws mean in practice is that politicians have a right to seize your property and turn it over to someone else, in order to gain campaign contributions and win votes.

If you want to get each individual's honest opinion, you don't want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy "solutionsthat get rid of the whole problem- at least in their imagination.

Some full professors could more accurately be described as empty professors.

Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.

Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen.

Government restrictions are attractive to people who want to impose their pet notions without having to count the costs.

When government takes away options, it is bound to make some people worse off, even with intrinsicallly good intentions behind that government intervention.

Government central planning means over-riding other people's plans.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Civilization is an enormous device for economizing knowledge,.

Time was when people used to brag about how old they were - and I am old enough to remember it.

Organizational progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity through intermediate complexity.

The demands of unbounded individualism need to be weighed in the light of inherent social constraints which can only change their form but cannot be eliminated without eliminating civilization.

Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.

Neither the depth of despondency nor the height of euphoria tells you how long either will last.

The principles applied in economic processes are general social principles.

Child poverty in the United States declined after the work requirement was put in there. People realized that they had to work and people went out and worked and they got off welfare.

Greediness of getting more deprives... the enjoyment of what it had got.

Passion is the great mover and spring of the soul. When men’s passions are strongest, they may have great and noble effects; but they are then also apt to fall into the greatest miscarriages.

Though I weigh only 120 pounds, when I'm mad, I weigh a ton.

The oak roars when a high wind wrestles with it; the beech shrieks; the elm sends forth a long, deep groan; the ash pours out moans of thrilling anguish.

You didnt grow up in the shadow of John Steinbeck. He put you on his shoulders and gave you all the light you wanted.

I like writing, but I write for self-improvement more than I do for money.

My father believed, like Pericles, that a mans genius could be easily judged by the number of unenlightened fools set in phalanx against his ideas.

Plot makes the character just as history makes the man.

I started writing serious books so late because I knew Id be accused of riding on my fathers coattails.

Since I cant write the greatest American novel, Im going to write the longest American novel.

The reality is that baby boomers are turning senior citizens and not only is it inhumane, but the system will go broke. There needs to be wholesale change.

It is my nature to thin where others read.