Gerda Lerner was fierce, brilliant and unique. She lived history by her bravery, restored history by her scholarship, and democratized its study by her activism.
There’s no one in the world close to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is a phenomenon. He’s brilliant. Just because his physique belies that, don’t underestimate him.
I saw ‘Sleeping Beauty’ when I was, like, 6 years old at the Mercury Theatre. Then, when I came to Disney, I was in the company of these wonderful artists. People like Glen Keane, like Mark Henn, who were brilliant animators who could really bring these things to life.
I bought a guitar CD-ROM because we had a new computer, but I had no attention span for that. I spent about three hours on it desperate to be brilliant. Eventually, I got some proper lessons.
There are over 50 brilliant scientists working at my lab, and being sensitive to their needs is among the top skill sets that scientists like me have to learn.
I don’t think any of my teachers know much about football. Pretty much every teacher I have is foreign, and UCLA’s a brilliant mix of minds from all over the world.
I grew up surrounded by these strong, brilliant women who showed me what it meant to show up in the world with purpose and intention.
Growing up, my parents were Roman Catholic – strict Catholics – from New Orleans. I understood the idea in the principle of spirituality. I noticed it in the stories that I read. The Trinity was something that was brought up consistently: the power of three. Things happened in threes, and I thought that was brilliant.
When it comes to work, I’m not competitive at all. Having Cara as my baby, I had to learn quite quickly that I couldn’t be competitive because I had a sister who meant more to me. And I knew she was going to be brilliant, so I had to become very aware of not comparing.
Mum had regular mental tests with her specialist, but because of her academic background, she became brilliant at manipulating them.
My mom always had a softer spot for boys, as a lot of Irish women do. If you were a girl, you’d have to sing or wear a pretty dress. But boys could just sit there and be brilliant for sitting there and being boys. It makes you that little bit more forward. Pushy. I was singing, always.
To me, as long as we’ve known each other, I’ve always thought Mick’s most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance.
It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m going to be in Coronation Street. Everything about the role is brilliant and I’m working with some great people.
The thing about movie musicals is that there have been some brilliant ones, but when they’re bad, they’re really bad – big white elephants.
When I was working on ‘Night Falls Over Kortedala,’ I was listening a lot to ‘Graceland,’ the Paul Simon record. I really got into the lyrics on that album. The opening line is so brilliant, the way he sets the scene.
The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel – often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation.
There were a number of people who helped me get there, and the one I always mention is Michael Byrne, the great master swordsman and brilliant stunt double.
The New York Times published the guest list on the front page. The masks were a brilliant concept.
I had considered MIT a place where brilliant people came.
I love working with Scorsese. He’s not only a brilliant director and is great working with actors, but he’s also a walking human film encyclopedia. It’s fun to talk about movies with him.
A successful entrepreneur is one who recognizes her blind spots. You may be the world’s best engineer, but you probably have never run a 10-person sales force. You may be a brilliant marketer, but how do you structure a cap table?
There are women who are just extraordinary, who are smart and brilliant, sensual women in their 70s and even 80s!
I know there are some actors who are just brilliant at improvising and brilliant at just being in the moment and doing it there and then. I’m not one of those actors.
I’ve never understood musicians who don’t enjoy doing promotional interviews. I just can’t believe it. I always think, ‘Your life must have been so brilliant before you were in a band.’
I like men who are very cool but who are also so brilliant that they are almost insane. Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits – men who would be flipping burgers if they hadn’t found an outlet for their brilliant mind-sets.
Frances Conroy – brilliant, brilliant actress.
It feels like Radiohead are famous, but that no one knows who we are. Which is brilliant, really.
The friendship of Shostakovich cast a brilliant light over my whole life and whose spiritual qualities captured my soul once and for all time.
The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you’re doing it, there’s nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for plots come into my head while I’m ploughing up and down the pool.
Tesla has humiliated established carmakers with its brilliant vision. But Detroit, Turin, Stuttgart, and so on have understood scale as well as capital allocation for decades. Such gargantuan tasks could yet humiliate Tesla.
Keynes was a very good economist. He was brilliant. He had wonderful insights. His work has inspired me many times.
Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
What’s the point of doing a brilliant Hedda Gabler in my back garden if no one will ever see it?
I try to do a variety of physical activities. I spin, take classes at Barry’s Boot Camp, go to the gym, use home DVD’s of ChaLEAN Extreme workouts, which I think are brilliant, and I run around after my three girls. Also, let’s be honest. The amount of laundry I do is an exercise in and of itself!
So many amongst us live in the past rather than loving the present and building a brilliant future. Some people stay stuck for years over something they did or a failure they’ve experienced. Sad. A life is a terrible thing to waste.
I’d always try to get a C, maybe a B. Other girls would trot off a brilliant essay and go off to Oxford; I’d think: ‘Where is the justice?’ I took A-levels in English, history and theatre studies and got three Bs.
Maybe you’ve decided you’re not a genius, that you’re not brilliant, that you’re not prosperous, that you’re not wonderful, that you’re not lovable. Well, you know what? You’re both: you’re unlovable and you are lovable. And they both need equal time.
Other people, including me, have written books with main characters who were old and rich. Or old and brilliant. Old sages, old wizards, old rich people.
I’ve been DJing a little bit, so you get used to the fact that music sounds brilliant when it’s loud.
I wrote about Alan Turing, the great mathematician and code-breaker. He was an absolutely different person, certainly more brilliant than I ever will be.
It’s very hard to tell somebody how to write when they’re so good, and they’re a brilliant writer and a really good guy.
I’ve always thought George Carlin was brilliant.
In the second grade, I would just get bored and a joke would pop into my head and I would have to say it. It was almost like I had some brilliant novel in my head that I had to get down, and I would interrupt class all the time and get in trouble.
I think Sarah Michelle Gellar has done some brilliant work as Buffy.
Poe had this curious kind of alchemical courage, where he took all the terrible things and terrors that happened in his life, all this shame and fear and pain, and turned them into great works of art. He was a complex, brilliant person who was just wired too tight.
Kathy Burke has been a real inspiration. I think she’s brilliant. I like the fact she doesn’t care what she looks like on TV and just gets really into character. Obviously, she can do drama as well, but it’s her comedy I love.
John Legend is brilliant. I feel he may be my best collaborator when it comes to delivering that undeniable soulful sound, and he does it in such a classy way.
When you’re playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that’s crude and not as good.
The Kalahari is brilliant – and easy to visit.
I have been working a lot, and I like it. And you know, it’s hard for me not to. I guess I’ve been working a lot because I get to play with brilliant people.
I never mind talking about my dad. I’m proud of who he is, and being his son is one of the things I’m most proud of. To be constantly compared to someone so brilliant, who happens to be your dad, is cool.
There’s always been that theory that if a candidate can’t run a decent campaign, he probably can’t run a decent presidency. That might be true, although sadly I must admit that running a brilliant campaign does not translate into running a brilliant White House.
My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination.
