Some artists shrink from self-awareness, fearing that it will destroy their unique gifts and even their desire to create. The truth of the matter is quite opposite.
I was sick of being articulate and loud and charming. I didn’t want to play that guy anymore. I wanted to play the absolute opposite of that.
Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, I have always played someone like 10 years younger. When I was 23 or 24, I was playing 15 opposite Evan Rachel Wood in a movie called ‘Pretty Persuasion.’ She was 16 and nobody in a million years would have thought I was that much older than her.
It’s rubbish to say you can’t be proper friends with the opposite sex.
There’s nobody more opposite from John Shaft than a kid who worships a banana as his god.
American social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies.
That adage about ‘Write what you know’ is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I’m curious to find out.
Every museum is full of nice things. That’s the opposite of before. It was important things or serious things. Now we have interesting things.
All the characters on ‘Girls’ are growing and changing, which is how real people behave, especially when we’re young, trying to figure out who we are, doing things that are the polar opposite of our characteristics.
Anyone who claims to be good at lying is obviously bad at lying. Thus – as a writer myself – I cannot comment on whether or not writers are exceptionally good liars, because whatever I said would actually mean its complete opposite.
Since I know how crazy this business is, I do the opposite of what I see other people doing.
How do you trust a prime minister who said one thing before the elections and does exactly the opposite after the elections?
Sympathy for victims is always counter-balanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them.
Some people have a phobia of midgets. They’re, like, scared of them. I have the opposite – I see them, and I want to hold them down, cuddle them, be like, ‘Come here, you little nugget. Who’s your mommy now?’ So cute!
Standing in front of our hallway mirror, I am practising a few poses – one leg artfully bent, the opposite shoulder up – when the man of the house strides in and decides to share: a) I look like I have dislocated my shoulder and b) Has anyone ever told me I strongly resemble Tom Cruise?
Trump bragged about hiring only the ‘best people’ when he was running for president. We’re seeing, time and again, the opposite. It’s unclear whether the president’s definition of ‘best people’ is different than ours, or if the ‘best people’ simply aren’t interested in working for him.
People are scared to death of dying. I am the opposite.
I feel like it’s the most unnatural thing for two humans, especially of the opposite sex, to live in harmony under one roof. You realize how different men and women are.
Those who stand on our side in the fight against terrorism are our friend. Those on the opposite side are our enemy.
In the sports world it’s all about argument. It’s all about having a hot take. The other person has to have the polar opposite opinion, and you bash them together. To me it is an outlier to have a conversation be the basis of why you are listening.
All those little acting rules you get, one of the interesting ones is, ‘Play the opposite. Don’t play ‘victim.’
My friends who are not from Sweden tell me that I’m more reserved or maybe more … I guess the opposite of what a Latin American would be. Maybe because Scandinavians are more careful with their words and I guess it takes a lot to become a friend of a Swede.
Capitalism and democracy are the opposite of each other. Capitalism is a system that guarantees that a few are going to do very well, and everybody else is going to serve the few. Democracy means everybody has a seat at the table. Everybody.
In society, one doesn’t tell the truth, one tells the exact opposite.
Stunted varieties were generally chosen, particularly if they had the side branches opposite or regular, for much depends upon this; a one-sided tree is of no value in the eyes of the Chinese.
However, the models also predict unambiguously that the atmosphere is warming faster than the surface of the earth; but all the available observational data unambiguously shows the opposite!
Well, now we have exactly the same situation as at the beginning of the race, only exactly opposite.
I do acupuncture. Because it really helps. It is the opposite of Botox. Botox blocks, and acupuncture moves.
The Internet, in general, I find troubling. The anonymity has made us all meaner and dumber. This thing that was supposed to bring us closer together, I see it doing the opposite.
The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.
Decency must be an even more exhausting state to maintain than its opposite. Those who succeed seem to need a stupefying amount of sleep.
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
Nobody I know would have expected me to marry Will, and nobody he knows would have expected him to marry me because we are so opposite. Yet we’re perfect for each other.
In China, where you can be arrested and imprisoned for your faith, getting together with other Christians is a lifeline and you’ll risk anything for the privilege. No one attends church in China casually, or for a social advantage – quite the opposite.
Some people love being onstage and really open up, and I’m sort of the opposite of that. I don’t crave the spotlight. I’m still not comfortable even talking onstage.
I’ve never set up any golf course that would favor anybody. I try to make it exactly the opposite, which is what we did at Valhalla when we modernized it to accommodate the lengths players are hitting it today.
I love playing characters who are opposite of who I am.
I had always shown childhood as something difficult, something you want to get the hell out of, but now I wanted to do a story that was the opposite, about that moment in time when you’re in that world of discovery, doing what you want to do. That fleeting moment when you’re in your zone.
Most of the time in the 21st century, we dominate our surroundings: We tweak the thermostat, and the temperature falls one degree. We push a button, and Taylor Swift sings for us. It’s the opposite in the wilderness, which teaches us constantly that we are not lords of the universe but rather building blocks of it.
Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you’re telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.
The more vulnerable and the more confused the song is, the equal and opposite effect is how I feel after having written it.
I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.
A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.
I was raised as a Christian, where all you’re taught is to be humble, even if you did something right. Politics is the complete opposite of: you do something a little nice, and you tell everyone.
Prominent scientists have become increasingly convinced that the connection between carbon emissions and rising temperatures is real, but skeptics have whole truckloads of studies to demonstrate the opposite.
People think that you can save calories by eating fewer meals a day, but it works just the opposite: the fewer meals you eat, the more counterproductive it becomes to you being able to lose weight.
History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals. One of the two had to yield and succumb.
I’m someone who’s done the opposite of whatever the received wisdom is, to keep your career going into your 50s.
But the real secret to lifelong good health is actually the opposite: Let your body take care of you.
Growing up in Buffalo, you always hated the Dolphins, but I just remember my one friend always liked the opposite team, and he liked the Dolphins, so I remember always going at it with him.
I’m not being arrogant or blase, but I got a bigger buzz sitting opposite Jean-Bernard Delmas over lunch at Chateau Haut-Brion than I did from interviewing Elton John, Liza Minelli or Whitney Houston.
I never want to turn something down because I’m afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.
Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
