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Mike Hockney Quotes

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Famous Mike Hockney Quotes

“Most people follow the path that everyone before them has trodden. That’s the quick way to avoid being a genius. The genius, and the fool and madman (!), always create brand new paths, upon which no other person has ever set foot. Nothing is more depressing than the “role model” if that means copying someone else. That’s how to kill off genius. The genius is he who has no precedent. He doesn’t copy anyone. He goes beyond everyone else to unknown and unexplored places.”

“We live in the Movie Age. We should make a list of the movies we’ve loved and hated, the ones that bored us, inspired us, made us laugh or cry, sick or elated. Then we need to compare those movies with our own life. Would anyone else want to watch the movie of our life? Would we want to watch it ourselves? Maybe we’d be the only person in the cinema even though admission was free. Maybe even we would walk out. And if it was that bad, shouldn’t we be doing something about it? When Hollywood movies really stink, the directors want their names removed from the credits. “Alan Smithee” is the name that gets used instead. How many of us are in Alan Smithee movies? If we could avoid using our real name, we would.”

“Would we want the headstone over our grave to say, “No point in watching the movie of this person’s life. It was a bore, reality TV at its worst. This person didn’t do anything interesting with his life, and had no good adventures. He did everything conventionally, just going through the same routines as everyone else. He had a couple of girlfriends, got married to one, had children, bought a house, held down a dreary job, paid off his mortgage, retired…died. Millions of others did exactly the same, a story not worth telling, a life not worth living, a movie not worth seeing”

“Greg realised these weren’t his closing images at all. They were the opening images of the new movie of his life, the movie he’d be happy to watch on an infinite loop. His life would be a collection of the most wondrous pearls scattered over a beach of gold in this new Eden. He’d have to polish every moment, to make each gleam and shine like a perfect mirror because he might be seeing himself reflected back in those mirror moments. Forever.”

“Opening and closing images frame our whole lives, like birth and death. But I’m really talking about the dynamic phase of our lives when we’re making our way in the world. The opening image is when we’re eighteen, say, and our closing image is when we’re about fifty. We all have thirty-two years to get our closing image right, and hardly anyone succeeds. When we’re on our deathbed, will we be proud of our closing image, or tormented by it? That’s the challenge of the movie of our life. That’s when we know if we’re going to heaven or hell. That’s the Final Judgment.”