Home / Topics / Backgrounds Quotes

Backgrounds Quotes

Browse 1640 quotes about Backgrounds.

Backgrounds Quotes

“My problem with the wedding industry started when I studied in college and liked to have the television on in the background, and 'A Wedding Story' on TLC always came on, and I'd get irritated that the story of two people making a lifelong commitment to each other could be encapsulated in a half-hour show about the party they throw.”

People Two Stories Shows Problem Hours Party Half Television College Industry Commitment Backgrounds Lifelong Irritated Half Hours

Author:Jessica Valenti

“I studied movies for many years, but I am professionally an actor because I, my background is actually a stage actor and acting.”

Years Actors Acting Stage Backgrounds Stage Actors Actors And Acting Stage Acting

Author:Tommy Wiseau

“When I want to choose to work with someone, you know, I definitely have to do some research on their background and how they were raised as people.”

People Knows Want Research Raised Backgrounds

Author:Theophilus London

“My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.”

Trying Years Doe Actors Eight Theatre Nine Backgrounds Contemporary Dancer Unusual Ballet Nine Years Ballet Dancer

Author:William Kempe

“The history of the genocide perpetrated during the Second World War does not belong to the past only. It is a ‘living history’ that concerns us all, regardless of our background, culture, or religion. Other genocides have occurred after the Holocaust, on several continents. How can we draw better lessons from the past?”

World Doe War Past Culture Lessons Draws Concern Backgrounds War Of The Worlds Genocide Holocaust Continents Second World War

Author:Irina Bokova

“Part of the approach envisaged in bringing about Black Consciousness has to be directed to the past, to seek to rewrite the history of the black man and to produce in it the heroes who form the core of the African background”

Men Past Form Black Consciousness Produce Hero Approach Core Backgrounds Black Consciousness

Author:Steven Biko

“A stage setting is not a background; it is an environment.”

Environment Stage Theater Backgrounds Setting Settings Built Environment Stagecraft

Book:The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on the Art of the Theatre

Source: The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on the Art of the Theatre

“I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.”

Trying Hands Faces Fun Party Drink My Friends Smile Warm Dinner Backgrounds Great Music Dinner Party Smile On My Face Dinner Guests

Author:Ina Garten

“Newspaper reporting is really storytelling. We call our articles 'stories,' and we try to tell them in a way that even people who don't know all the background can understand them.”

People Knows Way Trying Stories Newspapers Backgrounds Storytelling Articles

Author:Serge Schmemann

“America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.”

World Way Country America Race Unique Ideals Backgrounds Spite Idealism Polyglots

Book:Ronald Reagan

Source: Ronald Reagan

“I ran my first race the end of March, 1976. And less than four months later I was Olympic champion. But I had the background. It's not like I just ran one day and all of a sudden became a champion. It was a lot of work.”

Firsts Ends Race Four Months One Day Backgrounds Ran Champion March

Author:Edwin Moses

“At my high school graduation, I graduated from home school, so it was pregnant teens and gang members. But, when I got on stage, there were kids in the background who all screamed, "Marry me!," very loud.”

Home Kids School Stage Members High School Backgrounds Loud Teens Pregnant Gang Marry Me High School Graduation Were Pregnant Gang Members School Graduation

Author:Portia de Rossi

“A lot of people who are actors and artists who work in Hollywood come from a background of abuse, and you can make abused people very fearful and they'll do what they're told. Hollywood definitely has a point of view that it sells.”

People Artist Actors Views Hollywood Abuse Sells Point Of View Backgrounds Fearful

Author:Roseanne Barr

“The British often shy away from any cinematic interpretation of real sex. They sometimes have what I call "subtle sex," which is really introspective and has soft music in the background. Either that or it's played for comedy. The British are kind of hung up about sex. They find it kind of titillating and they make jokes about it because they're nervous.”

Kind Real Sometimes Sex Comedy Jokes British Backgrounds Nervous Subtle Shy Interpretation Hung Introspective Cinematic

Author:Steve Coogan

“Currents of energy shimmer through our bodies. Like shooting stars, we rocket through spacious stillness. But this silent, unmoving background is nothing like the granite ideas we use trying to take root in groundless soil.”

Trying Ideas Use Body Energy Stars Roots Silent Currents Backgrounds Shooting Soil Stillness Rockets Granite Shimmer Shooting Star

Author:Anthony Lawlor

“All we have observed is where moths do not spend the day. In 25 years we have found only two betularia on the tree trunks or walls adjacent to our traps (one on an appropriate background and one not), and none elsewhere”

Years Two Found Tree Wall Backgrounds Appropriate Elsewhere Traps Trunks Moths Tree Trunks

Author:Cyril Clarke

“Someone could have an outstanding comprehension of a bodybuilding diet and a background in nutrition but not have the work ethic and desire to put it into practice. That person won’t be as successful as the person who understands some basics and puts them into action regularly.”

Persons Action Desire Practice Successful Ethics Backgrounds Diets Nutrition Work Ethic Outstanding Comprehension Bodybuilding Basics

Book:Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness

Source: Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness

“Where I once found it safer to stay in the background... I've stepped from the shadows into the spotlight.”

Found Shadow Backgrounds Spotlight

Author:Salle Merrill Redfield

“Unconscious assumptions or opinions are the worst enemy of woman; they can even grow into a positively demonic passion that exasperates and disgusts men, and does the woman herself the greatest injury by gradually smothering the charm and meaning of her femininity and driving it into the background. Such a development naturally ends in profound psychological disunion, in short, in a neurosis.”

Source: The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Civilization in transition

“I view the major features of my own odyssey as a set of mostly fortunate contingencies. I was not destined by inherited mentality or family tradition to become a paleontologist. I can locate no tradition for scientific or intellectual careers anywhere on either side of my eastern European Jewish background. I view my serious and lifelong commitment to baseball in entirely the same manner: purely as a contingent circumstance of numerous, albeit not entirely capricious, accidents.”

“It's really important to say this. Often the faith schools were founded before the state provided education. I want good education in this country so I'm not going to slag off faith schools. I think that it's important that people of different backgrounds and different faiths go to school together and many faith schools do that.”

People Thinking Want Important Different Country States School Together Backgrounds Good Education Different Backgrounds Different Faiths Slag

Author:Ed Miliband

“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life.”

“It's like in most parts of America, where there was industry and there is no longer; there is cynicism mixed with sarcasm and some optimism. That's how my background influenced my comedy.”

America Comedy Industry Optimism Backgrounds Sarcasm Cynicism

Author:Jim Gaffigan

“You see, astrology is like fortune-telling. If you can't get it right, you say, "Well, if Venus was doing something peculiar in the background, that would alter your prognostication--because, of course, astrology is rubbish.”

Ifs Wells Courses Fortune Backgrounds Peculiar Astrology Rubbish Venus Fortune Telling Prognostication

Author:Quentin Crisp

“Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.”

People Ifs Way Wells Long Play Age Form Spirit Audience Quiet Intelligent Active Backgrounds Portraits Respectable Neat

Book:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Source: The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“Obviously, I come from one background, and the people that design fitness equipment have been doing it for years and years, and they know what works and doesn't work.”

People Knows Years Has Beens Design Backgrounds Equipment

Author:Lance Armstrong

“The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.”

Force Rights Argument Claims Notion Backgrounds Tone Rely Laughed Quantity Linked Flavor Adopted Contention Rely Upon

Book:The Simone Weil Reader

Source: The Simone Weil Reader

“When we say 'time', I believe we mean at least two things. We mean changes. And we mean something unchangeable. We mean something that moves . but against an unmoving background. And vice versa.Animals can sense changes. But consciousness of time involves the double sense of constancy and change. Which can only be attributed to those who give expression to it. And that can only be done through language, and only man has language.The perception of time and language are inextricably bound up with one another.”

Men Giving Believe Mean Two Done Moving Language I Believe Animal Consciousness Expression Perception Bounds Vices Backgrounds Two Things Vice Versa Constancy Unchangeable

Book:Borderliners: A Novel

Source: Borderliners: A Novel

“We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.”

Problem Sound Voice Ability Environment Military Communication Tests Backgrounds Superiors Code Selection Noisy Personnel

Author:M. H. Abrams

“There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole music thing that's changed the role it plays for us all. You are doing it while you are doing other things. Not that that is new - people have had music on in the background as long as there has been music.”

People Long Has Beens Play Whole Certain Roles Changed Approach Backgrounds Fast Food

Author:Tom Waits

“We [ with Andy Samberg] knew each other for the last few years, our names are similar, our looks are a little bit similar, and our backgrounds are similar. The Judaism is quite similar.”

Years Looks Littles Lasts Names Bits Little Bit Backgrounds Judaism

Author:Adam Sandler

“I think that notion of being a seeker, somebody who never felt totally fulfilled, but was always passionate about the search, that comes from the background, probably.”

Thinking Felt Notion Passionate Backgrounds Fulfilled Seekers

Author:Walter Isaacson

“Compassion gives us a common ground to stand on regardless of your faith background. It gives us a chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder rather than go fist-to-fist with somebody.”

Giving Chance Common Compassion Shoulders Backgrounds Fists Common Ground Give Us A Chance

Author:Max Lucado

“Be less about protecting any type of identity affiliated to a country or even ethnic background. Be more about the fact that we're here for a short time and Heaven is going to be a rainbow of people, multiculture, every generation.”

People Country Facts Heaven Generations Identity Type Backgrounds Rainbow Short Time Ethnic Background

Author:Max Lucado

“The thing with me is, I'm from a rap background so I'm not really a traditional singer in that sense.”

Rap Singers Backgrounds Traditional

Author:Negash Ali

“I have an urban background, but I need melody, I need a song, so I try to mix and match and keep it fluid.”

Needs Trying Song Backgrounds Melody Urban Fluid

Author:Negash Ali

“Those dabs of paint and lines become art when form and flow are created out of lower-level perceptual elements. When they combine harmoniously they give rise to perspective, foreground and background, and ultimately to emotion and other aesthetic attributes.”

Giving Art Form Lines Levels Emotion Perspective Elements Flow Paint Backgrounds Attributes Aesthetic Foreground Dabs

Book:This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession

Source: This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession

“My background is in painting but in school in the sixties, like many artists of that time, I believed that painting was dead. I began to work in collaboration with other artists in the creation of performances and installation works. Soon after, I started making video and photographic works and in the process became fascinated with the media itself. Before long I was setting things up just for the camera. In l970 I got a dog and he turned out to be very interested in video and photography as well.”

Wells Long School Artist Process Media Dog Creation Painting Photography Performances Cameras Backgrounds Setting Video Settings Collaboration Fascinated Sixty Installation

Author:William Wegman

“My mother was a teacher, my father was a community organizer. I come from a working class background.”

Mother Father Community Class Teacher Backgrounds Working Class Organizer

Author:Chris Hayes

“I can't just listen to music walking down the street unless I have a reason to. I can't just listen to music as a piece of junk in the background. It drives me insane.”

I Can Reason Pieces Streets Walking Backgrounds Insane Listening To Music Junk Just Listen

Author:Mika

“Donald Trump is attacking President Obama's background. And I said, 'Wait a minute, Trump also is from a mixed background. He's half jack and half ass.'”

Said Waiting President Half Minutes Trump Backgrounds Ass President Obama Attacking

Author:David Letterman

“It is a fact perhaps kept a little too much in the background, that mothers have a self larger than their maternity, and that when their sons have become taller than themselves, and are gone from them to college or into the world, there are wide spaces of their time which are not filled with praying for their boys, reading old letters, and envying yet blessing those who are attending to their shirt-buttons.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)

“In a large congregation, while there is a wide diversification of interest, it is also true that there are only a few basic human problems. It must also be taken into consideration that people are people regardless of who they are or what their backgrounds may be. There are certain deep universal appeals to human interest and to these human nature always responds.”

People Humans May Problem Certain Interest Taken Human Nature Universal Wide Backgrounds Appeals Consideration Congregation Diversification Human Problems

Book:A Guide to Confident Living

Source: A Guide to Confident Living

“In the background lurks the scourge of international terrorism. There are people exercising power in a few countries and leading political factions in others who seem to be moved by narrow, brutal and irrational impulses. Their view of their own self-interest is so blinkered as to leave no space for purely human values, for peaceful negotiation or for economic advancement. They are bent on the destruction of the established order and of civilised ways of doing business. They must never be allowed to succeed.”

“If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject.”

Ifs Strong Interesting Subjects Personality Backgrounds

Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion

“What the American people hope - what they deserve - is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds, different stories, different beliefs, the anxieties they face are the same. The aspirations they hold are shared: a job that pays the bills; a chance to get ahead; most of all, the ability to give their children a better life.”

“With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic; which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level of a black art.”

Art Black Religious Prayer Levels Magic Sacrifice Equal Assuming Backgrounds Ritual Religious Rituals Black Art

Author:James G. Frazer

“It is obvious that the fascist mass pestilence, with its background of thousands of years, cannot be mastered with social measures corresponding to the past three hundred years. The discovery of the natural biological work democracy in international human intercourse is the answer to fascism. This will be no less true even if not one of the living sex-economists, orgone biophysicists or work democrats should live to see its general functioning and its victory over the irrationalism in social life.”

“Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.”

Knows Sometimes Life Is Behinds Backgrounds Peers Hints Hideous

Book:H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ The Complete Fiction in One Volume: The Call of Cthulhu, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror and Many More: The Whisperer in Darkness, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Rats in the Walls, The Shunned House, The Shadow Out of Time, The Alchemist, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Silver Key, The Templeäó_

Source: H. P. LOVECRAFT äóñ The Complete Fiction in One Volume: The Call of Cthulhu, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror and Many More: The Whisperer in Darkness, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Rats in the Walls, The Shunned House, The Shadow Out of Time, The Alchemist, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Silver Key, The Templeäó_

“It is because the cosmos is meaningless that we must secure our individual illusions of values, direction, and interest by upholding the artificial streams which give us such worlds of salutary illusion. That is - since nothing means anything in itself, we must preserve the proximate and arbitrary background which makes things around us seem as if they did mean something.”

Ifs World Giving Mean Seems Values Individual Interest Illusion Backgrounds Secure Preserves Streams Cosmos Meaningless Artificial Arbitrary Englishmen

Author:H. P. Lovecraft