“I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, "What happened next?” FirstsBelieveChildrenNextAnswersHappenedFunctionNarrativeHistorianMatured Author:A. J. P. Taylor
“after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war ... of dropping Congress from the equation altogether, of super-empowering the presidency with total war-making power and with secret new war-making resources that answer to no one but him, of insulating the public from not only the cost of war but sometimes even the knowledge that it's happened - war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops.” TwoWarSometimesStatesPoliticalAnswersSecretGenerationsHappenedCostResourcesFunctionCongressEmpoweringPresidencyEquationsDeliberateDroppingTotal WarAutonomousCost Of War Author:Rachel Maddow
“As far as documentaries go, I believe unreservedly that they serve an important function in our culture. I'd love to be able to make both documentaries and feature films simultaneously, but so far that hasn't happened.” BelieveImportantAbleFilmCultureI BelieveHappenedFunctionFeaturesDocumentaries Author:Hirokazu Koreeda
“I met Glenn [ Greenwald] briefly in 2009. We were both guests on Real Time With Bill Maher. I was the show's guest and he was on the panel. But this was before the Snowden stuff happened. I didn't have the opportunity to meet him in preparation for the movie, unfortunately, for various reasons. But I was able to dive into the main articles he's written, and interviews with him, and just the function that the character serves in the movie, that was enough for me.” RealReasonEnoughCharacterShowsAbleOpportunityStuffWrittenHappenedMetsFunctionBillsVariousPreparationInterviewsArticlesGuestsSnowden Author:Zachary Quinto
“To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.” PeopleWorldGivingTryingMeanReasonPlayStoriesHappensReadingGamesFictionHappenedAnxietyHappeningsFunctionNarrativeImmensityConsoling Author:Umberto Eco
“Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted rodents, which attracted cats. (No evidence that such a thing happened with the Mayans, though a number of wild cats are native to the area.) I don't think this is accurate. It is certainly not the whole story. Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.” ThinkingFirstsWholeStoriesNumbersHappenedDogEvidenceAreasCatFunctionAgentsNativeCompanionEfficientAccurateGrainEgyptPsychicsSnakesTamedWeaselsRodentsMayans Author:William S. Burroughs
“Who doesn't have a dark place somewhere inside him that comes out sometimes when he's looking in a mirror? Dark and light, we are all made out of shadows like the shapes on a motion-picture screen. A lot of people think that the function of the projector is to throw light on the screen, just as the function of the story-teller is to stop fooling around and simply tell what happened, but the dark places must be there too, because without the dark places there would be no image and the figure on the screen would not exist.” PeopleThinkingMadeSometimesStoriesLightWould BeDarkHappenedFiguresShapesShadowFunctionMirrorsScreensMotion PicturesDark PlacesFooling AroundProjectors Author:MacDonald Harris
“Try to understand why it is happening, from where it is coming, where the roots are, how it happens, how it functions, how it overpowers you, how in anger you become mad. Anger has happened before, it is happening now, but now add a new element to it, the element of understanding -- and then the quality will change. Then, by and by, you will see that the more you understand anger, the less it happens. And when you understand it perfectly, it disappears. Understanding is like heat. When the heat comes to a particular point -- one hundred degrees -- the water disappears.” TryingHappensUnderstandingWaterQualityHappenedParticularDegreesElementsHappeningsHundredRootsFunctionAngerMadAddDisappearHeat Author:Rajneesh