Crank Quotes

• If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank.

  William Dean Howells

  Dream, Men, Political

  William Dean Howells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells (Illustrated)”, p.4038, Delphi Classics

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• I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

  Cyril Connolly

  Book, Writing, Air

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• I still like to make crank calls.

  Kate Walsh

  Stills

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Success, Good Life

  1897 Following the Equator, ch.32.

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• Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is.

  Garrison Keillor

  People, Eccentric, Mouths

  "A Prairie Home Companion". Radio show, December 13, 1997.

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• Was the fun in the fall?

  Ellen Hopkins

  Fun, Fall

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• And Seinfeld is so quick: we crank out one show a week, and the hours are very reasonable

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus

  Hours, Week, Shows

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• (Crank theories) always violated the first rule of a scientific model: they were uncheckable.

  Gregory Benford

  Firsts, Theory, Models

  Gregory Benford (2010). “Timescape”, p.235, Spectra

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• Well in the end the world can crank itself up to sanctions, as it has with Zimbabwe, another sad case.

  Helen Clark

  Zimbabwe, World, Sanctions

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• Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.

  Alfonso X of Castile

  Crazy, Mad, Hints

  Said after studying the Ptolemaic system (attributed)

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• Life was good before I met the monster. After, life was great At least for a little while

  Ellen Hopkins

  Monsters, Littles, Mets

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Crank”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• How can I explain purposely setting foot on a path so blatantly treacherous? Was the fun in the fall?

  Ellen Hopkins

  Fun, Fall, Feet

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Mind, Different, Patterns

  Daniel H. Pink (2006). “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future”, p.14, Penguin

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• I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Lying, Hate, Past

  Ellen Hopkins (2008). “Impulse”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

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• Taking no chances means wasting your dreams.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Dream, Mean, Chance

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us - in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Karma, Nice, Heart

  "The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore".

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• I love the balls-to-the-walls rule-breaking approach the Beatles had in the studio (which I emulate), although I don't try to make my songs "sound" like their songs. But every time I crank a knob of some piece of equipment, or plug an instrument into the "wrong" amp/effect, I am channeling the Beatles.

  Alan Cohen

  Song, Wall, Trying

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• More cranks take up unfashionable errors than unfashionable truths.

  Bertrand Russell

  Errors

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.93, Routledge

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• The Bolshevists would blow up the fabric with high explosive, with horror. Others would pull down with the crowbars and with cranks--especially with cranks. . . . Sweating, slums, the sense of semi-slavery in labour, must go. We must cultivate a sense of manhood by treating men as men.

  David Lloyd George

  Blow, Men, Fabric

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations". Compiled by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt and Kate Louise Roberts, 1922.

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• Did you get the new iPhone yet? The iPhone that I have is outdated. It has two pieces and a hand crank.

  David Letterman

  Iphone, Hands, Two

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• Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides.

  John Milton

  Sports, Laughter, Nymphs

  John Milton, John Hunter (1864). “Milton's Comus, L'allegro, and Il Penseroso: With Numerous Illustrative Notes &c”, p.59

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• Dr. Arnold . . . the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Reading, School

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.161, Psychology Press

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• Although millions of Americans purr with pastel delusions of Mohandas K. Gandhi, those who actually live in the scrawny crank's homeland struggle to throw off the painful aftermath of his quackery.

  Emmett Tyrrell

  Travel, Struggle, Home

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• When I was in my early 20s, my dream was to write mystery novels. I wanted to do what my favourite crime writer, Ross Macdonald, did - crank out a book a year. The only problem - and it was a considerable one - was that I stank.

  Linwood Barclay

  Dream, Book, Writing

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• By now, a million pedal strokes have etched the muscles in my legs with a single purpose: to power the crank and move the bicycle forward. Food flows into my body, bringing it power and strength. It is no longer a question of struggle. Now the journey evolves into the spiritual realm-where the pedaling becomes instinctive. It's a free-flow of energy that comes through my body and willingly expresses itself in the flight of the pedals.

  Frosty Wooldridge

  Spiritual, Travel, Struggle

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