Provocative Quotes - Page 3

• Evil is just sort of ultimately boring. The good thing is just complicated. It's more provocative to me and more stimulating to me.

  Toni Morrison

  Evil, Complicated, Boring

  Source: wordmag.com

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• Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.

  Don Rickles

  Kids, Controversial, Shows

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• I once said to a boy, ‘You’re a really good kisser,’ and he said, ‘You’re only as good as the person you’re kissing.' I think it’s the same with the music. If someone [says], ‘Your music is really provocative,’ I’m only as provocative as the person that’s listening to it.

  FKA twigs

  Kissing, Boys, Thinking

  "FKA Twigs Is a Woman of Mystery -- And She Likes It That Way" by Devon Maloney, www.billboard.com. August 18, 2014.

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• Atheism Explained is a gem. It is clear, informative, well-argued, provocative, often witty, and unfailingly interesting. David Ramsay Steele ranges over so many issues that I should be surprised if he were right about everything, but it makes for a most stimulating read. The book is in a different league from Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, and deserves much greater success.

  Jeremy Shearmur

  Witty, Book, Issues

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• David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original, and consistently excellent North American director of his generation.

  J. Hoberman

  Directors, Generations, Excellent

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• Facts are, insurance ratings are really dependent on the notion that some people are higher risk than others.

  Patrick J. Kennedy

  People, Risk, Facts

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• To find a script that works with provocative ideas is hard to find.

  John McTiernan

  Ideas, Scripts, Hard

  "The Stax Report: Script Review Of Rollerball". www.ign.com. July 14, 2000.

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• Donna E. Smyth - adventures with words; she is always doing something new and unique. Beginning with her visceral morality, her stories are startling, nerve wracking, provocative: she combines Angela Carter's beautiful style with Patricia Highsmith's malevolent atmospheres. Smyth shatters clichs and dismisses mere sociology. She knows that pleasure is besieged by terror. She tells us what we don't want to know, but need to know. Smyth's writing disturbs us, enrichingly, because truth can never be at peace with language.

  George Elliott Clarke

  Beautiful, Writing, Adventure

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• The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus taught his students that what happens to them is not as important as what they believe happens to them. In this engaging and provocative book, Eldon Taylor provides his readers with specific ways in which their beliefs can lead to success or failure in their life undertakings. Each chapter provides nuggets of wisdom as well as road maps for guiding them toward greater self-understanding, balance, responsibility, and compassion.

  Stanley Krippner

  Book, Believe, Responsibility

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• The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

  Vladimir Putin

  Demise, Unions, Century

  Speech on national TV, April 25, 2005.

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• Religious symbols should be visible in public space, in a dignified and non-provocative manner. Christmas trees here, Jewish menorahs there and, further along, a minaret - these symbols represent human life in all its diversity.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Religious, Space, Diversity

  "Calming our fears" by Tariq Ramadan, www.theguardian.com. January 2, 2007.

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• It is true that I am often startled and even angered and repulsed by the strange directions and provocative content of new forms that seem to pop up every few months.

  David Rockefeller

  Months, Strange, Form

  David Rockefeller (2002). “Memoirs”, Random House Incorporated

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• I like the most provocative and most surprising partnerships on stage. Intensity and surprise.

  Mikhail Baryshnikov

  Dance, Surprise, Partnership

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• Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.

  Ronald Reagan

  Funny, Vacation, Unemployment

  Ronald Reagan (1968). “I goofed: the wise and curious sayings of Ronald Reagan, 33rd Governor of California”

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• Irene Diamond's Fertile Ground is a provocative book. It stirs me to vigorous assent. It also triggers wide-eyed disbelief. . . . As it prods me to explosions of disagreement, it also provokes useful thought.

  Janet Lembke

  Book, Explosions, Triggers

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• I think this show I'm going to do,' Awake,' if it's done well, will not only be provocative and entertaining, but help people. I want to do that.

  Jason Isaacs

  Thinking, People, Done

  "Jason Isaacs: 'I like being anonymous'". Interview with Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. June 19, 2011.

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• Our aims are absolutely clear: They are a high living standard in the country and a secure, free and comfortable life.

  Vladimir Putin

  Country, Standards, Aim

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• The democratic choice Russian people made in the early 90's is final.

  Vladimir Putin

  People, Choices, Finals

  "Putin in Brazil for Space Talks". Interview with Brazilian media, news.bbc.co.uk. November 22, 2004.

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• Carla Hesse has given us an astonishing new look at women's struggle for independent expression and moral autonomy during the French Revolution and afterward. Denied the political and civil rights of men, literary women plunged into the expanded world of publication, answering the men's philosophical treatises with provocative novels about women's choices and chances. Lively and learned, The Other Enlightenment links women from Madame de Stael to Simone de Beauvoir in an alternate and daring path to the modern.

  Natalie Zemon Davis

  Philosophical, Struggle, Independent

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• I don't like to be provocative for the sake of being provocative.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Sake

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• I've always had an interest in the fashion industry. Fashion advertising and lifestyle branding has always been intriguing and provocative to me. It's not just clothing or style that I had interest in, it was more the marketing side of things that I had intrigue in.

  Ashley Purdy

  Fashion, Style, Marketing

  Source: marleymagazine.com

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• I like to be provocative.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• I always thought I was funny, but I was very sensitive, and very provocative just to get a rise out of people.

  Marc Maron

  People, Sensitive

  Interview with Kyle Dowling, www.believermag.com.

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• I hate the idea that you have to give up anything. I think you can be powerful and still be provocative, you can be smart and have a softness, you can have all of it.

  Michael Kors

  Giving Up, Powerful, Hate

  "Michael Kors Talks Kim Kardashian and Bar Mitzvah Fashion in Shanghai". Interview with Alice Pfeiffer, www.elle.com. May 14, 2014.

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• A horse perceives eye contact as provocative, as if it and its status in the herd are not being respected. If it cannot avoid eye contact, it will react in a different way, by rebelling for example. In dressage you don't get anywhere by not showing respect, however superior your species might be. Any animal trainer can tell you that. In the mountains in Argentina there's a wild horse which will jump off the nearest precipice if any human tries to ride it.

  Jo Nesbo

  Horse, Eye, Animal

  Jo Nesbo (2010). “The Oslo Trilogy: The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star”, p.164, Random House

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