What If Quotes - Page 15

• Pretty much up until The West Wing, our leaders had always been portrayed in popular culture as either Machiavellian or dolts. But I thought, "What if we show a group of people who are highly competent, they're going to lose as much as they win, but we're going to understand that they wake up every morning wanting to do good?" That was really the spirit behind The West Wing.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Morning, Winning, People

  "The Definitive History Of The West Wing: Part 2. Inauguration". www.empireonline.com.

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• Expectations are usually predicated on the idea that the everyday things that happen to ordinary people shouldn't happen to you. People hold the idea of being ordinary in absolute contempt, so when they face an illness, poverty, or any kind of catastrophe, they say, "I can't believe this happened to me." And who did you think it was going to happen to - the woman across the street? It makes them think, "I must be on the wrong path." But what if something you thought was bad was the best thing that ever happened to you? What if that was part of your path?

  Caroline Myss

  Believe, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: www.oprah.com

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• I don't have much to complain about in life, because I've lived a very privileged existence and continue to. I just think, What if I didn't have that confidence or strength of character, and I was left with certain perceptions of what a woman's place is in the world?

  Laura Marling

  Character, Thinking, Perception

  Source: www.mtv.com

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• Having been brought up among the biologists and having followed various debates about ways to improve the human template and other debates about the true nature of our nature, I began seriously to wonder: What if? We hold in our hands a tool that is more powerful - for good or ill - than any we have wielded before.

  Margaret Atwood

  Powerful, Hands, Tools

  "Unscripted: Margaret Atwood Interview". Interview With Paul D. Miller, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I think wars, climate change, all that stuff is going to move people. And so I wanted to say, "What if the migration apocalypse occurs and it isn't an apocalypse at all?" Maybe we will still find ways to be happy and for our children and grandchildren to thrive and the world to move on.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Children, War, Moving

  Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

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• Henry Blodget says, "It is not clear what, if any, power and influence [Steven Lerner] currently wields. His main message - that Wall Street won the financial crisis, that inequality in this country is hitting record levels, and that there appears to be no other way to stop the trend - will almost certainly resonate."

  Rush Limbaugh

  Country, Wall, Records

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• ["Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas"] is a very hard book to translate to film because there's so much interior monologue. The what if factor. I tried to write it cinematically and let the dialogue carry it but I forgot about the interior monologue. It's kind of hard to show what's going on in the head. I think we should do it like a documentary.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.fargonebooks.com

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• We are so defined by how people see us. We're a very materialistic culture. We're a very image-driven culture. What if that goes away and you are left with, God help us, what, indeed, is your essential self?

  Christine Baranski

  Self, People, Essentials

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Maybe one thing that has happened is that the claims of non-partisanship of the mainstream media have been a little bit exploded. Mostly I'd say what, if anything has caused the change, are just the obvious technological changes - proliferation of easier access to getting your opinions out and the proliferation of media.

  William Kristol

  Media, Technological Change, Littles

  Source: www.chicagomaroon.com

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• I'm convinced that imagination is at the heart of everything we do - in art, science, even astrophysics and higher mathematics. Imagination leads us to ask, "What if?"

  Lloyd Alexander

  Art, Imagination, Mathematics

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• Reading Homicide by David Simon was the first time I said, "What if this was in a world of superheroes?" That was a very good idea. What if Chinatown took place in a world of superheroes, that became Jessica Jones. Just things that I love, you can match up the genres and have fun with it, those moments.

  Brian Michael Bendis

  Fun, Reading, Love You

  Source: www.fanbolt.com

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• When you're on a lower-budget film, with one guy who maybe has a camera strapped to him, you're a much bigger part of that pie. You can be a sliver in a big Hollywood movie, but you can be a quarter of that indie movie pie. And I feel like, first of all, there is a real freedom that you feel from that, because it's like, you know what, if this is terrible, nobody's gonna ever see it, so I can be more brave.

  Cynthia Nixon

  Real, Guy, Brave

  Source: www.buzzfeed.com

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• But when I learned about the dangers of rejection or attack, I thought, it's time to change this. What if we faced any pain we had caused each other and, instead of rejection or attack, could we listen? Could we forgive? Could we merge?

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Pain, Rejection, Forgiving

  "Elizabeth Lesser: Why Is It So Hard To Ask For - And Offer - Forgiveness?". "TED Radio Hour" with Guy Raz, wglt.org. May 12, 2017.

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• Quite often governments are one way and the people are another. You can't judge the many by the actions of a few. What if Americans were all judged by the actions of the Bush administration and people did not know the truth? That America is full of people who are, at present, poorly represented and poorly catered to by the media. All these places I go, people say that America is good and I'm like, "Well, thank you, I'm glad you can see it." And you know - we are good, we've just got work to do.

  Henry Rollins

  People, Judging, Action

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I'm not going to make a judgment on plastic surgery because I don't have to yet. I mean, I'd like to think I'll feel great about myself and age gracefully, but then I think, Well, what if I do want a little bit of something? I'm open to being open.

  Jennifer Lopez

  Mean, Thinking, Age

  Source: www.glamour.com

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• The kind of influence you want is a much deeper influence. It's like empowerment. Things are like this, but what if they were like that? What happens if you turn everything inside out? It's something that not just artists do. I think scientists do that, too. There's a theory: What if we pour water on it? That's also what a child does. If a child came in now, the child would ignore us, go under the table, and make a house.

  Vito Acconci

  Children, Thinking, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Sustainability has become a religion in architecture - not that there's anything wrong with it - but I think it has to work both ways. Everyone thinks architecture has to be subservient to sustainability, but what if we thought in the other direction, like, what can sustainability do to make architecture more exciting?

  Vito Acconci

  Thinking, Architecture, Sustainability

  Source: www.revelinnewyork.com

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• I think, Trump ran a very nostalgic campaign. There's an idea of like, to put it bluntly: What if it was like before all our kids got strung out on drugs? You know, what if it was like that? Make America like that.

  Craig Finn

  Kids, Thinking, Drug

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• What if everything in a museum is crap? It's entirely possible; it's not the end of the world.

  David Salle

  World, End Of The World, Crap

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Let's ask the question, what if reincarnation was real? Think about all the possibilities that that opens up and all the stories we could tell. I have learned to be incredibly open-minded about it. I've learned that there is an entire world of people out there who are fascinated by this stuff.

  David Hudgins

  Real, Thinking, People

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• Vegans and vegetarians are commonly baited by nonvegetarians with "what if" scenarios that typically have no relevance to or bearing on most people's real-life situations.

  Joanne Stepaniak

  Real, Vegetarianism, People

  Joanne Stepaniak (2000). “Being Vegan”, McGraw Hill Professional

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• I'm convinced that sending people to Mars is so expensive that if you go once and bring the people back and then go again and bring the people back, we're eventually going to run out of money. But what if we send people the first time and they don't come back? What if they stay there?

  Buzz Aldrin

  Running, People, Mars

  "Buzz Aldrin Is Not All That "Impressed With Walking on the Moon" by Eric Spitznagel, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 25, 2010.

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• What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Real, Media, Living Right

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• We've been told there's a certain way to live ... that this is living ... and we ... we never really questioned it. We just sort of went along. But what if it's not the best way? What if there's another way that's better? What if there's something more?!

  Walter Wykes

  Life, Way To Live, Certain

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• God made the world, My Lord, and looked at it, and saw that it was good. Yes. But what if the world had looked back at him, to see whether he was good or not?

  Isak Dinesen

  World, Saws, Lord

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.34, Vintage

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