Zero Quotes - Page 25

• Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Writing, Trying, Pages

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• The art of making love, muffled up in furs, in the open air, with the thermometer at Zero, is a Yankee invention.

  John Quincy Adams

  Art, Yankees, Air

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• It's a completely different situation right now because last year it was the time that nobody expected anything from me anything -- I had nothing to lose, basically I was starting from zero. And now I'm back in Top 5. And for me it's a different stage.

  Marat Safin

  Years, Different, Lasts

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• I believe the tax on capital gains should be zero.

  Mitt Romney

  Believe, Gains, Should

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• What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.

  Poul Anderson

  Book, Journey, Thinking

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• For Quality: Stamp out fires, automate, computerize, M.B.O., install merit pay, rank people, best efforts, zero defects. WRONG!!!! Missing ingredient: profound knowledge.

  W. Edwards Deming

  Knowledge, Fire, Best Effort

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• If a nonnegative quantity was so small that it is smaller than any given one, then it certainly could not be anything but zero. To those who ask what the infinitely small quantity in mathematics is, we answer that it is actually zero. Hence there are not so many mysteries hidden in this concept as they are usually believed to be. These supposed mysteries have rendered the calculus of the infinitely small quite suspect to many people. Those doubts that remain we shall thoroughly remove in the following pages, where we shall explain this calculus.

  Leonhard Euler

  Math, People, Doubt

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• If I know you're very good in music, I can predict with just about zero accuracy whether you're going to be good or bad in other things.

  Howard Gardner

  Judging, Very Good, Be Good

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• Those writers that have zero say in their movie adaptations have zero say because they sell it. If you don't sell it, and you do it yourself, and you wait until the screenplay is ready, you don't have to worry about that.

  Stephen Chbosky

  Worry, Waiting, Adaptation

  "Stephen Chbosky talks “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, Blu-ray extras, and his favorite teen films". Interview with Scott Neumyer, www.ifc.com. February 13, 2012.

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• It has been believed for a long time in Japan that things such as the constitution can never be changed. I say we should change our constitution now. The U.S. has amended its constitution six times, but Japan has done it zero times.

  Shinzo Abe

  Japan, Long, Done

  "The Patriot: Shinzo Abe Speaks to TIME". Interview with Nancy Gibbs and Hannah Beech, time.com. April 17, 2014.

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• We are entirely for the idea that Europe shall be free from nuclear weapons, from medium-range weapons as well as tactical weapons. That would be a real zero option.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Real, Europe, Ideas

  "Nuclear War: The Search for Solutions". Book by Leonard V. Johnson, 1985.

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• So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.

  Alan Lightman

  Life, Littles, Infinity

  Alan Lightman (2012). “Mr g: A Novel About the Creation”, p.27, Vintage

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• There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend.

  Alexander Cockburn

  World, Trends, Empirical Evidence

  "Is Global Warming a Sin?" by Alexander Cockburn, www.counterpunch.org. April 28, 2007.

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• When people write the history of this thing, of bitcoin, they are not going to write the story of 6 million to a billion. What is truly remarkable is the story of zero to 6 million. It has already happened! And we’re not paying attention! That’s incredible. That’s what had one chance in a million and it already happened.

  Wences Casares

  Writing, People, Attention

  "Meet the man building the Fort Knox of bitcoin". Interview with Ben Popper, www.theverge.com. August 29, 2014.

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• I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that's always amazing to me.

  Clint Eastwood

  Writing, Artist, Creative

  "Clint Eastwood, Cast, and Writers Talk JERSEY BOYS, Adapting the Broadway Musical, Finding the Actors, the Clever Director Cameo, and More". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. June 24, 2014.

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• I am a technophile, so there is no such thing as a first draft. The first draft plunges on, and about a quarter of the way through it I realise I'm doing things wrong, so I start rewriting it. What you call the first draft becomes rather like a caterpillar; it is progressing fairly slowly, but there is movement up and down its whole length, the whole story is being changed. I call this draft zero, telling myself how the story is supposed to go.

  Terry Pratchett

  Progress, Stories, Movement

  Source: www.theguardian.com

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• I think if we have a policy of zero violence, it won't be met, but the policy of getting the Iraqis in the fight and marginalizing those who are trying to stir up trouble will be effective.

  George W. Bush

  Fighting, Thinking, Trying

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• Confucius was not so much a philsopher as a proto-ideologist: what interested him was not metaphysical Truths but rather a harmonious social order within which individuals could lead happy and ethical lives. He was the first to outline clearly what one is tempted to call the elementary scene of ideology, its zero-level, which consists in asserting the (nameless) authority of some substantial Tradition.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Order, Levels, Firsts

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• The human brain cannot release enough neurotransmitters to feel emotion a thousand times as strong as the grief of one funeral. A prospective risk going from 10,000,000 deaths to 100,000,000 deaths does not multiply by ten the strength of our determination to stop it. It adds one more zero on paper for our eyes to glaze over.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Determination, Strong, Grief

  "Global Catastrophic Risks". Chapter: "Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks". Book edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic, 2008.

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• In a zero-sum game, the problem is entirely one of distribution, not at all one of production.

  Kenneth Waltz

  Games, Problem, Distribution

  Kenneth N. Waltz (2013). “Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis”, p.202, Columbia University Press

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• Anyone who loves the concept of Zero Harm obviously has nothing to love

  Dave Collins

  Safety, Harm, Concepts

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• Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force

  W. Edwards Deming

  Lying, Safety, Quality

  W. Edwards Deming, Joyce (edited by) Orsini (2012). “The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality”, McGraw Hill Professional

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• In the specific case of abortion, the matter is particularly easy in that no woman wants a late abortion. Once abortion was made legal, the age of the aborted fetus went down. The slope slipped in the other direction. If we legalize RU-486 and other similar new drugs, the age will fall to one week or less and start approaching zero. The slippery slope will slide in the other direction. The only reason we have late abortions is because we make early abortion difficult.

  Garrett Hardin

  Fall, Abortion, Drug

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• I'd shoot zero percent before I'd shoot underhanded.

  Shaquille O'Neal

  Basketball, Free Throw, Percent

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• I was a huge Sub-Zero guy, but the fact that you can download Freddy Krueger is the coolest thing I've heard of in a very long time.

  CM Punk

  Long, Guy, Facts

  "CM Punk talks Rock, Austin, 'WWE 12'". Interview with Jon Robinson, www.espn.com. November 23, 2011.

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