Quotes About Insight

As a former CEO and senior executive, there was a time when I did not quite understand the profound impact a CEO has on the culture of a company, even though I always knew culture was important.

It seems to me that we are profoundly ignorant of ourselves.

Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about other human beings, and to experience something of their lives. This has always been so - look at the Bible, crammed with biographies, very popular reading.

Sometimes when a thing hits you, it hits you in levels, and the reality of what's happening has been a progression for me.

The best project is one that asks a novel question.

I want another idea, another project, but you can't make them up. They show up.

I've seen 'Babel' four times. And each time I realize anew what a monumental project that had been for me.

When we can see things as they are, without projecting our mental models and fears, we are being objective. When we can understand and consider another person's point of view, we are being objective.

Being behind the lens gives me a completely different perspective, and because of my blog, I get to do projects and attend shows lending me another angle.

I only get involved with projects as a producer if I feel creatively inspired.

I am more prolific when I have something to respond to. I get my juice from people and real stories and things that seem common but are amazing.

I made myself a promise that every time I turned on the microphone, no matter what it was, I was going to say something of value.

At Plymouth I wrote 'Neil Warnock's Wembley Way', a one-year diary, to show people what being a manager was like. I got lucky as the year ended with us winning promotion through the play-offs at Wembley.

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.

We've all faced the charge that our novels are history lite, and to some extent, that's true. Yet for some, historical fiction is a way into reading history proper.

The more you learn, if you learn it properly, the more clear you become and the more you know.

If you do your job properly you usually learn a lot from any role you do.

Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.

People think I'm some kind of prophet, but I'm not someone who gets my information from the ether. I've been given the coordinates about how things work.

I am not a prophet.

Jesus of Nazareth was a poet, no less than a prophet, of pre-eminent genius.

Historians are prophets of the past, not of the future.

If you are a speechwriter, you have to know what the person you're writing for thinks. A lot of foreign policy advisers are thinking, 'How can I get my proposal into this guy's speech?' I was just thinking, 'What does he want to say?'

Honestly, I have heard a lot in my 16 years as a prosecutor.