Quotes About Insight

I feel like actors, having spent a lot of time on movie sets, tend to make decent directors, because they've been there, they know what they're doing, they've seen it done right, they've seen it done wrong, and they feel comfortable. There's not a lot of chin-scratching and wondering what your next move is.

If I'm feeling desperate, I'll go out image-hunting. I'll go to news agents and stand at the rack flicking through magazines or go to second-hand bookshops. And then, bit by bit, like concrete poetry, I start to realise that I am drawn to particular things, and then I start wondering why that is.

Writing is the thing that pervades my whole day - I'm always wondering how I might describe something or improve my understanding. I'm constantly trying to remember an eavesdropped conversation or an idea for a story.

The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.

Part of me wonders what it would have been like to have had my first experience of India in a normal way, rather than through the eyes of a film.

Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.

Originally I wanted somewhere to set my short stories about the sort of people I recognise having grown up with. Carnbeg was staring me in the face all the time, only I had somehow failed to see that. Not seeing the wood for the trees, I suppose.

Sometimes it's best to speak from ignorance: that way, you can see the wood without being distracted by the trees.

You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.

As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.

It seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!

Woody says I can make jokes, but I don't get them - I'm always looking deeper for the meanings.

It took me little more than two years to complete my film, 'Woody Allen: A Documentary.' I conducted hours of filmed interviews with Woody, who put forward no ground rules about questions I could ask, or topics to avoid.

My parents wouldn't have sent me out into the world with wool over my eyes. You have to be aware, or you'll be swallowed.

A word to the wise is enough.

People go to school and get educated, but most people who go to school and become a graduate in eduation still don't know what the word 'education' means... 'Educo' means to bring out.

Insight into character comes from listening intently to the spoken word. The physical person, their charisma, charm and dramatic flair is more often used to persuade audiences, as they use these stealth tools of disguise and deception.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

It's appropriate that the word 'ignorance' is an extension of the word 'ignore.' We ignore so much and so we become ignore-ant.

Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is 'naive' spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of 'bonsai.'

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

Traditionally, wake-up calls are meant to wake you up rather than send you to sleep: the clue is in the wording. But those who talk of wake-up calls tend to have an easy-going way with words.

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.'