Would-be Quotes
Business is war! Its leaders are strategic commanders, who boldly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat - and who perform other acts of derring-do. This kind of talk sounds great in the boardroom, and, for that matter, in the bookstore, where dozens of authors counsel would-be corporate warriors.
Nathan Myhrvold
A novelist has to enter deeper exile still. In most outward ways the experience was depressive, as many young would-be writers and painters who have ever gone to Greece have discovered. We used to have a nickname for the sense of inadequacy and accidie it produced – the ‘Aegean blues'. One has to be a very complete artist to create good work among the purest and most balanced landscapes on the planet...The Greece of the Islands is Circe still; no place for the artist-voyager to linger long, if he cares for his soul.
John Fowles
So now, for mercy and honor shown to my people, my lord is barbarous; a tyrant, because he punished his would-be murderers, the right of their meanest citizen; a mere vaunting soldier, though wherever he went he brought Greece with him, the Greece he honored, of which these liars are the unworthy heirs.
Mary Renault
About ancient mathematics (whether Greek or Mesopotamian) and medieval mathematics (Western or Oriental), the would-be historian must of necessity confine himself to the description of a comparatively small number of islands accidentally emerging from an ocean of ignorance, and to tenuous conjectural reconstructions of the submerged continents which at one time must have bridged the gaps between them.
André Weil
Crooning. A reprehensible form of singing that established itself in light entertainment music in about the 1930s. It recommended itself at first to would-be singers without voices who were unable to acquire an adequate technique and later to a large public because anything, however inartistic, is likely to become popular if only it is done often enough by a large enough number of people.
Eric Blom
We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some cowering child. Never fear contradiction, Cutter, it is the very heart of diversity.
Steven Erikson
The capacity for self-deception, rarely acknowledged or understood by those who offer us supernatural answers to our problems, is huge: as easy as it is to make a medium's cold-reading statements ‘fit' our own situation and come to believe that he must have some paranormal insight, it is hardly any more difficult for a would-be psychic with an average ego, upon hearing frequently positive feedback, to believe over time that he must be blessed with a special gift. It's harder to think you're doing it for real when you're tossing tambourines in the dark or have ready-made ectoplasm stuffed into your mouth or bottom.
Derren Brown
It was in old days, with our learned men, an interesting and oft-investigated question, "What is the origin of light?" and the solution of it has been repeatedly attempted, with no other result than to crowd our lunatic asylums with the would-be solvers. Hence, after fruitless attempts to suppress such investigations indirectly by making them liable to a heavy tax, the Legislature, in comparatively recent times, absolutely prohibited them.
Edwin Abbott Abbott
The only thing as bad as bad comedy is bad action. Bad Boys II has plenty of both. In fact, those two things are all it has, unless you count the small helping of bad drama. When it comes to this movie, the word "bad" initially seems highly appropriate. But Bad Boys II isn't just bad - it's a catastrophic violation of every aspect of cinema that I as a film critic hold dear. It seems to have been constructed with terms like "unwatchable" and "godawful" as its slogans. There are motion picture failures every year - the resumes of Hollywood players are littered with them. But, when something this big - a would-be blockbuster with recognizable names in the cast and crew - collapses in such a spectacular fashion, it's worth taking note. Think of how many starving children could have been fed with the money that was poured into [director] Michael Bay's latest sinkhole.
James Berardinelli