Marvel Interviews Quotes

There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

There's a marvelous peace in not publishing, there's a stillness. When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don't publish, they don't know what you're doing. You can keep it for yourself.

Interviewer: What surprises you in life? Nabokov: ...the marvel of consciousness- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night of non-being.

Thus terminating the interview, during which both ladies had trembled very much, and been marvellously polite--certain indications that they were within an inch of a very desperate quarrel...

To think that you dared—to think that my—my noble boy—" "He wasn't very noble. Mothers don't ever really know their sons, I think." "Shameless girl!" cried Mrs. Morrison, so loud, so completely beside herself, that Priscilla hastily rang her bell... "Open the door for this lady," she said to Annalise, who appeared with a marvellous promptitude; and as Mrs. Morrison still stood her ground and refused to see either Annalise or the door Priscilla ended the interview by walking out herself, with great dignity, into the bathroom.

In a famous interview with Emil Ludwig, Mussolini reiterated his view that “America has a dictator” in FDR. In an essay written for American audiences, he marveled at how the forces of “spiritual renewal” were destroying the outdated notion that democracy and liberalism were “immortal principles.” “America itself is abandoning them. Roosevelt is moving, acting, giving orders independently of the decisions or wishes of the Senate or Congress. There are no longer intermediaries between him and the nation.

You know, the sound of a 45 rpm record being played at 33 rpm. But as soon as I remembered that this is a CD and not vinyl, I could only marvel at the fact that these guys are so gol-darned HEAVY [author’s emphasis].”25 In an interview with the now-defunct influential extreme hardcore band Lärm, a band member recalls an incident in which the band’s definition of music collided with a sound engineer’s more mainstream ditto: “The sound check of our first concert ever was funny, the PA guy kept asking us when we were actually going to play a song…we already played three, we said.He shut down the PA and left…

Self-Management If you can read just one book on motivation—yours and others: Dan Pink, Drive If you can read just one book on building new habits: Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit If you can read just one book on harnessing neuroscience for personal change: Dan Siegel, Mindsight If you can read just one book on deep personal change: Lisa Lahey and Bob Kegan, Immunity to Change If you can read just one book on resilience: Seth Godin, The Dip Organizational Change If you can read just one book on how organizational change really works: Chip and Dan Heath, Switch If you can read just two books on understanding that change is a complex system: Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations Dan Pontefract, Flat Army Hear interviews with FREDERIC LALOUX, DAN PONTEFRACT, and JERRY STERNIN at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just one book on using structure to change behaviours: Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto If you can read just one book on how to amplify the good: Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin, The Power of Positive Deviance If you can read just one book on increasing your impact within organizations: Peter Block, Flawless Consulting Other Cool Stuff If you can read just one book on being strategic: Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, Playing to Win If you can read just one book on scaling up your impact: Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, Scaling Up Excellence If you can read just one book on being more helpful: Edgar Schein, Helping Hear interviews with ROGER MARTIN, BOB SUTTON, and WARREN BERGER at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just two books on the great questions: Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question Dorothy Strachan, Making Questions Work If you can read just one book on creating learning that sticks: Peter Brown, Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel, Make It Stick If you can read just one book on why you should appreciate and marvel at every day, every moment: Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything If you can read just one book that saves lives while increasing impact: Michael Bungay Stanier, ed., End Malaria (All money goes to Malaria No More; about $400,000 has been raised so far.) IF THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS, THEN WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS DO STUPID PEOPLE ASK?

By some quirk of fate, I had been chosen—along with five others—as a candidate to be the next equerry to the Princess of Wales. I knew little about what an equerry actually did, but I did not greatly care. I already knew I wanted to do the job. Two years on loan to the royal household would surely be good for promotion, and even if it was not, it had to be better than slaving in the Ministry of Defense, which was the most likely alternative. I wondered what it would be like to work in a palace. Through friends and relatives I had an idea it was not all red carpets and footmen. Running the royal family must involve a lot of hard work for somebody, I realized, but not, surely, for the type of tiny cog that was all I expected to be. In the wardroom of the frigate, alongside in Loch Ewe, news of the signal summoning me to London for an interview had been greeted with predictable ribaldry and a swift expectation that I therefore owed everybody several free drinks. Doug, our quiet American on loan from the U.S. Navy, spoke for many. He observed me in skeptical silence for several minutes. Then he took a long pull at his beer, blew out his mustache, and said, “Let me get this straight. You are going to work for Princess Di?” I had to admit it sounded improbable. Anyway, I had not even been selected yet. I did not honestly think I would be. “Might work for her, Doug. Only might. There’re probably several smooth Army buggers ahead of me in the line. I’m just there to make it look democratic.” The First Lieutenant, thinking of duty rosters, was more practical. “Whatever about that, you’ve wangled a week ashore. Lucky bastard!” Everyone agreed with him, so I bought more drinks. While these were being poured, my eye fell on the portraits hanging on the bulkhead. There were the regulation official photographs of the Queen and Prince Philip, and there, surprisingly, was a distinctly nonregulation picture of the Princess of Wales, cut from an old magazine and lovingly framed by an officer long since appointed elsewhere. The picture had been hung so that it lay between the formality of the official portraits and the misty eroticism of some art prints we had never quite got around to throwing away. The symbolic link did not require the services of one of the notoriously sex-obsessed naval psychologists for interpretation. As she looked down at us in our off-duty moments the Princess represented youth, femininity, and a glamour beyond our gray steel world. She embodied the innocent vulnerability we were in extremis employed to defend. Also, being royal, she commanded the tribal loyalty our profession had valued above all else for more than a thousand years, since the days of King Alfred. In addition, as a matter of simple fact, this tasty-looking bird was our future Queen. Later, when that day in Loch Ewe felt like a relic from another lifetime, I often marveled at the Princess’s effect on military people. That unabashed loyalty symbolized by Arethusa’s portrait was typical of reactions in messhalls and barracks worldwide. Sometimes the men gave the impression that they would have died for her not because it was their duty, but because they wanted to. She really seemed worth it.

As ever, Ruth could only marvel at Spence’s mix of ingenuity and shamelessness. She’d once heard him crowbar a sponsor mention into a moving interview with a man who’d been molested by an archbishop. Even this traumatised victim of systematic abuse had been amazed by the savings on offer at Mr Muffler all through May.

The absurdity of many UFO stories and of many religious visions is not a superficial logical mistake. It may be the key to their function. According to Major Murphy, the confusion in the UFO mystery may have been put there deliberately to achieve certain results. One of these results has been to keep scientists away. The other is to create the conditions for a new form of social control, a change in Man’s perception of his place in the universe. Are his theories fantastic? Before we decide, let us review a few other facts. We need to examine more closely the political connections. Paris Flammonde, in his well-documented Age of Flying Saucers, remarked that “a great many of the contactees purvey philosophies which are tinged, if not tainted, with totalitarian overtones.”1 A catalogue of contactee themes, compiled from interviews I have conducted, includes the following. Intellectual abdication. The widespread belief that human beings are incapable of solving their own problems, and that extraterrestrial intervention is imperative to save us “in spite of ourselves.” The danger in such a philosophy is that it makes its believers dependent on outside forces and discourages personal responsibility: why should we worry about the problems around us, if the Gods from Outer Space are about to solve them? Racist philosophy. The pernicious suggestion that some of us on the Earth are of extraterrestrial descent and therefore constitute a “higher race.” The dangers inherent in this belief should be obvious to anybody who hasn’t forgotten the genocides of World War II, executed on the premise that some races were somehow “purer” or better than others. (Let us note in passing that Adamski’s Venusian, the Stranger of the Canigou seen by Bordas, and many other alleged extraterrestrials were all tall Aryan types with long blond hair.) Technical impotence. The statement that the birth of civilization on this planet resulted not from the genius and ability of mankind, but from repeated assistance by higher beings. Archaeologists and anthropologists are constantly aware of the marvelous skill with which the “Ancient Engineers” (to use L. Sprague de Camp’s phrase) developed the tools of civilization on all continents. No appeal to superior powers is necessary to explain the achievements of early culture. The belief expressed by the contactees reveals a tragic lack of trust on their part in human ability. Social utopia. Fantastic economic theories, including the belief that a “world economy” can be created overnight, and that democracy should be abolished in favor of Utopian systems, usually dictatorial in their outlook.

They were all supposed to be listening to a Christmas broadcast by Mrs. Weasley’s favorite singer, Celestina Warbeck, whose voice was warbling out of the large wooden wireless set. Fleur, who seemed to find Celestina very dull, was talking so loudly in the corner that a scowling Mrs. Weasley kept pointing her wand at the volume control, so that Celestina grew louder and louder. Under cover of a particularly jazzy number called “A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love,” Fred and George started a game of Exploding Snap with Ginny. Ron kept shooting Bill and Fleur covert looks, as though hoping to pick up tips. Meanwhile, Remus Lupin, who was thinner and more ragged-looking than ever, was sitting beside the fire, staring into its depths as though he could not hear Celestina’s voice. Oh, come and stir my cauldron, And if you do it right, I’ll boil you up some hot strong love To keep you warm tonight. “We danced to this when we were eighteen!” said Mrs. Weasley, wiping her eyes on her knitting. “Do you remember, Arthur?” “Mphf?” said Mr. Weasley, whose head had been nodding over the satsuma he was peeling. “Oh yes . . . marvelous tune . . .” With an effort, he sat up a little straighter and looked around at Harry, who was sitting next to him. “Sorry about this,” he said, jerking his head toward the wireless as Celestina broke into the chorus. “Be over soon.” “No problem,” said Harry, grinning. “Has it been busy at the Ministry?” “Very,” said Mr. Weasley. “I wouldn’t mind if we were getting anywhere, but of the three arrests we’ve made in the last couple of months, I doubt that one of them is a genuine Death Eater — only don’t repeat that, Harry,” he added quickly, looking much more awake all of a sudden. “They’re not still holding Stan Shunpike, are they?” asked Harry. “I’m afraid so,” said Mr. Weasley. “I know Dumbledore’s tried appealing directly to Scrimgeour about Stan. . . . I mean, anybody who has actually interviewed him agrees that he’s about as much a Death Eater as this satsuma . . . but the top levels want to look as though they’re making some progress, and ‘three arrests’ sounds better than ‘three mistaken arrests

HB: Given all the theologies you were dealing with, did you receive any outraged letters? NG: I did; but most of them were from comics fans who felt I was creating cruel parodies of the Marvel Comics characters Thor, Loki, and Odin. [Laughter.] At the same time, I received quite a few letters from readers in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden who thanked me for portraying Norse gods accurately. All I really did was follow the actual legends. In Norse mythology, Thor is enormously strong, bearded, and overmuscled; and he’s also quite stupid, and is easily made drunk. And if you rub his hammer, it really does get bigger. [Laughter.] The legends also strongly imply that Thor’s wife is bonking Loki on the side.