1982 Quotes

“Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three feet. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.”
― Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

“The humble rarely brag about accomplishments because they are typically significant, and their mannerism is one of confidence; but those with low self-esteem have developed a character of conceit and deception. You’re thinking of one now.”
― R.J. Intindola

“Granting that there is some truth to the theory that defects in society give rise to the emergence of criminals, I still maintain that those who use this theory as a defense of criminality are overlooking the fact that there are many people in this defective society who survive without resorting to crime. The argument to the contrary is pure sophistry.”
― Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

“The censors were so far gone as to find the following sentence obscene: 'The factory gate waited for the student workers, thrown open in longing.' What can I say? This obscenity verdict was handed down by a censor in response to my script for my 1944 film about a girls' volunteer corps, Ichiban utsukushiku (The Most Beautiful). I could not fathom what it was he found to be obscene about this sentence. Probably none of you can either. But for the mentally disturbed censor this sentence was unquestionably obscene. He explained that the word 'gate' very vividly suggested to him the vagina! For these people suffering from sexual manias, anything and everything made them feel carnal desire. Because they were obscene themselves, everything seen through their obscene eyes naturally became obscene. Nothing more or less than a case of sexual pathology.”
― Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

“One does not learn computing by using a hand calculator, but one can forget arithmetic. Perlis 1982”
― Alan J. Perlis

“Let me put it this way. Canada is not so much a country as a holding tank filled with the disgruntled progeny of defeated peoples.”
― Mordecai Richler

“Plainly it is not every error made by a witness which affects his credibility. In each case the trier of fact has to make an evaluation; taking into account such matters as the nature of the contradictions, their number and importance, and their bearing on other parts of the witness's evidence.”
― H.C. Nicholas

“Clara habitaba un universo inventado para ella, protegida de las inclemencias de la vida, donde se confundían la verdad prosaica de las cosas materiales con la verdad tumultosa de los sueños.”
― Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits

“If the Emperor had not delivered his [15 August 1945] address urging the Japanese people to lay down their swords—if that speech had been a call instead for the Honorable Death of the Hundred Million—those people on that street in Sōshigaya probably would have done what they were told and died. And probably I would have done likewise. The Japanese see self-assertion as immoral and self-sacrifice as the sensible course to take in life. We were accustomed to this teaching and had never thought to question it.”
― Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

“Added to the exigencies of structure are the necessities developing about the recurring characters in any [television] series. These types must remain stable enough for audience identification and development of residual personality, yet they are also responsible for satisfying the constant demand for variety. Irwin Blacker indicates the problem of developing character as one of the difficulties of creating a classic Western in the television format. If the story is to have any significance, says Blacker, the people in it must change; yet in a Western series the hero cannot risk change. The writer, therefore, must continually use "guest" characters who are able to develop, change, or die within the context of the weekly episode while the hero functions as a catalyst in that action. This constraint, though preventing the series from developing into a significant drama, achieves a twofold purpose necessary to the continuing story: the variety of secondary plots and character retains audience interest; the stability of the continually developing (but basically unchanging) residual personality of the hero sustains audience loyalty.”
― Rita Parks, The Western Hero in Film and Television: Mass Media Mythology

“Being gay was illegal in the UK until 1982, you could go to jail for it!”
― Steven Magee