Quality vs. Quantity, Quality vs Quantity Quotes

The Americans' 'open-mindedness', which is sometimes cited in their favor, is the other side of their interior formlessness. The same goes for their 'individualism'. Individualism and personality are not the same: the one belongs to the formless world of quantity, the other to the world of quality and hierarchy. The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, "I think, therefore I am": Americans do not think, yet they are. The American 'mind', puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardization.

Better is the enemy of good.

We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.

One mediocre general is better than two good ones.

At 18, I wanted to work with the creme de la creme because I thought that was the only way to be successful. But I don't think any A-lister has done as many B-grade films as I have.

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.

I don't care if something's from Primark or Prada, it's about if you like it, wear it.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

Just because it sparkles doesn't mean it's good.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

You can just start shooting things and see how it goes. But time is still money, so you have to know when you are finished. It's not like painting a picture which you could go on refining for 20 years - with a film you have to stop at some point, and that is no bad thing.

There is no reason why the Louvre should be your favourite gallery just because it has the grandest collections in France, any more than Kew should necessarily be a favourite garden because it has the largest assemblage of plants, or Tesco your chosen shop because it has the widest variety of canned beans.

There's no record that you done heard me produce that I spent more than ten minutes on.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

As we grow up, it feels like you should either invite people into your life or not. There should be fewer and fewer instances of friends you 'can only take in small doses.'

The first, that their pretensions to this possession of an art properly so called in their art of speaking are entirely unfounded; and the second, that they are involved in a profound mistake in their confusion of the good with the pleasant.

I've always felt that, when I looked at my tombstone, it shouldn't say, 'Mehmet Oz banged out 10,000 open-heart operations.' I've probably done 5,000. Am I any better at it than 10,000? He shook his head. It's just a different number on the tombstone.

When I'm working on a book, I try to do eight pages a week. That seems like a good amount. Less than that, I'm not getting a nice momentum, and more than that, I'm probably putting out too much crap.

There's a tendency in this Hollywood machinery to take on too much. You end up not being able to give everything you want.

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.

I believe in good films and bad films. Box-office business and all is my husband's section. Sometimes I really get surprised when good films don't do well... Sometimes you are really shocked when an average film does very well.

We turn to quantities when we can't compare the qualities of things.

I really don't want the best people at the highest cost.

I was a late bloomer. I was 38 when my first book was out and 43 when my first crime novel was out. I had a story that could only be told as a crime story. I think the genre is good; it deals with the fundamental questions of life and death. The problem is there are too many bad crime stories.