Richard Ernst Quotes

Irrationality interests me more than anything: sometimes it's very dangerous, but it can be incredibly beautiful.

If you're not concerned about maintaining an image, you can pursue roads that another actor might not take.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

Some of the best ideas that we've invested in have made no sense to conventional sources.

There's a creative freedom with being under the radar. But I guess if you're too under the radar, you get canceled?

I'm drawn in some strangely natural way to immersing myself in a milieu whose rules I don't understand, where there are things you can't access simply by being intelligent or doing well in school.

I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!

You know, I hate to give advice because my life has been so odd that almost nothing that's happened to me can apply.

To me, crazy is not someone who has a creative vision and will fight for it.

Most great entrepreneurs I know are nothing like the other kids. They're almost like tangent lines - those lines that seem to go nowhere. Nothing connects them, until they get out in the real world. Then they connect just fine.

I thin many people's deviant behavior starts with dreams because dreams are so non-linear... as if there's an assumption that everything has to be linear or has to be plotted.

It's important to have people who will say to you that you're really off the beaten track.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

When people tell you to walk a certain way, it's like not thinking of a purple tomato. You can't not do it.

In the world of musical theatre, if everyone says it's a good idea, you wonder why nobody has done it before.

A lot of folks feel like my brother and me or other politicians chart out their careers from Day 1 until the end. I've never been like that.

I've always been interested in exploring difficult subjects for the mainstream.

I do everything all wrong, but I think for me that's the best, because I don't think I have a voice.

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

Some films I say no to and they end up working very well, but I don't care, I just want to do something exciting.

In the same way, there is some creature gnawing away inside of me, urging me to do things in different ways.

To rally every black sheep is my goal.

Caltech is a very adventurous place. Part of the culture is that we tolerate people doing things that seem impossible, and also synthesizing and borrowing ideas across very kooky and unusual boundaries.

There is something inherently valuable about being a misfit. It's not to say that every person who has artistic talent was a social outcast, but there is definitely a value for identifying yourself differently and being proud that you are different.

Usually the wacky people have the breakthroughs. The 'smart' people don't.