David Chalmers Quotes

What I didn't expect was 'VIP' becoming something of a cult and one of my biggest hits.

Yes, there was a sort of underground cult following, which came from nowhere, and grew, and grew. It was quite surprising to us all, because all of us had spent probably the previous five to ten years without it. So it was quite overwhelming. Overwhelming and humbling.

Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality.

If you do an experiment and it gives you what you did not expect, it is a discovery.

I know what I like when I see it, but no way have I ever become interested in learning about it.

I've had projects before where everyone says 'This is going to be the big thing,' and it doesn't really turn out to be. Then there is a little project you do and forget about, and then it comes out, and it's huge.

I don't know why my shoes are so popular - I am always surprised and mystified by it.

It never occurred to me that it would be a big hit internationally and forever.

I don't think any of us could have possibly anticipated how successful Mad Men has been. When we were working on the pilot, we loved it. We thought it was special. We hoped and prayed it'd be a success. But, we didn't count on it.

The success of the second 'Austin Powers' caught us by surprise a little bit. We had decided not to do even a second one, unless the audience wanted it and we could do something better.

Take the perspective of a journalist or scientist. Really study what's around you. What are people wearing, what do the interiors of buildings look like, what noises do you hear? If you bring your analytical powers to bear, you can make almost anything interesting.

You never know what's going to happen sometimes, or what you think's going to happen never happens, or when you least expect it, the Santana record comes along and just blows up.

I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did.

I had no idea 'Big Green Tractor' was going to be as big a hit as it was. You just can't predict those things.

I don't really try to predict what can and will happen with things. Sometimes you think something's gonna be a huge success, and it isn't. And sometimes you pay no attention to something whatsoever, and God just makes it into everything.

I'm inspired by looking at art, by looking at precedent. Looking is what you have to do if you want to make things, so you develop a critical eye.

I'm a writer, not an activist. My job is to analyse things, to think them through and examine them.

Yogi seemed to be doing everything wrong, yet everything came out right.

I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual.

I think I got really lucky with Slacker. That was a film that probably shouldn't have been seen.

The beginnings of science have often the appearance of chance. A felicitous accident throws a certain natural fact under the notice of an inquiring and philosophic mind.

The true man of science - will smell, taste, see, hear better than other men.

For me, the biggest successes I've ever had were the ones I never counted on. I never thought my first big record would be a hit. I thought it was an average song.

Every time you wanted to do something, you'd hope it would score. You'd keep trying and trying, and all of the sudden, something would come right out of left field, like 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' No one had any idea about that one.

Keeping one's eyes open, listening, watching, being quiet, adopting some of the techniques of the psychoanalyst in talking to people, will bring you that surface from which something more comes.