Edwin Catmull Quotes

Bad things happen when people work together. Everything goes out of control.

Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.

A fool can throw a stone in a pond that 100 wise men can not get out.

You just look at the world, and you see things unraveling, and you say, 'I wonder what we ought to do?' Things are seldom crystal clear.

What we do as a society is seek simple answers.

Wars and revolutions cannot be prescribed and the circle of their influence determined in advance.

Societies organized for the interplay of individual self-interest can collapse into manic tribalism, if not nihilistic violence.

Walking over to Iggy, he poked him with his shoe. "Does anysing on you vork properly?" Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Well, I have a highly developed sense of irony." Ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liability to your group. I assume you alvays hold onto someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?" "Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert," Iggy said truthfully.

We are trying to make the world a better place, but that is not necessarily what we accomplish. Many of the problems which preoccupy us are basically insoluble.

parenting is an exercise in unintended consequences.

Every problem solved is a problem made.

The human mind thinks but to complicate. As soon as one problem is solved, that solution introduces new complications, other problems that perhaps did not exist before. That was one of my great troubles when I was younger, I invented many things that were very fine, but always I was getting into complications. I have had to work very hard to overcome that.

I grew up in a family full of yellers. People screaming and chaos goin' on, I feel right at home in it. I've really worked on myself with anger management. I try to save that for the stage.

At least no one's trying to kill anyone. Give them about fifteen minutes

Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All of its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.

The more time you have to think things through, the more you have to screw it up.

I think the boarding schools are like miniature versions of "Lord of the Flies."

Form follows function straight to hell.

An accident, a random change, in any delicate mechanism can hardly be expected to improve it. Poking a stick into the machinery of one's watch or one's radio set will seldom make it work better.

Most things don't work like they are supposed to work.

If war was hell and only hell and there were no other colors in the palate I don't think people would continue to make war.

The greatest blunders, like the thickest ropes, are often compounded of a multitude of strands. Take the rope apart, separate it into the small threads that compose it, and you can break them one by one. You think, That is all there was! But twist them all together and you have something tremendous.

You can keep a bunch of crabs in a shallow container, and none of them will escape. Because as soon as one of 'em tries to climb out, the others pull him back in." -Hardy

When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart.