Quotes / Warts and All

I really disliked Forster. Worse, I really liked his books... Avoid admirable writers. Avoid writers.

— Gore Vidal on meeting E. M. Forster, Palimpsest

I was around 15 when I realized he was inescapable. Even if I was in a car and had the radio on, there’s my dad. He’s larger than life. and our culture is obsessed with dead musicians. We love to put them on a pedestal. If Kurt had just been another guy who abandoned his family in the most awful way possible... But he wasn't. He inspired people to put him on a pedestal, to become St. Kurt. He became even bigger after he died than he was when he was alive. You don’t think it could have gotten any bigger. But it did.

— Frances Bean Cobain

No matter how many homers he hit, [Babe] Ruth would have never become a Great American Hero in the television age. On the radio and in the newspapers, maybe he came across as quite a guy. But to see and hear him — at least as he is portrayed in this movie — is to cringe... It shows him as an overgrown, recalcitrant kid who had one skill. He could hit the ball. And then it shows him growing up into a human pig who wenched and cheated on those who loved him, who was drunk during many of his games, who was small-minded and jealous, who wasn't much of a team player, who lost his temper and screamed at the fans, and whose little trot around the bases looked like the gait of a constipated alderman.

— Roger Ebert on The Babe (1992)

I began teaching in New York Mosque Seven that a man's accomplishments in his life outweighed his personal, human weaknesses.

— Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

When I was younger, I went to hear Cornel West speak in person. He was charming and funny and charismatic and brilliant, and he had really cool hair. There was nothing to indicate that by 2013 he would become a complete and utter nut job. He openly derided the White House as "the Barack Obama plantation," bitched that "black folk are...being pushed to the back of the bus" by gay rights, and basically spent the entire year throwing out a laundry list of deliberately outrageous quotes designed to generate a worthless news cycle. All he needs now is a trip to North Korea to bury any last trace of his integrity.

— Drew Magary, "The 25 Least Influential People of 2013"

Before anyone knew who Gene Simmons was, KISS was the shit. KISS was the musical version of humping on a roller coaster on the back of a dragon, or whatever it is the kids think is cool these days. And then Gene Simmons and his helmet-like hair got a reality show, and you found out he would brand urns and cancer drugs with the KISS logo if he could make a buck off of it, and he became sad. And then, even more disturbing, someone released a video of Simmons having sex in a hotel room and it was so devoid of life, it made the Paris Hilton sex tape look like a meth-and coke-fueled passion circus. Gene Simmons has Brillo pad hair and humps like an ottoman that someone put in the freezer. He's a disgrace.

— Cracked, "The 7 Most Profoundly Depressing Celebrity Cruises"

Bret Michaels was in the best band of the 80s... On his show, Rock of Love, it's pretty clear that fucking his way through the 80s has destroyed the part of the brain that can distinguish between hot and dude-in-a-tube-top. Most of the girls on this show are reasons to stop drinking. And then there are the inane activities they all have to do—I mean, this is a guy who filmed himself getting off with Pamela Anderson, and now he's making busted strippers with 5 o'clock shadows go-kart against each other to win miniature golf time with him.

— Seanbaby, "6 Ways to Improve Reality Dating Shows"

On Wednesday night, the world we live in became a confusing and unfamiliar place and most of us wandered the land not knowing what to believe when Brian Williams admitted that he was never in a chopper that was hit by RPG fire in Iraq in 2003. Brian was actually safely traveling in a different chopper. How can we believe anything now that Brian Williams has dribbled out lies to us? When Brian Williams says, "Good evening, I'm Brian Williams and this is the Nighty News", do we know for sure it's the evening and that it’s a good evening and that his name really is Brian Williams? Is that picture of Brian Williams’ supposed bulge a picture of his actual bulge or did he just stuff his khakis with the sack he keeps his lies in? Everything is squint-worthy now!!!

After getting called out on the lie he told, Brian said in Wednesday night’s broadcast of the NBC Nightly News that he "misremembered" the whole thing...while reporting in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, Brian claimed to have seen a dead body floating in the French Quarter. But apparently, the French Quarter did not flood during Hurricane Katrina and remained pretty dry. Brian also claimed he got sick with dysentery after accidentally drinking floodwater, but a local health expert doesn't remember anyone coming down with that shit. Basically, everything is a lie. Was Brian Williams even in New Orleans and Iraq? He was probably just reporting in front of a green screen. Has he even been in a helicopter? Riding in a helicopter while playing Call of Duty doesn’t count. Is Brian Williams real? Are we sure he’s not just a hologram made by NBC?

...What if Brian Williams got caught in that lie years ago and was fired? If that happened, Allison Williams probably wouldn’t have been cast in Girls, which means NBC wouldn’t have cast her as Peter Pan, which means we would have never seen Peter Pan get his butt munched by a bearded hipster. We have to go back!

— Michael K., " Tom Brokaw is the Salome to Brian Williams’ John the Baptist"

Meat Loaf went and hit that crazy, crazy button, and hit it hard... Accusing (Gary) Busey of stealing his craft supplies (the celebrities had been instructed to make 'art' for a charity auction), "Meat" proceeded to suffer an Incredible Hulk attack on camera. His neck veins bulged below his jutting chin; his eyes bugged out; his face turned sirloin red. The star of the album "Bat out of Hell" began shouting obscenities and threatening to beat up on Busey, whose habitual air of disorientation seemed suddenly apt. Before things came to blows, the missing art supplies were discovered hiding in the shadows. Meat Loaf visibly deflated as he began to see himself as the television audience was seeing him: as a joke.

— Psychology Today, "The Crazy Button"

Kill your idols. That's what they say. Never meet your heroes, they'll only disappoint you. All I know is this: Johnny, I have loved you for so long. Decades. But it's like I don't even know who you are anymore... Why would you, the anti-establishment, anti-celebrity celebrity slash wannabe-rebel, be making these choices, the kind of choices that make you seem like every other mediocre-talent middle-aged constant mid-life crisis man in Hollywood? Did you do Lone Ranger for the money? Because you already own your own Caribbean island, my love, you can't possibly need more money. Did you really have to fall for the leggy blonde from the craptastic CW show Hidden Palms? I'm sure she is very nice but it is just so typical.

— Jezebel, "Dear Johnny Depp, You are Ruining Everything and Breaking Our Hearts"

As with the wrestling matches of Chris Benoit, or serial pram-botherer Gary Glitter's fist-pumping anthems, there’s no way to watch Cruise without mentally flashing to that Scientology video where they hang a medal the size of a hubcap around his neck, as a reward for being the best crazy cult member of all the crazy cult members. The acting’s irrelevant, when you know that he's utterly, utterly insane; a Stepford automaton with a public face of smiles and autographs, but fanatical beliefs that even Charles Manson would describe as 'a bit much.'

— Stuart Millard

Tom Cruise is an odd instance in popular culture. He is as iconic as it is possible for a pop star to be, and to some extent deservedly so, as he is, on his day, a damn fine actor.

Unfortunately, he has made one key decision that has undermined that, which is joining an abusive cult worshipping a space god. This has left other decisions that, in the hands of other stars, are just lovable cheek, as signs of complete insanity. For instance, when other celebrities divorce their wives and marry people wildly outside their socially acceptable dating range, they are more or less charming. When members of insane cults who believe that Xenu the Space Conquerer is chained up under the Pyrenees do it, it's creepy.

Actually, the real problem is that Scientologists are inherently creepy. Always. Everything they do is really, really creepy. As Tom Cruise has become more and more associated with being a Scientologist, he has, by direct and causal extension, become more and more creepy. The boyish smile that once screamed 'I'm a loveable rebel' now screams 'I want to lick your engrams.'

— El Sandifer on Days of Thunder (NES)

To read Doctor Who Magazine in the last few years has allowed us to glean hints about Patrick Troughton's extra-marital activities, how Tom thought Pertwee was tight, Nick Courtney's last hours and how Sylvester spent most of his time as part of Ken Campbell's troupe shagging his way around London... Elsewhere we now know about Hartnell's racism, Nick Courtney's crippling depression, Tom's womanising and boozing, Matthew Waterhouse's sexual awakenings while at the Beeb, the alcoholism of certain guest stars and which companion has supposedly slept with three Doctors — the latter, rightly, earning [the Editor] a stern rebuke from Colin Baker... Barry Letts might have had a thing or two to say about where our selfish pursuit for knowledge may lead us.

— Probic Vent, "JN-T, Doable Barkers and Doctor Who Fans"

The Doctor: Genius. He's a genius. The genius. The most human human there's ever been. Now — we're gonna hear him speak! Always, he chooses the best words. New, beautiful, brilliant words.
William Shakespeare: SHUT YOUR BIG FAT MOUTHS!
The Doctor: [taken aback] ...Oh, well...
Martha: You should never meet your heroes.

— Doctor Who, "The Shakespeare Code"

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