#function

When I behold other people, who are of course the children of some family or other, and think of my own children, and of myself...I am astonished at how sensible, well-behaved, practical, courteous, and predictable these other children are. The other children are so easy about the whole business of being who they are, being in the world, and getting along. Whereas with us it is an awful fight, all the way. I am left with the conclusion that we are quite probably crazy, but somehow not in a way that compels commitment. We get over our rampages before society or clinical insanity charges in on us. I can think of very few of us who are not nuts. And that's not at our worst, that's pretty much as we always are. We find fault with everything. The world stinks, and even long after we have reconciled ourselves to that truth, we still regret it, and now and then even rage against it. Running through the various branches of the family I fail to find one branch which might be said to be nice- ordinary, sober, adjusted, willing, courteous, undemanding, charming, practical, predictable, and all of the other things nice people are. Lunacy runs straight down the middle of every branch of my family. We have nobody who is not some kind of nut. What did it? How did it happen? Well, there's no answer, of course. ↗

— William Saroyan

#family-dysfunction #family-traits #humor #business

A child's learning is a function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher. ↗

— James S. Coleman

#characteristics #child #classmates #function #his

Institutions - government, churches, industries, and the like - have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom; and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction. ↗

— Charles Horton Cooley

#contribute #fail #far #freedom #function

I certainly respect privacy and privacy rights. But on the other hand, the first function of government is to guarantee the security of all the people. ↗

— Phil Crane

#first #function #government #guarantee #hand

In most companies people make a specific contribution to the company in their function. But it is not expressed in terms of profit, only in terms of performing their function better. ↗

— Carlos Ghosn

#companies #company #contribution #expressed #function

The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. We're supposed to be the check and balance on government. ↗

— Amy Goodman

#balance #check #cozy #democracy #essential

Traditionally, people have been adapting novels and short stories forever. Now, they're doing it simultaneously, with an eye towards writing the movie before the novel has even come out or been finished. It's a function of this hyper-accelerated society we live in, where everyone is trying to short circuit the process. ↗

— Howard Gordon

#been #before #circuit #come #doing

Shapes that contain no inner components of positive/negative relationships will function better with other shapes of the same nature. ↗

— Keith Haring

#components #contain #function #inner #nature

I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move! ↗

— Howard Hawks

#director #function #i #make #move

I know whenever it comes to be really dysfunctional and vile and base and hostile on screen, I'm good at that! ↗

— Werner Herzog

#comes #dysfunctional #good #hostile #i