Quotes About Prizes

“Unless men work at occultism as they work for the prizes of their professions they will not achieve.”

— Dion Fortune

“I was a young black man, light-skinned enough so that four out of five people who met me, of whatever race, assumed I was white ... I was a homosexual who now knew he could function heterosexually.
And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a handful of prizes ...
So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.
You are neither male nor female.
And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.
There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation
a kind of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any direction.”

— Samuel R. Delany

“The devil can be a clown of prizes in moments like these. Moments of knowing you've ventured too far down the wrong path and all you can do is accept more prizes ...”

— J.M. August

“Nations will seldom obtain good national anthems by offering prizes for them. The man and the occasion must meet.”

— John Philip Sousa

“Let me conclude by saying in my experience the glittering prizes in life come more to those who persevere despite setback and disappointment than they do to the exceptionally gifted who, with the confidence of the talents bestowed upon them, often pursue the tasks leading to success with less determination.”

— Bryce Courtenay

“And these women were not concerned in the least that Kellan had roommates. In fact, I don't think they were even concerned that he had neighbors. Maybe they were operating under the false assumption that Kellan gave out awards for who could be the loudest ... who was the more enthusiastic ... who could say "Oh, God !" the most. Then again, maybe the jerk actually did give out prizes.”

— S.C. Stephens

“The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.”

— Sylvia Plath

“To be rich or well-born was a crime: men were prosecuted for holding or for refusing office: merit of any kind meant certain ruin. Nor were the Informers more hated for their crimes than for their prizes: some carried off a priesthood or the consulship as their spoil, others won offices and influence in the imperial household: the hatred and fear they inspired worked universal havoc. Slaves were bribed against their masters, freedmen against their patrons, and, if a man had no enemies, he was ruined by his friends.”

— Tacitus

“He prizes ambiguity; he loves to keep you guessing.”

— Lionel Shriver

“I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves in spring. I love the blue sky. I love some people, whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by men, though I've long ceased perhaps to have faith in them. Yet from habit one's heart prizes them.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I didn't do my work for money or prizes - only for the excitement of discovery.”

— Edmund Phelps

“Anyone could be in the orchestra, or sports team, or arts club at my school. It was precisely the kind of inclusivity that now meets with a sort of scorn and derision as a prizes-for-all culture that generates only mediocrity. There's something so insulting about the idea that including lots of people means mediocrity.”

— Elizabeth Price

“To award prizes is to attempt to control the course of another man's work. It is a bid to have him do what you will approve. It affects not only the one who wins the award, but all those who in any measure strive for it.”

— Robert Henri

“I can say without hesitation that there is certainly no greater show to be a contestant on than 'Price' - the prizes can be huge, and the whole world loves and watches the show. It's an American institution!”

— Randy West

“Too often, women are portrayed in two ways: as prizes to be won by men or as damsels in distress.”

— Ann Aguirre

“The winners of Nobel Prizes must be assumed to possess at least a modicum of imagination and sensibility, and it is therefore incredible that any of us should not experience at this time a veritable surge of emotion.”

— Robert Robinson

“In an era when party fundraising is badly tainted, dinners are a really good way of raising cash for campaigning. Lots of people giving very small amounts of money through ticket sales and raffle prizes: yes, it's much harder work than big donations, but I think it's a more democratic and transparent way of fundraising.”

— Lucy Powell

“Antimacassars and pot holders. There were games with prizes”

— William Kent Krueger

“Thanks to social media like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, I can easily reach out to so many people. Being a writer gives me the added bonus of a targeted audience: readers, who enjoy targeted 'prizes' for participation in fundraisers - books and other neat promo items.”

— Lori Foster

“It's not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It's the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.”

— Fred Rogers

“I did not like prizes at school. I didn't like tests or exams, or the 11+, or O-levels. Later I hated B.A.s and M.A.s. The reason I hated them is that I don't like being tested, failed or falsely praised by anyone.”

— Billy Childish

“There is something so arbitrary about prizes.”

— Steve Toltz

“The Church still prizes the Moral Sense as man's noblest asset today, although the Church knows God had a distinctly poor opinion of it and did what he could in his clumsy way to keep his happy Children of the Garden from acquiring it.”

— Mark Twain

“I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they're precious.”

— Stephen King

“I don't make films to win prizes. I make films to make films.”

— Norman Jewison

“I believe we can do more in making the President's vision for space exploration a reality by awarding cash prizes to encourage greater participation of the private sector in the national space program.”

— Dana Rohrabacher

“And yet the Nobel Prizes, in singling out individuals, have done a great deal of good in pointing up to the world as a whole and setting forth clearly goals for achievement.”

— Willard Libby

“Written in 1895, Alfred Nobel's will endowed prizes for scientific research in chemistry, physics, and medicine. At that time, these fields were narrowly defined, and researchers were often classically trained in only one discipline. In the late 19th century, knowledge of science was not a requisite for success in other walks of life.”

— Peter Agre

“I'm one-dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home any prizes anymore and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!”

— Arthur Miller

“All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment.”

— Oscar Wilde

“I have had quite a lot of prizes, but I don't think it makes any difference to the ease or difficulty to the writing process.”

— Ruth Rendell

“I've been very lucky with prizes. But the thing about prizes is that, when you talk about a prize-winning author, you can be talking about one that is well-regarded but doesn't sell any books.”

— Jim Crace

“Nobel prizes are very special prizes, and it would be great to get one.”

— Craig Venter

“The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons.”

— George Orwell

“Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing”

— John Muir

“Everyone's future is, in reality, uncertain and full of unknown treasures from which all may draw unguessed prizes.”

— Lord Dunsany

“Power as I possess is not, as many believe, given in exchange for a soul. To hear the ignorant speak, one would think it is merely a simple bargain, an exchange of vows, perhaps, and the power one seeks simply flows from the fingertips for the asking. But no, it is not so easy as that! The truly great gifts are not gifts at all, but treasures obtained after long and difficult searching, prizes won only through hard-fought victories over relentless, near-invincible adversaries. [ ... ]
The ignorant speak of hidden arts, but they are not hidden. Indeed, there is nothing secret about them at all; they are freely open and available to any who would pursue them. Ah, but the price! The price is nothing less than the devotion of an entire life. So perhaps the simple-minded are right, after all, in thinking of the acquisition of power as a pact in which the soul is bartered. There is no other way.
- Morgian”

— Stephen R. Lawhead

“Though I have been busy, perhaps overbusy, all my life, it seems to me now that I have accomplished little that matters, that the books have never come up to what was in my head, and that the rewards-the comfortable income, the public notice, the literary prizes, and the honorary degrees-have been tinsel, not what a grown man should be content with.”

— Wallace Stegner

“In the career of female fame, there are few prizes to tie obtained which can vie with the obscure state of a beloved wife or a happy mother.”

— Jane Porter

“I have been very lucky, I have won prizes and I've even won the lottery.”

— Erro

“All anybody needs to know about prizes is that Mozart never won one.”

— Henry Mitchell

“Buy Space Ghost cereal, but don't eat the prizes.”

— Matt Groening

“To use two languages familiarly and without contaminating one by the other, is very difficult; and to use more than two is hardly to be hoped. The prizes which some have received for their multiplicity of languages may be sufficient to excite industry, but can hardly generate confidence.”

— Samuel Johnson

“I love the live cut part of making records the surprises are the prizes.”

— Shelby Lynne

“Just as at the Olympic games it is not the handsomest or strongest men who are crowned with victory but the successful competitors, so in life it is those who act rightly who carry off all the prizes and rewards.”

— Aristotle

“Every man obeys Christ as he prizes Christ, not otherwise.”

— Thomas Brooks

“It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.”

— Bob Woodward

“In the end you're not made or broken by prizes. Your relationship is with your readers, not a prize, and you just have to keep on honoring that.”

— Richard Flanagan

“The greatest gift that God in His bounty made in creation, and the most conformable to His goodness, and that which He prizes the most, was the freedom of will, with which the creatures with intelligence, they all and they alone, were and are endowed.”

— Dante Alighieri

“I think the judging process is full of integrity, compared to some other prizes around the world. The fact that they change the panel of judges every year keeps it from becoming corrupt. I think it's very difficult if you've got judges for life; obviously relationships are cultivated between judges and authors, and publishing houses.”

— Kazuo Ishiguro