If one of my romantic-comedy colleagues had written and directed 'Love Actually,' they would have been torn limb from limb. I thought it was awful, contrived, dreadful. I could see every twist and turn. I thought it was despicable. It was the writing that got me.

Lisa Jewell

There is nothing remotely dignified about sorting through rotting trash to find something to feed your child, or asking someone for money because you have none (anyone who has contrived to give people money before they had to ask will never forget the look of gratitude in their eyes).

Abhijit Banerjee

I have got a scheme to make a thing in the form of a horse with a steam engine in the inside so contrived as to move an immense pair of wings, fixed on the outside of the horse, in such a manner as to carry it up into the air while a person sits on its back.

Ada Lovelace

I read contrived memoirs by presidential candidates. For every 'Dreams From My Father' - Barack Obama's honest, literary portrayal of his biracial upbringing - there were a dozen cautious, formulaic vanity projects by politicians.

Amy Chozick

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Andrew Jackson

I always try to find things worth saying, things that are supposed to be said instead of being contrived. I do a ton of writing.

Andy Grammer

Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.

Ari Shaffir

I sing in five or six different voices that are all part of me. It's not contrived.

Axl Rose

I think there's a lot to be said about just enjoying your work. It can be very contrived when people say their work is for the good of mankind.

Ben Horowitz

I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.

Cathy Marie Buchanan

I spent three and a half years writing the novel 'Chang & Eng,' about the conjoined brothers for whom the term 'Siamese twins' was contrived, and when I think of these afflicted people, my only emotion is one of profound sympathy.

Darin Strauss

After a while, a joke, if you say it too much, just becomes contrived, or fake-sounding.

Dave Chappelle

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn't a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn't want to have some contrived composition.

Dave Grohl

I love diamond jewellery on men, and pocket scarves, cravats, cufflinks. The trick is to throw it together so it's natural and not contrived. That's real style.

David Furnish

There are a lot of challenges I undeniably have faced as a black person both in the U.K. and in the U.S. that contrived to make me feel lesser than what I am.

David Oyelowo

For the greater beauty of the instrument, the balls representing the planets are to be of considerable bigness; but so contrived, that they may be taken off at pleasure, and others, much smaller, and fitter for some purposes, put in their places.

David Rittenhouse

I live three blocks away from the beach, so every day I walk down to the beach to run or go swimming. Hiking is a big one for me - so long as it's something where I'm not thinking about working out, like in a contrived class or the gym.

Dylan Penn

You know as a scientist that both were developed completely independently of each other in the laboratories. And only afterward were the political situations contrived out of which they could be justified.

E. P. Thompson

Mel Brooks is an interesting one because he started out making films about stuff that he was totally affectionate about, like musicals, westerns, horror films, Hitchcock films. And then, as they get further on, and you get to 'Spaceballs,' then it's just kind of contrived.

Edgar Wright

The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.

Elizabeth Bishop

It's not about how much movement you do, how much interaction there is, it just reeks of credibility if it's real. If it's contrived, it seems to work for a while for the people who can't filter out the real and unreal.

Fred Durst