Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path.
Producing is the hardest of the three because there is almost no closure. Every time you solve a problem, another one pops up. Directing is second, and acting is the most fun.
You cannot represent cool. You've got to be cool. You've got to be authentic. I think, after all these years, that is how I define cool. It is being authentic. That is powerful.
Not every child learns the same way. I could not learn through my eyes. Reading was impossible. Math, to compute it in my mind, was impossible. I learned everything through listening.
Right now I belong to the wonderful organization called The Children's Action Network. The first thing we did was immunize 200,000 children across the country against childhood diseases.
I rode it once, which was up the driveway in the opening credits of the show. I didn't know how to stop it. I actually nearly killed the director of photography, and I smashed into the sound truck.
That problem has been going on since men and women and their children moved from the plains and into caves. How many times have you heard Howard Cunningham talking to Marian about shopping? Too many.
My Aunt Erna was smuggled out of Nazi Germany in 1939, alive, in a coffin with a spider plant at her feet. When I moved to Los Angeles from New York City in 1974 for 'Happy Days,' I took a cutting with me.
It was a very difficult time, 1984. 'Happy Days' ended. I said, 'There's no way I can be a producer.' My attorney said, 'You'll learn.' The first thing we sold was the 'MacGyver' television series. We shot 139 episodes between 1985 and 1992.
If you clear your mind, you can fill it with your character. If it is cluttered, if it is anxious, if you're thinking about your date, about your dinner, about filling your refrigerator, there's no room. There's no room for the character you're trying to build.
Somebody asked me if I could go back and start again with a different brain, would I. Years ago I thought yes, I would, and now I know I wouldn't. Because whatever challenges I had in school, I guess they forced me to where I am today. So I now see them as an asset.
I have had teachers who were brutal. If you look up 'brutal' in a dictionary, you will see their names. And I think that it's under the guise of wanting to change the actor's habit - wanting to break bad habits and replace them with brand-new ones you can use for the rest of your career.
If the country is going to be great, everybody has a gift, and I tell every child I meet, whether they have asked me or not, 'You have greatness inside you, and your job is to figure out what that is, dig it out, and give it to the world. Because the world needs everything, every one of you.'
I was allergic to school. I was completely befuddled by school. I was trying so hard, but I couldn't succeed. I took geometry for four years, the same course over and over again, and I did not graduate with my senior class. I finally passed geometry after doing summer school, and eventually, I graduated.
I didn't read a book until I was 31 years old when I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Books terrified me. They made me nervous. Now I know you can travel to the bottom of the ocean or to outer space or anywhere in between without leaving your armchair, and I'm so, so sorry I couldn't read when I was younger.
I always catch and release and don't even eat trout. I think they are so majestic. I won't eat a trout even in a restaurant. They are beautiful and so much fun, and they give me such joy to catch them that it is my pleasure to take a picture with them, give them a kiss, sign a laminated autographed picture and put it in their mouth.
When I was a freshman at Yale, one teacher brought me up after class and said, 'You're trying to undermine my class.' And I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, I'm going to be kicked out of school on the first week.' Not only do I not have a sense of self, I don't even know what she's talking about. I don't even know how to undermine anything.
I won't go deep sea fishing. The first time I experienced it, I went salmon fishing. My problem is, before I even get to the fish, I have vomited. You have to go out five miles, and you are just throwing a line in and bringing them to the surface. And then you have to go back five miles, and all of a sudden the wind comes up, and it gets choppy.
You cannot assume that somebody can define you. You cannot assume that the other person is right. No matter how they say it to you, no matter with how much force they say, ‘Oh my god, you’ll never make it; oh my god, you’re not bright; you could never do this’—that’s one person. I can’t tell you how many people told me I would never be an actor.
It feels blessed to me. Because I go to comic cons, and people come up and they say, 'You're the reason I ride a motorcycle. You're the reason I became a mechanic.' And there are people who love 'Scream' and 'The Waterboy,' 'Royal Pains,' 'Parks & Rec,' 'Arrested Development.' And now 'Barry.' And then there are kids who only know me as an author.
Making a show is also economics. Because the irony is, or the shame of it is, you cannot create a show instantaneously. It needs to be massaged. You need to see who is relating to who. How is it working with the audience? You need to give it a chance for the audience to find it, because there are so many outlets. And the audience doesn't know where to go.