Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am a karaoke purist and I don't like that. I don't think it's enough for you to just be there with your friends singing. I think you need to be in front of a crowd of hostile strangers for it to truly count.
Mass communication communicates massively: its language lacks precise articulation and avoids demanding terms; it argues for the kind of behavior in life which will make a "good program": ethic equals showbiz.
Are you all right?" "Oh my god! I phased!" "Are you all right?" "Are you?" "It was strange." "I can't believe I phased just then! That's never...it was totally your fault." "I like to think so, yes." "Tee hee.
Everyone has their first date and the object is to hide your flaws. And then you're in a relationship, and it's all about hiding your disappointment. And then, once you're married, it's about hiding your sins.
You're torn between wanting to fill in all the spaces and knowing that's really going to screw up the screenplay. And yet, how are you going to communicate it to people who really don't understand the process?
My parents are professors; they're intellectual. I spent a lot of time reading books. To me, everyone always looks like they do in your imagination. And in my imagination, the characters always looked like me.
The biggest lesson learned from 'X-Men: The Last Stand' or 'X3' was that if you are going to tell a Phoenix story, tell the Phoenix story. Don't make it the subplot of the movie. Make it the plot of the movie.
For screenwriting, when you're writing, you're talking to hundreds - hundreds of people who might be interpreting what you're saying. When you're writing a comic book, you're really only talking to the artist.
In reviewing films, people get quite liberal about saying "the script" this and "the script" that, when they've never read the script any more than they've read the latest report on Norwegian herring landings.
There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.
I have a personality that tends to be somewhat compulsive, and I do tend to think in a circular way. I dwell on the same things over and over and I try to figure out different ways of looking at the same issue.
When we were done and not picked up to series yet, they wanted us to read lots of writers. I was like, "No." Then we finally were picked up. It is hard not to start thinking of story lines. It is like doodling.
That's a very complicated issue [with Donal Trump supporters]. There's things going on with people that we're not privy to, we don't understand. These aren't just a bunch of bad people. That isn't how it works.
Billy: So good... Hey, this is weird. I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt, do you? Penny: I love it! Billy: You're kidding? What a crazy random happenstance!
You'd be surprised how many writers, or how many actors, if they miss a paycheck or two, they've got nothing. As a writer or an actor you can have four or five jobs in one year and then have none for two years.
There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.
Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.
When you start a TV show, you're not necessarily thinking, "Are we setting up what we need for season seven?" You're just trying to stay on the air, and you try to learn your job as you go, and do what you can.
As Mark Weiner puts it, whether you gain 50 pounds or lose 50 pounds, whether you have a sex change operation for that matter, that it doesn't matter, that there is some part of ourselves that we cannot escape.
What makes me angry is the idea that people would be going to a movie because of what I said about it. It makes me feel, I don't know, arrogant, self-important, self-aggrandizing, whatever. Like I'm being used.
A new writer starting out today, whether it's for TV or film, they have to remember that they're telling the story to themselves first of all, and they have to tell the story so that their life depends upon it.
When I was at 'SNL,' I would constantly get in arguments, 'Why aren't we more political? We're not going after Bush.' Then look what happened - that Sarah Palin season, they were on fire. It was about something.
I think you need to understand games to write them. There's a learning curve, just like there's a learning curve in anything. It's not precisely the same as film or television, but you're using the same muscles.
When I'm at home and I'm preparing my own food, it's all gluten-free, or fish and it's healthy, but when I go to someone else's house, I'll eat what they put in front of me because I don't want to be an asshole.
You know, for a long time I became almost atheist. I believed in nothing. And it was tough for me to believe in anything at all because I had believed so strongly. And I divorced myself of spirituality, I think.
'Star Trek' speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow - it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.
When I was 16 years old I tried to kill myself because I felt different and that I didn't belong. Now I'm here, and I want this moment to be for that kid who feels weird or different. Stay weird, stay different.
I think women don't grow up with the harsh world of criticism that men grow up with, we are more sensitively treated, and when you first experience the world of film-making you have to develop a very tough skin.
I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer.
Many years ago, I was a producer on a movie called 'My Dog Skip.' Willie Morris, the great southern writer, had written the book. We had adapted it and taken 17 years of his life and compressed it into one year.
The more you learn about the real vastness of space and the real challenges of space travel, the more completely you appreciate the necessity of taking very good care of this world and being good stewards of it.
Certainly the experiences of Seth and his relationship to his parents and his point of view of the world are very similar to my own and very much based on my experiences at the University of Southern California.
When Roseanne read the first script of mine that got into her hands without being edited by someone else she said, 'How can you write a middle-aged woman this well?' I said, 'If you met my mom you wouldn't ask'.
My mom and dad were divorced, and although they got along very well, my mom thought American television was reprehensible, so I was raised on the BBC. I kind of agreed with her. We watched American news, though.
I've actually written a children's film called 'The Myth,' which you could say is like a big 'Harry Potter'-esque fantasy for kids, and that's a film I would love to see get made. That's a dream project of mine.
As a writer, you have control of the words you put on the page. But once that manuscript leaves your hand, you give control to the reader. As a director, you are limited by everything: weather, budget, and egos.
Walk through Santa Monica and try to find somebody who knows a young man or woman who's in this war. Here, war is an intellectual concept. If you lose your son or daughter, it's no longer an intellectual matter.
It's important to have people who are absolutely willing to say you're wrong or who have a totally different perspective than you do on everything. Fresh ideas are hard to come by, and good ones are even harder.
I think being mediocre and in the middle would be the worst. It's more interesting to get strong reactions, and to have the mixture of people who get it and the people who don't get it. And to invite a dialogue.
I've been banging on about doing stuff in Birmingham for years and years, and everyone says 'We can't, it's the accent thing.' For some reason it's a very difficult accent to get right, harder even than Geordie.
I keep referring to them in the plural but all I'm dealing with is Bob. I don't know where Harvey fits in the equation. He was very present at the beginning, winding his brother up. I don't know where he is now.
You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe.
Well, you're either lovers or you're wanting to be lovers or you're trying not to be lovers so you can be friends, but any way you look at it, sex is always looming in the picture like a shadow, like an undertow.
When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance.
Anybody who is capable of doing terrible things, you don't want them out in the world, but you can't help but respect their ingenuity and their savvy and their intelligence as they go about their dastardly deeds.
There is something about dance that is actually a great tension. There is something that is incredibly freeing about dancing for dancers who do it. They tend to be really arty and interesting people in real life.
Keeping the cat front-and-center was definitely a smart choice, from Tim and the animation department. Mr. Whiskers got referred to more than we actually saw him on stage. Seeing him on screen, you just love him.
If somebody comes up to me, it's because they're moved by something I'm moved by. I've never taken a job I didn't love... So when somebody's coming up to me, or they're writing, they're in the same space I am in.
I loved the idea of a girl going into a dark alley, and a monster comes, and then she just aces him. It’s like, you want to see the tiny person suddenly take control. God, my whole career is basically about that!
The misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it.