Stories I Only Tell My Friends

Quotes

“So I came to the realization: Nothing in life is unfair. It’s just life.”

“Be funny whenever possible, even if some people don’t get it.”

“I’m thinking of how unexpected and yet oddly preordained life can be. Events are upon you in an instant, unforseen and without warning, and often times marked with disappointment and tragedy, but equally often leading to a better understanding of the bittersweet truth of life.”

“Fake confidence on the outside often trumps truthful turmoil on the inside.”

“The best part is not the biggest, it’s the one that’s most memorable.”

“I’ve never agreed with the conventional wisdom that ‘actors are great liars.’ If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be ‘actors are terrible liars,’ because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What’s called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary.”

“Nothing in life is unfair. It’s just life. To the extent that I had any inner turmoil, I had only myself to blame. I also thought of my two boys and what kind of example I hoped to be. I would always want them to take charge of their own futures and not be paralyzed by the comfort and certainty of the status quo or be cowed by the judgment of those on the outside looking in.”

“They (teenage boys) don’t really listen to speeches or talks. They absorb incrementally, through hours and hours of observation.”

“We all have a suspicion and hope that we’ve just been part of something special, something that may eventually change our lives. That no one else knows this makes it seem like we are living with a secret that we would like to share, but can’t, sort of like having a superpower that’s not come online or being president elect. For the moment, our lives proceed as usual, but within a month, we think, everything will change. It’s a frustrating, if exciting, disconnect.”

“If you are fortunate enough to be part of a hit, particularly a transcendent one, all emotional ownership is transferred from you to the audience. They judge it and embrace it; project their own hopes, dreams, and fears onto it; take their personal meaning from its themes, and with these investments it becomes theirs. The significance of your participation pales in comparison to the significance the project has on their imaginations.”

“They don’t really listen to speeches or talks. They absorb incrementally, through hours and hours of observation. The sad truth about divorce is that it’s hard to teach your kids about life unless you are living life with them: eating together, doing homework, watching Little League, driving them around endlessly, being bored with nothing to do, letting them listen while you do business, while you negotiate love and the frustrations and complications and rewards of living day in and out with your wife. Through this, they see how adults handle responsibility, honesty, commitment, jealousy, anger, professional pressures, and social interactions. Kids learn from whoever is around them the most.”

“You can’t build a life on a backstage pass or free swag at Sundance.”

“I followed my heart and stayed out of the results.”

“Son, a frog never knows how far it can jump until it’s kicked,”

“To be counter to the culture, you are by definition willfully and actively ignoring the culture, i.e., reality. And when you ignore reality for too long, you begin to feel immune to, or above, the gravitational pull that binds everyone else. You are courting disaster.”

“It takes an army to make a movie. Camera crews, lighting crews, wardrobe crews, makeup crews, hair crews, painters, builders (called grips), a crew to provide the props, a crew to provide the furnishings (the art department), electricians, special-effects people, stunt performers, stand-ins, the accountant, scheduling and finance (called the unit production manager), catering and someone to provide snacks and drinks (called craft service), and the team of walkie-talkie-armed Gestapo that police the second-by-second momentum of shooting: the assistant director staff.”

“I’m thinking of how unexpected yet oddly preordained life can be. Events are upon you in an instant, unforeseen and without warning, and oftentimes marked by disappointment and tragedy but equally often leading to a better understanding of the bittersweet truth of life.”

“Everyone knows that the teenage years are a time of profound emotion. The moody, exuberant, passionate, lethargic teen is a figure that has a special place in the hall of fame of clichés — and for good reason. It’s all true. When we ourselves are teenagers, we are living life as it comes. There is no point in reflection. We are so inexperienced, there is very little to reflect on. If we fail a big test, we just move on. We win an award and we smile and say thank you. We fall in love and it’s a thrill. We get our hearts broken and we suffer.And we feel all of these highs and lows in our absolute core; it feels as if it’s never happened to anyone else because it’s never happened to us before. Only later can we look back in the comfort that perspective brings.”