When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reaso...
They should." "Should be like a wood bee," she said. It was a private joke, a mocking appreciation of the slipperiness of even the simplest hope, a nonce catchphrase like so many others lifted from favorite movies or TV shows that served as a rote su...
Seek out the company of those who will never ask you to jump," the earth advised. Bertie remembered the rush of feathers as she soared above the audience. "I can catch myself." "Of those whose love will never fill your lungs with water-" the earth ar...
It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets tell us, 'charm the crowd's ears more finely.' Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated me...
Tell me what you felt when you first looked at me, Branwyn," he persisted, apparently oblivious to their audience. "What you feel now." The memory shook her with its intensity. "I saw light. I felt fire. I knew joy. Now I' am bursting with love. Take...
Know something about the world, and by this I mean the world outside of books. This might require joining the Marines, or working on an oil rig or as a hash slinger at a truck stop in Kentucky. Know what it smells like out there. If everything you wr...
The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid...
A Better Beard that Yours. 'All true devotees wear a beard,' said the Imam to his audience. 'Show me a thick and lustrous beard and I'll show you a true believer!' 'My goat has a beard far bushier and longer than yours,' replied Nasrudin. 'Does that ...
Quitting’s not hard. Deciding to quit is hard. Once you make that mental leap, the rest is easy.” “Really? Was that how you quit me?” And just like that, without thinking, without saying it in my head first, without arguing with myself for da...
Advertisers as well as political leaders long ago found that it is easier to appeal to the people through the heart than through the mind. Programs built with an emotional people are sure to draw the largest audiences and the biggest response. Worker...
Hatsuharu Sohma: [after tripping Kyo] If I hadn't had tripped you, you wouldn't have stopped now would you. [addressing the audience] Hatsuharu Sohma: By the way what I just did was very dangerous. And if it had been anyone but Kyo they probably woul...
a delegate shout out from the floor: “Peonage, Anti-Lynch Bill, poll tax, these are our issues. They are the most controversial issues in American life, and some of us will have to die for them! Yes, we want to join with the CIO! We cannot stop for...
The mainstream media today has the biggest disconnect with its audience that it's ever, ever had. And as the disconnect grows and as more and more people distrust them, then the media digs in more and more and says you don't know what you're talking ...
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolera...
The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and y...
Music, even at terrible moments, can make you accept so much more- accept your dark sides, or the things that happened to you. Maybe it's just because you see that we are not alone. And that's what the concert situation is about for me, when I'm sitt...
Bach's music confront the player and the audience in a very alone way, and I try at that moment to put away pretensions-in levels of violin playing, pretensions of being a strong man, of being invulnerable- and instead say, 'this is where all of us u...
Why do you think people stopped reading? We read to connect with other minds. But why read when you're busy writing, describing the fine-grained flotsam of your own life. Compulsively recording every morsel you eat, that you're cold, or, I don't know...
What makes an amazing artist? It's not his ability to impress but his skill in touching people's lives through his craft. When he does even a simple piece of work with not much adornment (fanciful words, colors) and it moves the hearts of his audienc...
I think when I start out writing, I always try to write the version of the movie that I want to go see. I don't mean it in a way that ignores the audience, but I really set out to make a movie that I want to see and that, hopefully, other people will...
Bunny Breckinridge: What about glitter? When I was a headliner in Paris, audiences always liked it when I sparkled. Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No! Bunny Breckinridge: Cat's Eyes. Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No! Bunny Breckinridge: Well, I'm going to need some ant...
