The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us wh...
Love is a source of anxiety until it is source of boredom; only friendship feeds the spirit. Love raises great expectations in us that it never satisfies; the hopes based on friendship are milder and in the present, and they exist only because they'v...
I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that’s ...
My needs were covered by layer upon layer of denial. I was scrambling for reasons. But the truth was, even if he had had a successful career, I would have used it as an excuse to complain about neglect. He could never actually win. I was running a ve...
It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what ...
Ed Reynolds: Before we start shooting, Mr. Wood, we have a few questions. Reverend Lemon: Yes. The script contains numerous references to graverobbing. Now we find the concept of digging up consecrated ground to be highly offensive. It is blasphemy. ...
Writing is such an industry now. In many ways, that's a good thing, in that it removes all the muse-like mystique and makes it a plain old job, accessible to everyone. But with industry comes jargon. I was aware that jargon was starting to fill those...
I don't think anyone aims to be typical, really. Most people even vow to themselves some time in high school or college not to be typical. But still, they just kind of loop back to it somehow. Like the circular rails of a train at an amusement park, ...
Frankie Dunn: [Reads a script from a book in Gaelic] Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: What the hell kind of language is that? Frankie Dunn: What do you want? Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: I just thought you should know you got a fighter out there not talking to a...
So at family gatherings… I try to stick to the acceptable script. Indeed, I discover that the less I say, the happier everyone seems to be with me. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off as a paraplegic or afflicted by some tragic ...
Do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous rea...
If I could, I would take you with me," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. She tried to pull away from him. "You would not. You would grow tired of me in a few weeks." He shook his head, pulling her tight against him. "No...I could never g...
If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who...
Just as sometimes I wondered if Grandpa had ever existed, sometimes I wondered if I truly existed myself. As I was running, I could see myself from outside myself: a skinny girl with the flapping shorts and too- big a T-shirt, always watching the oth...
There's a thing that happens in Hollywood, when you hand in a script with magic in it, and the people at the studio who read it say "We don't quite understand... can you explain the rules? What are the rules here? The magic must have rules" and somet...
I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want...
A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands--the lymph glands that is, of course--when the baneful word seared my reeling brain: . I th...
Some writers might tell you that writing is like a piece of magic - a process of creating something out of nothing, and I guess I used to think about it that way too a long long time ago. But as I've lived my life and loved and lost friends and famil...
[on his past relationship with Caitlin] Dante Hicks: She was supposed to meet Brad Michaelson in a dark bedroom. She picked the wrong one. She didn't even know I was at the party. Randal Graves: Oh, my God. Dante Hicks: Great story, huh? Randal Grave...
It's been the longest time Since I've been in this place, Where I spend my whole day Hoping I'll see your face. Then I script things to say, And maybe what you'd say back. You don't know it yet, But, girl, it's a fact That I can see us Staying up lat...
Eddie Morra: Well, in order for a career to evolve, I'm gonna have to move on. Carl Van Loon: And you would even think that, would only show me how unprepared you are to be on your own. I mean you do know you're a freak? Your deductive powers are a g...
