Writing comedy is an exposing thing because you're putting yourself on the line with every joke you write, and although you can't second-guess an audience, if you want to be successful, you have to write stuff people like.
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
A lot of amateurs are terrified of going up against a player who is clearly better than they are. They never play their best, because they aren't comfortable. There's one surefire way to get over that, and it's to ask yourself, 'What if I beat him?' Imagine the possibility.
You would be better off in exile than priding yourself on be like everyone else.
If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.
Be honest: if your pitch is 90 minutes and you only have 60 set aside for a business lunch or a cup of coffee, there is no way that you can give an honest representation of your company or products. You're lying to yourself and wasting your own time as well as that of your prospect or partner.
The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.
Sometimes when I get asked by younger wrestlers, 'Do you have any advice for me? What do you think you can help me on?' and I tell them I think the best advice is to try and outdo yourself. Always be unique, always be creative. I think that was part of my success. I never wanted anybody to be on top of me. I always wanted to be number one.
Everybody saying you can't do this, you can't do that. I don't know why. Guess if you listen to it, you can convince yourself of it.
When you become a mother, you think less about yourself and care more about the world.
I have my moments of insecurity and figuring out what's going on and what I'm supposed to do, but if you don't push yourself, you're not growing, so where do you go?
As an actress people always tease me like: if there's anything you can do to make yourself unattractive you will do it.
I thought he was an interesting central figure, central character, one who is definitely not your typical central character figure in a film, who's easy to like. He's not easy to like. It forces you to involve yourself with what's going on.
To be a top-class athlete, you have to train hard, you have to eat right, you have to get enough rest. I feel the way golf is going nowadays, you have to treat yourself as an athlete.
There's nothing more ridiculous than seeing yourself in a video game.
I think you learn more about yourself in the context of a relationship than you can outside of it.
As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.
I can take the steel guitars and fiddles off, we can make it a little more pop, cover ideas that are a little less cowboy. But you got to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, whose flag you are under? For Garth Brooks, I'm steel, fiddles, red, white and blue.
The reason I did fashion was it was the only way to get paid to do anything creative. You couldn't support yourself as an 'artist' - I hate that word. The only way you could be 'arty' was as a fashion photographer, because it still had a certain amount of integrity involved.
Pause today and notice something you have worked hard on and recognize yourself for it. Acknowledge your effort.
I've been writing on my own. It's like Roger Miller used to say, every now and then, like a dog having puppies, you have to crawl under the house and do it yourself.
I've had fun doing romantic comedies, but I just can't anymore. There's nothing fulfilling creatively, there's nowhere to grow, nothing to learn from it or for yourself. I'd rather just be home with my family or write music until that special project comes my way.
Go on thinking that you don't need to be read and you'll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won't feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.
I think that children that are acting are always pretty savvy anyway because you're conducting yourself around adults a lot of the time, aren't you? But there is this worry now that children just want to be famous.
If you're going to stick around in this business, you have to have the ability to reinvent yourself, whether consciously or unconsciously.
I think that as you get older, you learn to live in yourself more securely.
Only do what you feel called in your heart to do, and then give all of yourself to the task.
If the shot is going to be epic, if it's going to be awesome, and to make it epic and awesome you have to hit the ground and possibly hurt yourself, I choose to hit the ground and possibly hurt myself. Because in my silly stunt man mind, an epic shot that lives forever on film, I'll get over it in a couple of months!
As an author, you need to keep talking to your audience to remind yourself what they like and what they don't like. You spend most of your life locked in a room, and you need to be social occasionally.
You have to have enough respect for other human beings to leave their lives alone. If you admire that life, build it for yourself. Don't just try to come in and take somebody else's life.
Don't define yourself by your mistakes or by the single thing you are at your work.
Sometimes you just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.
I collect art, and I drink wine... things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, 'I'm going to buy art to impress this crowd.' That's just ridiculous to me. I don't live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?
There's so many different ways to get yourself out there, a lot more options than when we first came out.
Never forget, the real secret of giving advice is this: Once you've given it, don't concern yourself with whether it is followed or not, and refrain from saying 'I told you so.'
You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.
