A Quote by Simon Callow

Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.
I love to disturb people, because only by disturbing them you can make them think. They have stopped thinking for centuries. Nobody has been there to disturb them. People have been consoling them. I am not going to console anybody... Because the more you console them, the more retarded they remain. Shog them, hit them hard, give them challenge. That challenge will bring their full capacities to the climax.
When I got laid off, I would write my friends these 15-page-long emails. This was before people had personal emails, and my friends would tell me that I was going to get them fired if I kept sending them stuff, so I started a website.
I want people to like me - but not at my expense. I just learned that there are too many people who are going to have an opinion about me whether I am kind to them or not. I can't control what they're feeling. I am not a yeller and I don't have a temper, but I do want people to do their best. And if someone is a friend and I see that they're doing stuff that is not helping them grow, I will make it a point to talk to them about it.
The institutions are working better now, the banks are much more functional. At this time, 1997, there were no mobile phones! It's a whole different thing now with mobile phones: technology has created a form of regulation, because people can actually talk to each other a lot more.
There is a lot of things to be outraged about these days, and I think that getting outraged about an actor on a television show who may be wearing a costume that makes him larger than he is, might be low on the list.
When I talk to younger actors, and young people in general, who are holding off having children because they think they cannot fit them into their busy lives, I now know, and am able to say to them, 'You've just got to get on with it; there is never going to be a right time.'
What most infuriates me is the cell phones. If I see someone texting during the show, I walk off the stage.
We carry around computers in our pockets. Many people barely use them as phones. We use them as computers. If you think about the future, when you're traveling around, it's great to have a lightweight, small form factor.
Children used to get bullied at school. Now they go home, and that's where the problem starts - because they sit on their phones all night, thinking about who's 'liked' a photo of them, who hates them, who loves them. They don't know what's real and what's not, editing their lives constantly to fit other people's views.
Children used to get bullied at school. Now they go home and that's where the problem starts - because they sit on their phones all night, thinking about who's 'liked' a photo of them, who hates them, who loves them. They don't know what's real and what's not, editing their lives constantly to fit other people's views.
I was the kind of person that was very social and liked to be with an entourage and have lots of parties and have people around me. And now I find I am much more satisfied seeing people one-on-one. I avoid crowds, and I get really plagued by people as if they are bees or something. I am talking about my friends. I can only handle them one at a time.
You start to stress yourself out about the people around you. You start to think, like, "What do you really want from me?" And then you forget that you, at some point, asked them for something. At some point you needed them to take you in because you ain't had nowhere to go. And now you turn around and question their loyalty to you, and those were the only people loyal to you. The only people that really loved you are still there, and you tanked on them. I'll never let that happen.
One of the reasons why I fought for my roles is that I think there are so many things about them that are just human, but people like to label them as weird or bad or wrong because they're scared of them. I don't consider them bad - they're girls. They're going to make mistakes, but the films show the repercussions and show that they're going to learn. A lot of people are made to feel bad for being sad, so on top of already being unhappy, you're gonna hate yourself for it.
I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, "I watch your show, I'm not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it's about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times." That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn't about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it's about inspiring people. That makes me really happy.
We didn't make money but we never lost money. We'd sit around Times Square with fliers, walk around the Village and try and get people to come. Now you'd just tweet it, but that was the beginning of emails, or the beginning of me doing emails - I'm sure there were people in 1986 who were doing emails.
Texting is incredibly anxiety-laden, but I know people who will have a full-blown panic attack if you call them. I'm one of those nightmare humans where the little mailbox has an ellipsis on it because I have 1000 unread emails. So texting is the most immediate yet least anxious of all the incredibly anxious ways that we talk to each other.
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