A Quote by Ben Stiller

I'm Jewish, but my mom's Catholic, so the guilt area is covered. I have the highest expectations, along with the lowest. I tried to put as much of myself as possible in Reality Bites, but in terms of my humor, I'm still trying to figure out what my sensibility is. It's a process, really. I don't feel like I have a very clear idea of what I'm supposed to be, or even of how people perceive me, except that I got put into this Generation X file.
At my lowest moments, I think of people who come to shows. I still get very sad and sometimes I feel like I have no friends, but when that happens now, I'll think of people whose names or faces I don't know - they're my friends and they love me. I've got them. It really does save me. I still feel awkward, but that's the one thing I can grab onto at my lowest points.
There's people out there, Canadians out there, that have high expectations for me, but I mean, I'm still a kid, still trying to learn the game. I'm just trying to develop my skills as much as possible.
We are 'writers,' we are not supposed to be interested in filthy lucre, we are supposed to be starry eyed artistes. ... In Reality Land, we all want to maybe put dinner on the table once in a while, but in Fantasy Land, we are not supposed to be even interested in money because we are so caught up in the emotion of it all. That's an illusion, but people like it and it makes us feel holy or something so we all play along.
My writing was very much like my diary, and I just put it out there to put it out there because I didn't really know what I was doing. The fact that people related to the songs made me feel less alone in a lot of situations.
My learning process has always been very idea-oriented. I never sat down with a book being like, 'OK, now I'm going to learn about transistors.' Instead I had an idea that I really liked and learned as I was trying to figure out how to build it.
It's really hard for me to sometimes put myself out there, like 'Hey, how do you feel about making music together?' because maybe I'm afraid of rejection or I don't want to put anybody out. It's the Southerner in me, like, 'I don't mean to bother you but do you mind making a song?'
Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way to do something.
I was a dramatic kid. I was always like, 'Watch me put on my play, Mom and Dad! You have to watch me put on all these outfits and do this play!' But my family is very academic and straightforward and normal Midwestern people, so the idea that I could act as an actual job wasn't really there.
I really only put stuff out when I have something to say and I feel like I've got a direction and I've got an idea - and that can even take two, two-and-a-half years to flesh out.
I still feel like I've got a lot of great football in front of me and the way that I've taken care of myself better the last few years. I think is going to put me in position to be able to play really well late in my 30s and even in my early 40s, possibly, if they'd like to keep me around that long and I can still play a little bit.
It always fascinates me how you can get so much joy listening to another person, when me, personally, I can only listen to myself and my music these days. I've got some people in my iPod, but I only listen to myself. I'm folding into myself and I used to think that that was what you're supposed to do - you're supposed to reject everyone else and figure out who you are. You get little shards and points of reference, but that's how you confirm that only you know what is right for you. Everything else is pollution. What's starting to happen to me is sort of an identity crisis.
I was brought up Catholic and we show my mom, my mother, my sister and then I take pains to explain on camera, that there were years after that where I wasn't really religious. I certainly wasn't a Catholic anymore, but I still lived with some mythical man in my head. I didn't really put a name to a face, but I just knew that if I was in trouble or scared I would go, 'Oh God, please help me get out of this one.'
I don't really go down one path. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Christian or a Muslim, or Jewish. I couldn't put myself into any organized faith.
To a great extent, I still write for myself, write what amuses me. Fortunately, I have a quirky sort of strange sense of humor that appeals to other people and that's good. I still sort of write for myself though there are some areas of the book I feel I have to put in and I feel I have to deliver.
I feel like I make a soundtrack for the come up, and I feel like there's so many people that's trying to figure out how to chase their dreams, or that are in the process of chasing their dreams, so they connect with that. And then being a singer, you don't really get to touch on nothing either.
There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.
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