A Quote by Donna Tartt
To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone.
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Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.
I think the Internet really sussed things into perspective. Because twelve years ago, I could spend my days on writing and running my band and touring and making posters and practicing with my band and working on my vocals, but I didn't spend a large pie chart of my time sifting through criticism as well, and nowadays I do, and all female artists do, because to be able to promote your work, you need to live in those spaces.
The only way to resonate at a level that persuades is to know who you are addressing. If it's true that the Audience is the hero, you need to spend time thinking about them. Really getting to know them to the point it feels like they are a friend. May times we picture our audience as a large clump of strangers. Instead, you need to picture them as individuals standing in line to have a personal conversation with you. It's easy to persuade a friend, you need to think about your audience until you know them as a friend.
There are things that I really find important, and that we need to remind ourselves of. When you think about disability, do you really think about it? Someone who's a full-time trainer or a boxer, someone who's got a major disability, but who doesn't let that get in his way, that's a really good message for someone who is able-bodied. It can make them think, 'Wow, I suppose I could be doing better for myself.'
I think what really people want is just a few things done really, really well. And if you think about ever day of your life, the things you really appreciate aren't the complicated things. They're the simple things that work just the way you expect them to.
I don't really spend money like crazy. I buy what I need and what I really want, and if I'm buying expensive things I do think about the purchase many times before I buy it.
I'm just thinking all the time. There are times when I don't really need to think. You know what I mean? If you think about stuff for five hours, you really only need to do like five minutes and the rest of sort of rehashing it and dramatically going over it.
I love the life of an actor because you spend brief amounts of time with other people and then you just leave. I need to be alone a lot, and I need the outdoors.
Certain things work for me, certain things don't. [Going out for drinks is] about connecting, hanging out, and having a reason to spend time together. But you don't really need any kind of reason, other than you want to spend time with somebody.
It's one of those things that it's everything you think it is, but then again you have to - you need time to really process the entire situation. You stand out on that platform afterwards and you're looking at the ballpark and the fans and the W flags everywhere, and truthfully I do think about everybody, I think about the fans and their parents and their grandparents and great-grandparents and everything that's been going on here for a while. So you think that - I think about my coaching staff.
I don't like realism. We already know the real facts about li[fe], most of the basic facts. I'm not interested in repeating what we already know. We know about sex, about violence, about murder, about war. All these things, by the time we're 18, we're up to here. From there on we need interpreters. We need poets. We need philosophers. We need theologians, who take the same basic facts and work with them and help us make do with those facts. Facts alone are not enough. It's interpretation.
I think that it's not enough to do the little Band-Aid things of having celebrities come and read to children. Not that we don't need to read to children, but we don't need to just do it one time and feel good about it. I think we need to think long range about poor people and their relationship to libraries.
I think it's true we look forward to enormous amounts of information, but I think we would be better off if we thought about the kinds of wisdom and thoughtfulness that we need in order to handle the amount of information ahead.
I do believe in listening to your mind as well that that you need to be smart about certain things, to protect yourself. You need a healthy mix of both really, but it's important not to think so much that you're not able to follow your heart.
I think in the modern world we really need to have movie theaters or places we can go in and rejuvenate ourselves. I think we'll have less problems with our souls and our health. I do that in my life, and I feel healthy and happy. I need those hours in the darkness where I used to spend time as a kid, sitting in a little closet in the darkness, listening to AM radio, having glowing paint that I illuminated, just sitting there, dreaming about anything, not being disturbed for an hour or two, just alone in the dark. I'm still that little boy in my brain.
There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.
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