A Quote by Ethan Canin

I was never writing for commercial success. It's nice that it has come, but it is not important. — © Ethan Canin
I was never writing for commercial success. It's nice that it has come, but it is not important.
Commercial record has never interested me. It's amazing I was in a band like The Police that had such phenomenal commercial success. Part of what made The Police what it was was that we didn't all come in with obvious mainstream musical tastes. We were a rock band and somehow we had to make rock music, but it was informed by a lot of things outside of the mainstream for sure.
It's nice to be important but it's even more important to be nice. I grew up in a world where there were a lot of big physical guys...and woman so it's always important to be nice to me.
When I started to write music that was completely divorced from any sort of idea of commercial success, the real me started to come out. Normally, a musician in a session for a pop record would have to discard a lot of ideas because they won't fit, because they're not commercial.
In the old days it was important, but not as important as it is today, to keep making success after success after success. It's terrifying today. You can maybe have one so-so movie but you've got to come back with another that's huge, if possible, and that must be very, very difficult for young talent.
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.
Above any commercial success one might enjoy, one's reputation for honesty is the most important thing
What has helped me is my success in commercial cinema. It has given me a platform for others to cast me in their films. If I did not have the commercial success, then I wouldn't be able to do the smaller films.
It's nice to be important, but it's also important to be nice. Never forget that.
By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing - which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring.
Happiness doesn't come from commercial success but from the quality of work that you give back to your immediate community.
You come off the kind of commercial success that 'Rumours' had, and you see that there are limitations to that as well as freedoms.
I think, a lot of times, bands will break up because their goal is commercial success, and most bands aren't going to get that: it's out of their control. If you do, you're one of the lucky ones, but that commercial success will likely fade, and you'll end up breaking up anyway.
It has nothing to do with commercial success. You cannot calculate in your head how to put the mosaic together to make a commercial film: that's out of the question.
I always say people would rather be nice than right. I like to be nice too, but come on. People frequently ask me, what is my definition of politically correct. My answer is always the same: the elevation of sensitivity over truth. People would rather be nice than right, rather be sensitive than true. Well, being nice and sensitive are important, but they're not more important than being right; they're not more important than the truth.
It is important to be nice. But sometimes niceness can be misconstrued as weak. Should we be nice to everybody? Should we be nice only when others are nice to us? Here are some interesting views about being nice. Read these nice quotes and turn on your niceness.
Some say I'm an overnight success. Well, that was a very long night that lasted about 10 years. But while I do, of course, now feel the pressure having had books that have been very successful, I just know I have to concentrate on writing for myself. I can't worry about genres or markets or what might be commercial or not. That never works.
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