A Quote by Gore Vidal
People are worse educated than they used to be. Certainly they are not very interested in reading books, as opposed to watching television, movies. They are used to getting things through the eye and the ear. In a small way, literature goes on being written, but few people like it. Once it's bureaucratized by the schoolteachers, the game's up.
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Henry Kissinger once told me he was very concerned about the Internet's impact on people's ability to absorb information in a concentrated way, because we've become accustomed to looking up something, getting a snippet and being satisfied with that - as opposed to reading through and considering a weighty tome that goes into great depth.
I started getting interested in the craft and watching old movies, and they're the ones that reach out to me the most - films like 'Cool Hand Luke' and 'On the Waterfront.' So I start watching all of these, and I was getting educated, and I started being interested in this acting thing, if that's what they call it.
I think that the online world has actually brought books back. People are reading because they're reading the damn screen. That's more reading than people used to do.
Our age has become so mechanical that this has also affected our recreation. People have gotten used to sitting down and watching a movie, a ball game, a television set. It may be good once in a while, but it certainly is not good all the time. Our own faculties, our imagination, our memory, the ability to do things with our mind and our hands-they need to be exercised. If we become too passive, we get dissatisfied.
When I started doing television, I had no idea that people were watching it. But then things opened up for television in such a way that it's no more 'small' screen, as it is called.
I used to envy people who had written books, the way I think women envy other women who've had babies. I was resentful, shy, and inhibited around people who had written books. They'd done things I wanted to do.
Television watching should more properly be called television staring; it engages eye and ear simultaneously in a relentless and persistent way and leaves no room for daydreaming. This is what makes watching such an inferior form of leisure
I think people are getting more and more comfortable - watching content at home is blurring that line, because people are getting used to watching movies at home.
When you are working on a TV show or series, you just get into the routine. You get used to getting up early. It takes a few days, but once you are up and running, you get used to going home late, and it becomes this very repetitive cycle.
I know I certainly wouldn't be writing books if it hadn't been for the feminist blogosphere, and I think that's a really amazing thing. And just the sheer power of outreach I think is incredible. It used to be that if someone was to get involved in feminism, it was probably because they were already interested. They were already interested in feminism; they were already interested in being an activist, and they found their way to like a NOW meeting or to a consciousness-raising group or something like that.
I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries, to explore. My life experience came from watching movies, TV, and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.
Obviously, comedy, or art in general, or television, or whatever you want to call it's all subjective. But I do like to know what people are thinking. I don't know how long I'll keep doing that. As it goes on and on, I might become more fearful of it. For the time being, I'm not opposed to reading what people write.
I'm a lot more interested in people than I used to be. I used to be most interested in abstract ideas, and people were an afterthought, but that's changed a bit.
A lot of talent, a lot of the currency that movies used to have, has spilled over into TV. People talk about TV the way they used to talk about movies and, as much as I hate to say it, the way they used to talk about books.
To have your music used on television and in movies, that's our way of getting it across to people. We're not on the radio all the time. It's the only way to get your music heard.
People sometimes say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually, it's the way things happen to you in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like you're watching television -- you don't feel anything.
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