A Quote by James Gray

At a certain point, you have to kind of realize that greatness is a messy thing. — © James Gray
At a certain point, you have to kind of realize that greatness is a messy thing.
A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passes a certain point, no one can stop it-even if the person himself wants to stop it.
I think the important thing is to realize that the establishment of a democracy is sometimes a messy thing and it takes time. Yeah, we've been at it 240 years.
There's a certain sense of ownership that the fans have over you....The thing is, it's all good. You just have to get used to it. If somebody comes up to you while you're eating dinner or something, it's kind of like, 'Well, I asked for it.' It's much better than the alternative-nobody caring and nobody buying your music. The point is to try to just realize that these people are really excited, and that's a good thing. You want them to be that way.
Somehow, you realize you can kind of do anything in music. You don't have to be good at a certain thing; you can just do whatever you want.
A good character today is shaped by greatness, greatness in vision, greatness in courage, greatness in insight, greatness in purpose and devotion.
At a certain point, you have to decide whether you'd be satisfied always acknowledging the beauty and the greatness of what other people create or if you want to be in the same arena.
When I was a boy, I would read those postcards and know exactly why my father was doing what he was doing: he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing--or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need but don't and can't get anyway.
It takes a certain amount of time and faith to accept or to realize that there is no difference between Him and His name, to get to the point where you're no longer mystified by where He is. You know, like, "Is He around here?" You realize after some time, "Here He is - right here!" It's a matter of practice.
When I was 26, 27 years old I was running a kitchen in New York, and I was a raving lunatic. The older you get, you figure out you don't need to do that. You realize at a certain point, there's a certain gravity to what you say and what you do. If that's not enough, all the yelling in the world is not going to matter.
Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness. That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.
Suddenly this camera, this thing, allowed me to move around the world in a certain kind of way, with a certain kind of purpose. (On receiving a camera for her twenty-first birthday)
There have been times I thought that when I got a certain point in the story, a certain character was going to do a certain thing, only to get to that point and have the character make clear that he or she doesn't want to do that at all. That long phone conversation I thought the character was going to have? He hangs up the phone before the other person answers, and twenty pages of dialog I had half written in my head go out the window.
Life is messy. Would that every puzzle piece fell into place, every word was kind, every accident happy, but such is not the case. Life is messy
Why are people so fascinated by how to eat Valomilks?’ She said, ‘Well, Dad, they’re round and they’re messy. But that’s what makes them fun. Once we get older we’re not supposed to be messy anymore. But for one moment when you’re eating a Valomilk, it’s okay to be messy again.
You make certain assumptions as a parent. And you kind of think, at a certain point, you've figured things out. And then all of a sudden, that person that you raised and nurtured and thought that you knew is someone else completely.
I think I have a certain kind of style. I think at the same time, I'm aware that there's certain things that I did as a playwright in certain plays, and I try not to repeat myself, even though I have a certain kind of sensibility, and I tend to gravitate toward certain things.
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