A Quote by Jim Bishop
A good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious.
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What makes a good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who'd rather write a good story.
McCain likes strong defense, and he's viscerally suspicious of big companies. So he's more a Square Deal guy than a New Deal guy.
I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.
It's very hard to tell somebody how to write when they're so good, and they're a brilliant writer and a really good guy.
You don't have to be a good person to be a good writer--history shows it's better if you're not--but you have to understand your badness.
I think, very often, we're addicted to procedurals, those good guy/bad guy shows, and the 'problem' with procedurals is they all follow the same formula: The bad guy does his thing, the good guy goes after him, and in most cases, the good guy figures out who did it and catches him.
As an actor, you have to be able to take all sides as well. You have to at least be able to understand things. No bad guy looks in the mirror every morning and says, boy, I'm gonna be a real bad guy this morning. He goes after his own what he's after, just like us good guys. You kind of have to take a stand and, a lot of times, you have to take the writer's stand or the stand of the character this writer has created.
I'm not a writer on a mission, and I'm very suspicious of writers on missions, but I'm also not living a false life.
One of the last things that my dad and I discussed, and it sticks with me today, is that he no longer believed in the concept of Good Guy/Bad Guy. He believed in the idea that one guy is trying to beat the other. However, he would say, 'You can be a Good Guy/Bad Guy, or you can just be a star.'
When you're playing a good character, you have an idea that you're playing the hero and the good guy. Actually, I think you're more stymied playing the good guy than you are the bad guy. As the bad guy, you have no inhibitions. Nothing stops you from doing what it is you feel you have to do. You do it because it's what's required.
The problem was, you couldn't have one without the other. There couldn't be a bad guy unless there was a good guy to create the standard. And there couldn't be a good guy until a bad guy showed just how far off the path he might stray.
I'm not an activist by nature. I am suspicious of Utopian thinking and equally suspicious of its alternate.
To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect.
Are there any good guys on 'Prison Break?' I suppose there might be. I can't honestly say whether I'm a good guy or a bad guy or I'm a good guy in wolf's clothing or sheep's clothing.
I never wanted to be a celebrity writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I'm still trying to be a good writer. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Intelligence alone can't make a good writer and style alone can't make a good writer - that is, not a really important or significant writer - but the two things together make a really good writer.
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