A Quote by John Lithgow

My eagerness to please sometimes gets the better of me. — © John Lithgow
My eagerness to please sometimes gets the better of me.
Occasionally, as an actor, you're not... Sometimes, at least for me, I'm not fully in the groove until the second or third take, in which I would not want to just stop. If it's a scene that takes a lot of work and time, sometimes the scene gets better with time, and sometimes it gets exhausted. I think it just depends on the scene.
Eagerness to please attracts bullies and bores.
I didn't like the way I looked, the way I dressed and moved, what I achieved and what I felt I was worth. But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I'd be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such anticipation when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I feel in remembering myself.
You must in your music be wavering like the wind; sometimes wanton, sometimes drooping, sometimes grave and staid, otherwhile effeminate; and the more variety you show, the better shall you please.
Sometimes a book influences me because it winds me up. There'll be something that gets under my skin and makes me think that I can do better.
Sometimes before it gets better, the darkness gets bigger. The person that you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger.
Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.
America has a broken spirit, that the people that are saying, "Please help me, please let me keep my home, please let me keep my car, please recognize me as a vital human being," they are falling on deaf ears.
Oh God, God, please come to me, please illumine me, please act in me and through me. I don't know what's right and what's wrong. I can't tell anymore. I could be doing what I feel is right and perhaps I'm deceiving myself. Perhaps it's all my ego and my vanity. Please show me what's right or don't even show me. Please just do it, whether it brings me happiness or unhappiness, riches or poverty, sorrow or joy. Please act in and through me. I love only you.
I have a tendency to overempathize with people, which gets me into tricky situations. I can get sucked in and feel like I need to get involved, which is sometimes helpful and sometimes not. It's better to have more distance.
The only thing pot does for me is it gets me to stop thinking. Sometimes I have a brain that needs to be turned off. Some people are just better high.
Anything that gets in the way of my focus to create gets cut out of my life. It's not easy. Sometimes it's family. Sometimes it's friends. Sometimes it's the ability to have a relationship.
All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please.
When I was first writing, my little prayers were, 'Please, please, please. Let something be published someday.' Then it went to, 'Please, please, please. Let somebody read this.'
Please tell me a story about a girl who gets away." I would, even if I had to adapt one, even if I had to make one up just for her. "Gets away from what, though?" "From her fairy godmother. From the happy ending that isn't really happy at all. Please have her get out and run off of the page altogether, to somewhere secret where words like 'happy' and 'good' will never find her." "You don't want her to be happy and good?" "I'm not sure what's really meant by happy and good. I would like her to be free. Now. Please begin.
I'm just trying to do whatever is asked of me. I've been thrown into many different positions. Sometimes I'm on the left. Sometimes I'm in the middle. Sometimes I'm up top. So you always have to be prepared. I'm learning a lot so hopefully I can keep getting better and better.
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