A Quote by John Lithgow
The essence of comedy, drama, and horror is surprise. I have an uncanny ability to surprise people because they look at my face, and they don't know where I'm going.
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One of the things I love so much about horror is the way it uses surprise, and when I write, it's about: What have we not seen before? What's going to surprise us? If we're not going beyond, taking that challenge, I get kind of bored.
I've never had a surprise birthday party. I've had every other type of surprise. I've had surprise beatings, surprise drug tests, surprise daughter I think.
Comedy, unlike drama, demands surprise. You can't quietly and thoughtfully enjoy a comedy.
I don't like the phrase shock value. Surprise is essential in comedy, and if people are shocked by what I consider merely surprising, then that's their shock. But there is no joke without surprise.
After the play of 'Fleabag,' we had conversations with different channels and with film companies about whether 'Fleabag' should be a half-hour sitcom, an hourlong, serialized drama, or a film. And I knew that it couldn't be a drama because I wanted to hide the drama - that had to be the surprise. I knew it had to be comedy.
One of the difficult things of making a horror sequel in general is because the horror genre is so founded on surprise.
Humor is based on surprise, and surprise is a milder way of saying shock. It's surprise that makes the joke.
The idea of surprise is part of what makes something funny, or what gets a reaction. At least when I'm an audience member, after you hear a joke so many times it's not as funny because it loses its surprise or its twist. So I think funny has to do with surprise.
It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.
An important part of any good mystery story like 'Original Sin' is that it's not just a game of 'Clue' with surprise after surprise after surprise, but the goal is to tell a story in the midst of that. Even once you know the solution to the mysteries, it's far from the whole story.
I once threw myself a surprise party on Twitter because I was lonely. It was awesome. Thousands of people showed up and then Wil Wheaton and I made a bunch of monkey-ponies. It was the most successful surprise party I've ever thrown in my life. It was also the only surprise party I've ever thrown in my whole life.
You don't want to buy a surprise, because then the surprise is how awful it looks on you.
You might ask yourself why you want to surprise your readers in the first place. A surprise ending is sort of like a surprise party. Probably some people, somewhere, enjoy having friends and trusted colleagues lunge at them in the sudden blinding light of their own living room, but I don't think most of us do.
[Sex] is really awkward. You know you have expectations and then it's this great moment of connection and it's a surprise. But that's what so exciting about it is that sense of surprise.
Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's not a surprise anymore.
It's a tremendous feeling walking on to a set with a live audience and making them laugh, but I love drama, and I love drama where there's the ability to bring comedy into it because in a lot of tragic circumstances in life there is comedy to be had.
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