A Quote by Juan Felipe Herrera
By middle school, I said to myself that it's time I begin to speak. I joined the choir, not because I wanted to. I forced myself.
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I wanted to entertain and make people laugh. I think it really hit in third grade, but once I was in high school, I joined chamber choir. I wanted to do musical theater, too, but they had rehearsals at the same time. That was a bit of 'Sophie's Choice.'
It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously -- and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.
I joined the church choir because there were these two hot chicks. Then people started giving me compliments. 'You really have a good voice.' Really? I just joined the choir for these girls.
I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school.
I grew up in Synagogue in the boys' choir. We didn't listen to music in the house; only at temple. Then I went to a mostly African American high school on the South Side of Chicago and joined a gospel choir.
I saw a sign at a gas station. It said 'help wanted'. There was another sign below it that said 'self service'. So I hired myself. Then I made myself the boss. I gave myself a raise. I paid myself. Then I quit.
In middle school, we are all so damn insecure. It was the worst time for me, really destructive, like slapping myself across the face but loving it. Now I have to be an adult and change myself. I have to be a bigger person.
Jail was a result of me not taking time for myself. So I was forced to take some time for myself.
I spent most of my days in school being a class clown. I never shut up. By the time I was in middle school, I had myself a personal aide.
When I speak, I don't speak for myself; I don't have the luxury of a Caucasian to be able to speak for myself. I speak for a whole community, and I represent so many different communities that that felt like a lot of pressure.
The only pressure comes form myself. I put pressure on myself at first just because I was intimidated. When I made Amy Poehler laugh, it was a big thing for me. She's been one of my role models since high school, because she started UCB, which is what I wanted to do since high school.
At one time in the mid-'70s I became the president of the Boston-Cambridge chapter of the World Future Society. Because I'd been in my studio by myself since 1968 on up. And the thing is that my social life consisted of being involved in organizations like that. I would get people to come and speak, and speak myself and that kind of stuff.
I've had to work by myself at combines before and forced myself to work out alone all the way back to high school. You have to be self-motivated.
I am very, very aware at all times. I'm watching myself, I'm listening to myself, I'm judging myself, critiquing myself all the time, and I will know when I do something and I will immediately say, "Can I do another one, because I didn't quite get that thing," or that I wanted to do something there and it didn't quite work.
I was in choir in school. I kind of just did it. I already knew I wanted to sing. My music program in my school wasn't really great - people didn't really want to be part of the choir, they didn't want to do the plays and stuff like that. It definitely wasn't the cool thing to do.
When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way. Uta Hagen said this, "In my life, I see myself as just this, you know, kind of flamboyant, kind of sexy middle-aged woman. And then I see myself onscreen, and I go 'Oh my God.'" And it's the same thing with me. I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't!
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