A Quote by Lisa Jewell

For a very long time, I thought everyone I met through the process of getting an agent and a publishing deal had made a mistake. When they agreed to pay me for the book, I thought they would ask me for the money back.
There was a long time in my life where I made music that I thought my friends would like, or that I thought would get me a record deal, or what I thought I was supposed to make because that's what I was seeing in mainstream. I didn't know myself; I didn't find myself musically or, in real life.
My agent came to me with a deal from another publisher and I signed a deal and got the advance with no idea of what I was going to do. I probably procrastinated for almost a year, but we had meetings and I was basically going to spoof "Take Ivy," but then it kind of turned into something else. I wanted it to be a book of all the things that made me who I am, like Brooks Brothers, Hot Wheels, "The Andy Griffith Show" and G.I. Joes. I couldn't sit still and do it, so my agent had to come to my house and force me to do it.
I never thought black people would say I wasn't black enough. It didn't turn me into a bully - it just put me on the defensive. I had to watch my back. It made me stronger because I learned how to deal with ignorance.
In America, we have no means of getting to our own Space Station. We have to pay the Russians to put our people up there to send them into space - rendezvous with the Station and bring them back at the end of their stay, and that to me is just wrong. We're supposed to be the world's greatest space-faring nation, and to cancel our own means of getting there I thought was a mistake, even though it would save some money.
When I met Raj Kundra for the first time, I thought my whole life would change. I thought I'd get big breaks. I never thought Shilpa Shetty's husband would make me do wrong things.
Having an agent who had been through the process a million times and who could walk me through the process freed up a lot of mental space for me to just focus on the creative. I also worked with recipe testers, photographers, and assistants who were invaluable in creating a book that I'm truly proud of.
The early 2000s for me were a very emotional time, politically. I'd been through Reagan and been through first Bush and Clinton, and it's not like I had an easy time through those years. But I just thought it was particularly rough. I have to say the World Trade Center attack was very weird for me. The events that followed were worse. It was a really long swath of time.
I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace. I thought it was about the job or a book or making a name for myself.
I hid the fact that I had an aneurysm for a very long time. I was embarrassed, and I just felt like no one needed to know because it made me look weak. Who would of thought someone my age, at 23, had a brain aneurysm?
Marrying early was a very big mistake. Everyone warned me but I felt I was in love and ignored their advice. I had to pay the price for my silly mistake when I had to compromise on my career.
Now, almost twenty years since my last job in book publishing, I know that there are far more socially inept people in book than in magazine publishing. At the time, however, I just didn't feel I was enough: smart enough, savvy enough, well read enough, educated enough, charming enough. Much of this was probably because I was very naive, and didn't really know how to behave in an office. This made me a terrible assistant, which in turn made me a terrible junior book editor.
My book review site and first blog, which I started in 2003. I started it because I was lamenting that while I read so much, I could hardly remember any of it. People would ask me what good books I'd read recently, or what I thought of a particular book, and my mind would go blank. At the same time, I'd just heard of blogging and found the idea interesting and thought I'd give it a try.
ITV and the production company contacted me and asked if I fancied playing the role [of Maigret]. It took me a long time to decide to do it. In fact, I decided not to. I thought about it for some weeks, and thought 'perhaps not' and it went away for a while, and then it sort of came back. They said 'Are you sure you don't want to play him?', so I thought about it for a lot longer again, and eventually decided that I would.
In the hip-hop world, Eazy-E was the personification of evil. He paid my hospital bill, about $60,000, but he made me pay him back, which is cool, except that I later found out that he paid the bill out of my share of a publishing deal he made for me.
A couple years ago I was going to back off and actually thought about retiring, but it keeps calling me back, and I'm going to keep going back as long as it calls me. I really think it has something to do with the good vibes that I feel I've spread through my performance and through the time that I've spent with fans.
I didn't know they would pay you money to sit in a room and write songs for other people. I always thought that George Strait was singing a song, he made it up, and that was the end of it. But the instant I found that out, that that could be a job, I thought, 'That's the job for me. I gotta figure out how to do that.'
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