A Quote by Lorrie Moore
The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father.' And you know what they say? 'I could never do that!'
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The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father. And you know what they say? I could never do that!'
The only piece of advice I've ever given anybody is learn to write songs and write as many songs as you can. Because it's never gonna hurt, and when you run into that problem of, 'God, I don't know what I want to say,' or the opposite problem of, 'I know exactly what I want to say, but no one has written it,' then you can just go write it yourself.
When my parents realized that what I liked was fashion, they gave me good advice. I remember my father telling me that I should try to do an internship. They never said, "This is a world we don't know; it might be something strange," or "That is not serious," or things like that. They always said, "Try. We'll help you. We'll send drawings to people if you want. We'll write letters for you." What I'm very thankful for is they never made me think that something was impossible. They were really, really supportive. They are still.
The biggest piece of advice that I give young comedians is: If it's your goal to get where I'm at, go do something else. Because you'll never get here. Never. The odds are so bad. Because not only do you have to be a really, really strong comedian but you also have to be lucky. And most people don't get that combination.
When I'm on stage, I'm not me playing me. I'm somebody else doing me. I could never go on stage and be like, "Hey, I'm Mike Tyson. My mother and father was in the sex industry." That's the politically correct way to say it, but I would really say, "My mother and father were pimps and whores. This is my life." I could never do that as Mike Tyson. Because I'd feel sorry for myself. But if I could be objective about it and be somebody else, portraying Mike Tyson, saying this story, then it's easy sailing.
I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, 'He is not a lush.' That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, 'Look!'
The only problems I sometimes have is if I ask for a piece for a group show, if I ask for a piece - I would like to put it into a show, sometimes the collectors get possessive about it and don't want to let something happen. Say you get full credit, you know. You give them your name, the catalog and it always enhances the value of the piece, you know, the more shows it is in, blah, blah, blah.
The only advice I give to acting students is, 'Be nice to your underclassmen. You never know who might be in a position to help you get a job one day.'
Students ask me what is the best advice you could give me? And I say, 'Your mother's right.'
What you have to understand, is your father was your model for God. If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God? What you end up doing is you spend your life searching for a father and God. What you have to consider is the possibility that God doesn't like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that can happen.
You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never.
I've been writing poems since I was in the Navy - to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.
Something I always tell students is, when you're writing something, you want to write the first draft and you want it to come out easily in the beginning. If you're afraid to say what you really have to say, you stammer. [...] You're judging yourself, you know, thinking about your listener. You're not thinking about what you're saying. And that same thing happens when you write.
Be yourself, chase your dreams, and just never say never. That's the best advice I could ever give someone.
You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘If only I’d…’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it.
There is nothing so depressing as good advice, and I will be pleased if you do not inflict it upon me. Frankly, I am shocked at you. You must know this, surely? Some years ago I suffered such an offensively gratuitous piece of good advice that I was depressed for six months afterward. It was a very close call - I almost never recovered.
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