A Quote by Michael Birch

I wanted to build something that was a system - that was mechanical and would propagate itself like a virus. I needed a way for it spread from person to person, and the best way to do that was trying to get someone to get their friends to sign up.
Religion is like a virus that affects the behaviour of its host in such a way as to propagate itself further.
When you're interviewing someone, even your mother - you have to sort of deal with you have to get some objective space from yourself and the person but you also have to find what's the best way to get the information from that person.
Hopefully the person I'm trying to create is just a funny, dour, evil side of myself that has no other way to express itself. I don't model it after anyone in particular. Who would be like that? Who? I wouldn't want to meet that person. I wouldn't want to be interviewed by that person, I can tell you that.
Sometimes you can feel like the only person in the world to have struggled in a certain way and there is a shame around that. The way we deconstruct it all is by talking about it, by listening and even within our circles of friends and checking up on each other, making sure that if someone is going through something, they have someone to talk to.
A comic, all they have to do is, if you do something funny in a comedy club and you put it up on you tube, it might get a million hits! All it needs to do is resonate with one person who sends it to their friends, who sends it to other people, and before you know it, it has spread virally and BOOM! All of a sudden that person has a name.
Someone who's fake is someone who acts one way around their family and their close friends, but once they get out in the public, they're this whole different person.
I know when someone that's not you tries to tell your story, especially when you don't look like the person whose story you're trying to tell, you're going to screw it up. And the only way to get it right is to have them be as involved as possible.
I've never tried to measure myself on any scale. A person is more multifaceted than the label they often get stuck with. On the other hand someone's whole behaviour allows you to characterise them in a certain way. This person has liberal convictions, that person has conservative ones, this person is a radical socialist, and so on.
I've always found that you can enjoy your life a lot more if you can get on with people. If I don't get on with someone, I don't necessarily go out of my way to be best friends, but you learn as you grow up how to get on with people.
And like I said, I didn't know him very well, but my ears perked up whenever I heard his name. I guess I wanted to hear something - anything - juicy. Not because I wanted to spread gossip. I just couldn't believe someone could be that good. If he was actually that good... wonderful. Great! But it became a personal game of mine. How long could I go on hearing nothing but good things about Clay Jensen? Normally, when a person has a stellar image, another person's waiting in the wings to tear them apart. They're waiting for that one fatal flaw to expose itself. But not with Clay.
I'm way better in person than I am on things like Twitter. I know Twitter is the best and fastest way to connect with fans who really appreciate you but I'm still not cool with it - although I am trying! I try my best but I'm a one-on-one person and I don't want to tell people I'm on the toilet or I just brushed my teeth.
I was really proactive in trying to heal my family. I wouldn't give up. My whole life was about trying to get my father healthier, and there were moments when he was healthier. Then someone would give him a drink. I always felt if he had one person in his life who supported his healthy side, he'd be on his way.
It's like Forrest Gump said, 'Life is like a box of chocolates.' Your career is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get. But everything you get is going to teach you something along the way and make you the person you are today. That's the exciting part - it's an adventure in itself.
Music needs to have a real sacred setting for people to understand it. You've got to start things off with friends who are like-minded or even strangers that are like-minded. Sending your music to established artists or labels or magazine, I mean there is something to be said for tenacity, for trying to pursue recognition that way, but it just doesn't make sense for the best work. And if you do make an amazing work, it's sometimes not the best way to be heard. You have to get on a sacred space, like a stage, and do your testifying that way.
I never think about awards or anything like that when I do a job. I was first named a best actor when I was 12 years old and it doesn't really mean anything when you get down to it, because there is no best. I don't get all that involved. My chest puffs up as much as I can puff it up but I am not trying to be better than the person I am acting with. I am trying to be at least as good. That's how it works.
But everything that I did starting out, every job that I had, I haven't regretted any of them. They've all been informative, interesting in one way or another. With a career, I think there's this idea that you're just trying to get somewhere. It's like, "Oh, okay, let's keep going, because if I do this, I can get this, I get this, this." It wasn't that way. I did what I wanted to do when it was in front of me, and I'm trying to continue to do that.
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