A Quote by Michael Ian Black
By the end of the time I'm writing a book, I'm tearing my hair out and I want to go do stand-up. And then I want to do something else. I don't know why it is true with me that I can't just be satisfied doing the one thing, but I'm constantly flitting from one thing to another.
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I really do love doing stand-up, and I don't see why it should affect the acting. And I just want more interesting jobs. I just want to keep doing stuff that's different, rather than saying, "Okay, I've become known for this, and I'll just do this from now on." If I feel like I've done this one thing, I never want to do it again. I want to do something totally different.
I don't want to have to put on that "thing" - I call it "the thing" when I have to do my hair, put on the lashes, get dressed up. When I go out for potato chips, I just want to go out looking like myself, which means you will see bad pictures of me. There probably are some out there right now, but it's just part of the life.
The most common thing I find is very brilliant, acute, young people who want to become writers but they are not writing. You know, they really badly want to write a book but they are not writing it. The only advice I can give them is to just write it, get to the end of it. And, you know, if it's not good enough, write another one.
Suddenly you're surrounded by strangers who want something from you. The thing is, they don't know what they want, and you don't know what they want, unless it's an autograph, and you just sort of stand there grinning at one another.
Suddenly you're surrounded by strangers who want something from you. The thing is, they don't know what they want, and you don't know what they want, unless it's an autograph, and you just sort of stand there grinning at one another
I studied Comparative Literature at Cornell. Structuralism was real big then. The idea of reading and writing as being this language game. There's a lot of appeal to that. It's nice to think of it as this playful kind of thing. But I think that another way to look at it is "Look, I just want to be sincere. I want to write something and make you feel something and maybe you will go out and do something." And it seems that the world is in such bad shape now that we don't have time to do nothing but language games. That's how it seems to me.
If I'm writing a story and you're reading it, or vice versa, you took time out of your day to pick up my book. I think the one thing that will kill that relationship is if you feel me condescending to you in the process. And how does that happen? Well, it happens when I know more than you do, and when I know that I know more than you do, and I'm holding it back from you. So that I can then manipulate you at the end. You know, you think about like in a dating situation how terrible that would be, it's the same thing with a book.
Sometimes I decide I don't want to write because it isn't the thing for me to be doing right then, and I go do something else.
When I was a boy, I would read those postcards and know exactly why my father was doing what he was doing: he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing--or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need but don't and can't get anyway.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. .I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, . and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout . . . "Yes." .I want to know if you can get up . weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done. .I want to know what sustains you . when all else falls away.
You all know the saying which is very true: What you resist persists. And I'm sure many of you have already found that out in your life. And then suddenly when you let go of resistance you let go of an attachment to something: I need this to happen in order to be happy; I don't want what is, I want something else. To be okay with what is, which is the simplicity of this moment, is the beginning of true change.
I could never really imagine myself doing one thing, and I'm pretty sure that I'll end up doing four or five different things. I want to be a Renaissance woman. I want to paint, and I want to write, and I want to act, and I want to just do everything.
I want to evolve each season. I never want to be one of those brands where people know what they're going to see. I always want an element of surprise. One thing I never want to do is copy what anybody else is doing. I have a signature, and it's very important to me to stay true to that.
There is never hesitation about doing stand-up. It's just me doing my thing. Unlike being in a band or a play or something, I don't have to rely on anyone else but me.
Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.
And I just think that if you believe in something and you want it so much and you're not hurting anyone else, you have to go for it. Which sometimes means taking a risk, even if it's scary. But the thing you want most to happen doesn't stand a chance unless you give it one.
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