A Quote by Randall Mann

Some reviewers have read this as cynicism but I don't see it that way. When I say "I am so sick / of pretending to be me," it's exhaustion at the everyday performance, in life, in art, even in our most intimate encounters.
Reviewers try to square the antics of a writer's life with the antics in the fiction. Even satirical verbal play is too often read and admired as autobiographical expression. And thanks to the democratic exposures of the web, it's easier than ever to document private experiences and divulge the most intimate secrets.
Sometimes good art jumps out at me; most of the time I see bad art, or see nothing at all and just drift, feeling weird, pretending to be fine.
'Memory.' 'Race.' 'Murder.' That's what they say about me. I am an elegiac poet. I have some historical questions, and I'm grappling with ways to make sense of history; why it still haunts us in our most intimate relationships with each other, but also in our political decisions.
There's always the day where you do the effort noises, so there's a lot of grunts, huffing and puffing, pretending like you're hopping over things, pretending like you're getting hit, and pretending like you're kicking. If any of that was recorded, it's some of the silliest stuff I'll ever do, as an actor, but it's fun and liberating, in a way, 'cause no one can see me. I videotape myself doing it sometimes, to send to my friends just to remind us how ridiculous our jobs are.
I do not consciously reclaim. I am not those "some readers" and so I think it would be impossible for me to see my work that way, as reclaiming a preserve. I write in a way that is aimed at all levels - conscious and unconscious - at pleasing the kind of reader I am. Some of the authors I read are male, some are female, and some are even in between. And speaking of in between, maybe now is as good a moment as any to point out that there might be no "feminine" or "masculine" literary sensibility, or sensibility generally.
Behind all art is an element of desire...Love of life, of existence, love of another human being, love of human beings is in some way behind all art — even the most angry, even the darkest, even the most grief-stricken, and even the most embittered art has that element somewhere behind it. Because how could you be so despairing, so embittered, if you had not had something you loved that you lost?
Jesus doesn't say, "The religion founded in my name is the way, the truth, and the life, [and] what people say about me is the way." "Our way of worship, the Christian structure, is not the way," [he would say,] "I am. I am. If you want to know what life is all about, what it's supposed to be, where it's supposed to go, where it's supposed to derive its strength from, don't look at anything people say about me. Don't look at the faith that's been created. Look at my life, which is a life ultimately of sacrificial love."
Divine reality is not way up in the sky somewhere; it is readily available in the encounters of everyday life, which make hash of my illusions that I can control the ways God comes to me.
I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
I used to jokingly say, "I don't teach art. I'm an art doctor." Students come to me and say, "My art's sick," and we help them make it well.
I want someone who will adore me so much that they cannot even walk past me without touching me in some way. I want someone who will worship me, even when.. I'm sitting around in fluffy slippers with no makeup on and hair scraped back. I'm sick and tired of being on my own. Most of the time I'm fine. Some of the time I even quite enjoy it. But at this precise moment in time I'm fed up with it. I've had enough.
I can say that I am only human and I have made mistakes. I can say that I try to live my life in the most true, honest way that I can. I am not perfect, no one is. No one is harder on me than me. No one can please everyone. No one can live in the past and expect to grow. I have been moving forward and hope that I am not defined by just a few moments in my life but all of the moments that will make up my life.
I am not stopped by low funds, physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion, or temptations to stop and work on some other production that would be more financially rewarding.
The preface is the most important part of a book. Even reviewers read a preface.
Art is about changing what we see in our everyday lives and representing it in such a way that it gives us hope.
I spent my teenage years and early 20s being manipulated - well, not manipulated, but I was told what to do and what to say by agents and managers, and when I was around 23 I thought 'I am sick of pretending to be someone and saying all these things that don't really resonate with me.'
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