A Quote by Will Self

Instead of looking at individual buildings, it makes more metaphorical sense to think of New York as one enormous chunk of masonry that has been cut up and carved away. It says, 'This is the ultimate polis, through which humans move like nematodes.'
Participation in the collective life of the polis both restrains the extraordinary individual and enlarges the ordinary individual, allowing him to participate in the extraordinary. An individual can achieve participatory excellence via the accomplishments of the polis and need not always be caught up in the agnostic struggle to outdo his peers.
We tend to see individual differences instead of human universals. Thus, when someone says the word 'intelligence,' we think of Einstein instead of humans.
When I think of New York I have a very different feeling. New York makes even a rich man feel his unimportance. New York is cold, glittering, malign. The buildings dominate. There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit. A constant ferment, but it might just as well be going on in a test tube. Nobody knows what it's all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre, Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated.
In a VR setting, you tilt your head up, and you really have the vertigo and the sense that it goes up to infinity, and it's like you're in New York City or Dubai, and you're looking up at a giant skyscraper. You have a sense of awe.
If you've ever tried to move from L.A. back to New York, that's a pretty hard move. You forget how cramped things are in New York. You forget how dirty it is in New York. But, it's been the best move of my life, not necessarily for my career, but for my soul.
I feel like I've been known for having long black hair, so when I took all my extensions out and cut my own hair, it was the most freeing thing, I think, I've ever done. That was my 21st year: I cut my hair, I was doing Broadway; I was living in New York, and I was really having a moment of becoming my individual self, and it was amazing.
You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it.
I have to admit I've rarely been happier in my life. I have been absolutely thrilled to be back in New York and living a block from where I grew up. Just to be back in New York and, quite honestly, away from Hollywood has been an absolute thrill for me. I feel like I'm a real actor again.
I moved from a mountain with one traffic light to New York City when I was 17, and it was an amazing, eye opening, creative adventure. I would walk through the streets of Manhattan looking up at these huge buildings, amazed that I didn't know a single person in any of them.
I always thought I would move to New York after graduation, but, instead, I moved to Los Angeles. I realized I was more scared of that choice than I was of New York, and I thought, at 22, I should get it over with.
It had always been a dream of mine to come to New York to work. Coming to New York and looking for work is one thing, but coming to New York and already having a job and feeling like you are already part of the city has been an amazing experience for me.
Your pitching coach is almost like your spouse. He's someone to go to when you want to gripe and complain. The big thing for me with Mel (Stottlemyre) is that we've been through so much together. He's been through everything I've been through on the mound. He was a Yankee who won twenty games in New York and a Yankee who didn't win twenty games in New York. For me, he's been there and that's what makes a good pitching coach. He's a good man, too.
I've done more than 100 films, which is a sizeable chunk of life in cinema, so if something can startle me, then I think we can say we're looking at something fairly new.
Once we accept violence as an adaptation, it makes sense that its expression is calibrated to the environment. The same individual will behave differently if he comes of age in Detroit, Mich., versus Windsor, Ontario; in New York in the 1980s versus New York now; in a culture of honor versus a culture of dignity.
When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.
I kinda feel like if I can do what I like in New York - and I like New York, I was born in New York, I have a lot more of a connection to New York - the hope is to stay in New York.
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