A Quote by John K. Samson

No one else writes like Gord Downie, so it's difficult to compare him. He can work in the abstract and still somehow be really specific. He lets parts of his consciousness in that most writers aren't able to do, myself included. I don't feel like I have that access to the surreal and the somehow beautifully meaningful non-sequitur - that fits perfectly. I can never figure that out, how he does that.
That's something I've certainly taken from writers like Gord Downie is that there is a whole potential for breaking out of meter. Even if you don't do it, you're permitted to. He gave a lot of writers permission to do that, to expand and push out the borders of what a rock song can contain.
Part of the reason why I love acting is that you do hope that somehow your work will connect to people and somehow expand their consciousness somewhat, and being able to challenge notions of prejudice through work - through my work - is really thrilling.
One of the traps of adolescence is the sort of paranoid resentment that somehow you're never going to match up and that everybody else's life is going to be better and finer and fuller. That everyone else attended some secret lesson in which how to live was taught and you had a dental appointment that day, or you were somehow not invited. And the point of great writers like Wilde is that they make that invitation to you.
It just seemed like I would. I mean, I didn't know him on a daily basis -- far from it. But, in a way, I don't even feel right being here without him. It's so difficult to really believe he's gone. I still talk about him like he's still here, you know. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make any sense.
I didn't think, 'I'd really like to work in TV; maybe I could carve out a niche where I talk to people who are somehow involved in marginal or difficult lifestyles... ' It was something I gravitated to very naturally as a subject area, almost instinctively, and somehow turned into a TV career without meaning to.
Songs don't really feel like me unless I somehow shed a little secret or open myself somehow or be vulnerable. When I'm singing these songs, it feels like me, and that comes with the vulnerabilities and the strengths and the moments of triumph or whatever.
The writer must be a participant in the scene... like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character.
There's that confidence again, that semi-infuriating easiness of his, the tilt of his head and the smile. but today it's not infuriating. Today I like it, feel like it's somehow rubbing off on me, like if I was around him enough I would never feel awkward or frightened or insecure.
I feel like the closest that we get to fulfilling our calling is making a difference in other people's lives. I feel like it's different for everybody. Our purpose and our calling are different. We're all called to do different things. But some way, somehow, it has to be impacting other people. If not, what are you doing? How does it have an impact? How does it have an eternal impact? It has to be investing in other people, somehow making a difference in their lives. When we do that, I really believe that we'll fulfill why we're here and what we're supposed to do.
I don't feel like I possess a particular political intelligence, and when I read work that does, I feel like somebody else is going to have the right political thing to say. As a citizen, I feel an enormous need to respond, and immediately post-election, I felt like, What is my work worth? Should I quit what I'm doing and go work on the 2018 election now? How is what I'm putting into the world meaningful?
I promised I'd save him, take him home! I promised him!" . . . Thomas hugged Chuck to his chest, squeezed him as tightly as possible, as if that could somehow bring him back, or show thanks for saving his life, for being his friend when no one else would. Thomas cried, wept like he'd never wept before. His great, racking sobs echoed through the chamber like the sounds of tortured pain. (pg 358 hardback)
I can't think of very many people who work as hard at the craft of songcraft as Gord Downie does. It was life or death. Every syllable was important.
I guess I've always wanted to create my own stories, but writing was one of those things where I thought that I would never actually do it. I respected writers too much, and what they do, to think that I was one of them - and I still feel that way a lot of the time. I still feel uncomfortable calling myself a writer. I'm like, "No, I'm an actor who writes sometimes."
You've got to be able to hold a lot of contradictory ideas in your mind without going nuts. I feel like to do my job right, when I walk out on stage I've got to feel like it's the most important thing in the world. Also I've got to feel like, well, it's only rock and roll. Somehow you've got to believe both of those things.
There are couples who are very fearful of bringing children into the mix because they feel like somehow that link between them as a couple is going to somehow dissolve or become less powerful or whatever. And that somehow the child is going to disrupt their happy stage. Of course it is true, that's exactly what a child does but it's not something to be feared, it's to be embraced.
I think about dying but I don't want to die. Not even close. In fact my problem is the complete opposite. I want to live, I want to escape. I feel trapped and bored and claustrophobic. There's so much to see and so much to do but I somehow still find myself doing nothing at all. I'm still here in this metaphorical bubble of existence and I can't quite figure out what the hell I'm doing or how to get out of it.
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