A Quote by Dave Barry

I always assumed that at some point I would have to quit making jokes, get a real job and do something meaningful and productive that would actually benefit society. Fortunately this never happened.
I don't know if I necessarily fit in the action-thriller genre, but I'd love to do something where I could actually kick some butt and then tell a few jokes. That would be awesome! That would be my dream job.
I've never written a fiction before about real people. . . . I read everything that I could find by people who met them and tried to get some impression of them, but as always when you write fiction, even if you have completely fictitious characters, you start by thinking of what is plausible, what would they say, what would they be likely to do, what would they be likely to think. At some point, if it is every going to come to life, the characters seem to take over and start speaking themselves, and it happened with [COPENHAGEN].
Many people are unhappy because there was some point in their past where there was some glory day, and as they get older they're not creating more glory days. They reflect on a time that they will never reach again, and it brings some level of dissatisfaction into their lives. I have circumvented that by simply making incumbent upon myself to always be productive in ways that are consistent with my physical body, my mental state of knowledge, but more important, my presumed growth in wisdom that would come with age.
I was determined that with perseverance and faith, at some point, someone would say, 'This girl has talent,' and would cast me in something meaningful.
I always try to write about something that's actually happened or it doesn't always have to have happened to me, but it has to have happened at some point. So every single lyric that you hear comes from some kind of story that I've come across in my life. I like to think that that maybe helps me mean it a bit more and if you don't mean it, it ceases to be soul music.
If I was a complete slacker who was just doing nothing but traveling, I don't know if I would have the discipline to be productive and create this job, and on the other hand, if I was always disciplined and productive, I don't think I would have that mystical connection that lead to great work.
I made a vow to myself while I was a hostage that if I were lucky enough to live and to get out of Somalia, I would do something meaningful with my life - and specifically something that would be meaningful in the country where I'd lost my freedom.
I've always wondered what it would be like if the Messiah, or Christ Returned, were actually alive and living in our society; who would that person be, how we would identify them, how would they live and what would they believe in, how would society react to them? I decided to try and tell my idea of that story.
If you draw the entire timeline of humanity from the time humans first trod until today, let's just assume that's 10 feet on a timeline. My time on that timeline is so small that you couldn't point it out. Let's say it's smaller than a grain of sand, in that whole 10-foot timeline of humanity. And when I lost my hearing, it happened to coincide with human technology advancing to the point that the cochlear implant existed. If I had lost my hearing five years earlier, I would have had to quit my job. I would have lost my career. I've always been kind of in awe of that reality.
As an artist, you are always striving toward an ultimate achievement but never seem to reach it. You shoot a film, and the result could have always been better. You try again, and fail once more. In some ways I find it enjoyable. You never lose sight of your goal. I don’t do my job to make money or to break box office records, I simply try things out. What would happen if I were to achieve perfection at some point? What would I do then?
I never assumed I would have that commercial success, so it was a total surprise. And honestly, I never assumed that it would ever happen again.
People think making jokes about something is just going to cause trouble. But actually, not making jokes about something is a type - and this sounds very pretentious - of apartheid.
I had in effect been thrown out of graduate school because I was a lousy graduate student, and I had to find a job, and I took the first job that came along. It happened to be a management trainee job in a life insurance company, and I just stayed. It was always, mainly, the idea was that I would support myself as a writer, and I knew I would have to have some sort of work, and it didn't make a whole lot of difference to me what it was. I mean, I could have been a paper hanger or something for that matter.
We wanted to show people what it was like in one of those neighbourhoods that they would never have access to, in bars that they would be too scared to go into, and a world that they would never get to see. All of that is something really unusual and rare and kind of fascinating. And the only way to do that and to make it really worthwhile was that it had to be authentic. We dedicated a lot of time and energy to making that right and real. So we found basically the worst locations that we could.
Well, I am not always joking, sometimes I am serious. But some people always expect you to be funny. If you were like you are on stage, you would be obnoxious. With the jokes and the putdowns, I would need to take a break... juggle something.
At some point, when I was in Chicago for maybe eight years, I never thought I would leave Chicago. I wish it would have happened that way, but everything happens for a reason.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!