Top 188 Norman Quotes & Sayings - Page 4

Had I lived in Norman and those bands hadn't existed, who knows where I'd be, I might be doing something awful; I might be a doctor, or a physicist or something. Having those kinds of experiences at 12...the Chainsaw Kittens had a flamboyant homosexual lead singer, and the Flaming Lips were obviously very weird. I had only listened to the radio before that - things like Willie Nelson - so having people say, "These are the bands around here that you should listen to," I was like "Ok, I guess this is what normal music sounds like." That definitely changed things.

Norman Rockwell spent his career painting pictures that helped people understand their own feelings...pictures that enriched their own experiences and celebrated their own lives. But the art establishment branded him an 'illustrator', a sentimental one at that. Real artists, they said were doing art for art's sake, not for the sake of the bourgeois public. Real artists were putting swiggles, smears or daubs of paint on the canvas. They were doing 'innovative' and 'creative' work. If they were hideous and grotesque; we know that's what life really is!

We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.

We sat there, not talking, for a few minutes. He ate the Moon Pie; only skinny people can scarf down junk food like that. Finally, I said, "Norman?" "Yeah?" "Are you ever going to show me the painting?" "Man," he said. "You are, like, so impatient." "I am not," I said. "I've been waiting forever." "Okay, okay." He stood up and went over to the corner, picking up the painting and bringing it over to rest against the bright pink belly of one of the mannequins. Then, he handed me a bandana. "Tie that on.

Bill Blass came in all the time, and I would make him roast chicken with spring potatoes and spring porcini with spring onion. And baby artichokes. And never, ever did he find a better chicken. Norman Parkinson, one of the greatest photographers alive, came every lunch to Le Cirque. And every time he would clean up his plate with his bread and then he would take his marker and write on the plate how much he loved the food. I think at Le Cirque I learned how to make real food, which is what people crave, not just gimmicky things on a plate.

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life.

I think too much is known about me already. I think biographical information can get in the way of the reading experience. The interchange between the reader and the work. For example, I know far too much about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Because I know as much as I do about their personal lives, I can't read their work without this interjecting itself. So if I had it to do over, I'd probably go the way of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. And just stay out of it altogether and let all the focus be on the work itself and not on me.

It wasn't like this happy-go-lucky experience, shooting Norman movie. It was something I kind of had to, sort of dedicate a certain level of focus and energy to kind of just stay in this headspace that would allow me to access - because it's also a very emotional movie at times. This was the first time I ever played a real character, a fully fleshed out, dimensionalized, multi-faceted character, as opposed to a part. There's not very much opportunity for somebody of my age and my look, so for a character-driven piece like this to come along is a rare thing.