Calvin Trillin Quotes
If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny.
Quotes to Explore
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I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers.
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I really tend to write in retrospect.
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There's nothing more fun than making fun of what's sacred.
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Murderers, in general, are people who are consistent, people who are obsessed with one idea and nothing else.
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We have nothing to fear but fear itself... and, of course, the boogieman.
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Most things I get hired on, I get hired because I improvise something funny, or they just think I look weird.
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I have nothing revolutionary or even novel to offer.
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I like Brad Pitt; I just have nothing to do with him.
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There's nothing more American than movies.
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A mate of mine told me recently, 'It's the first time I've seen you work, Worthington.' I thought that was quite funny, but he was right.
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I think there have always been funny women, from Carol Burnett to Joan Rivers. When the audience sees a woman, they innately know she's worked twice as hard to get there, she's had to prove that she can be the leader, first, and then be funny on top of it. She has to emit a confidence that she's in control.
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I did accents and funny voices for the family when I was growing up.
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I just write mechanical things.
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I think it would be funny for people to read in obituaries of me that my major contribution to the arts was the popularization of the phrases 'neutral facial expression' and 'screaming in agony.'
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You have to create something from nothing.
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Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
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We try to make the name longer and longer every year. First, it was 'Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Spectacular.' Then it was 'It's a Very Larry Christmas.' Now it's 'Larry the Cable Guy's Hula-palooza Christmas Luau.' I'll tell you what it is: It's funny. That's what it is. Who cares what the name of it is? It is a funny special.
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People often write after they finish their career, or they don't play anymore, or they are not anymore active. So I say, why do that? And let's do it differently.
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I don't think any studio - it was a long shot at the time - but I don't think any studio in a million years would make 'Thelma and Louise' right now. But there's so many other kinds of movies they won't make right now.
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Growing old-it's not nice, but it's interesting.
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I try to get roles that challenge me in what I can do and who I think I can portray. For me, it's about creating characters with really fascinating stories, because that's what I like to watch on TV.
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Writers take words seriously - perhaps the last professional class that does - and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.
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If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny.
