Jeff Baena Quotes
I've been a writer for years, but it was mainly as a function of trying to be a director, so I just got work as a writer. I want to keep directing.
Quotes to Explore
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I collect handkerchiefs. I know that's sort of old-timey, but my mom started the collection for me, and now I have a bunch. Basically, I have a myriad of beautiful handkerchiefs, and I carry them like a grandmother in my purse. And I opt for hankies in any situation.
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I'm optimistic about people and about the planet and about nature. I think it's resilient, like people are.
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I've found a letter that was written to me from a girl who was getting married. And she wanted to know the secret of a happy marriage. I said - and I wrote back and said something to the effect that I couldn't - I had no magic formula. And I never sat down and thought about it, but everything just fell into place with Ronnie and me.
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Who am I, if I'm not this singer with big high notes? I identify with my voice. But I'm more than just the acrobatics.
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Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they can't be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy.
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I have always been a coward as a child. I am not very brave. I am very aware of the fact that I am not very gutsy.
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I love all kinds of music. My dad's from London, so he loves David Bowie, the Stones, The Clash. I grew up with that influence while loving poetry and loving all kinds of current music.
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I had studied Irish history. I had read speeches from the dock. I had tried to fuse the vivid past of my nation with the lost spaces of my childhood. I had learned the battles, the ballads, the defeats. It never occurred to me that eventually the power and insistence of a national tradition would offer me only a new way of not belonging.
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Losing is no fun no matter who you lose to.
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You want all your books to stick around after you've gone.
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Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
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He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.
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If I had different parents who were in it for the money, I might have a different perspective. But they really are artists; they intelligently approach each character and prepare in every sense of the word. I grew up in a world that had great discipline.
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I'm a goody-goody. I'm the person who sits in the back row, makes fun of the teacher, and secretly does the extra-credit work.
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I don't think anyone's particularly conscious of thinking suits are the thing, but when you see a comedian on stage in jeans and a t-shirt it doesn't matter how good they are - it always looks like amateur hour when they walk onto the stage.
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Everybody in America who didn't come over the Bering Strait ice bridge stole his land from somebody else.
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I had heard about how people struggle and how hard it is to get into acting. But I did not care because it's something I love.
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I genuinely want to do my best every day, and I genuinely want to enjoy life every day.
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Protesting against illegal activity is not piracy.
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As an actor, you just want to work, and then you just want to be on a show or have a job that you love, and you hope that job will last - those things have happened. To have that platform to then talk about something that is very personal to me like marriage equality, it feels like a gift. I try and really respect that voice and not abuse it.
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Playwrights are the most gregarious writers - to get our work done, we need actors, directors, set designers.
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Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. ... Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it.
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There is no benefit to the conservative sinner in being a conservative. There is great benefit to the liberal sinner in being a liberal.
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I've been a writer for years, but it was mainly as a function of trying to be a director, so I just got work as a writer. I want to keep directing.
