Gene Luen Yang Quotes
Writing for myself and writing for another artist are two very different experiences. When I handle both the story and the art, I have full control. I can endlessly tweak every word and every line.
Quotes to Explore
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There ought to be more grants that go to people in their late twenties and early thirties. That's a crucial age, although it's very hard to judge who is worth supporting and who is not. Looking back on my own life, I see that was the period when I was closest to giving up as a novelist and when I most needed some encouragement.
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People know things and have a remarkable capacity to act in their individual immediate interests all the time.
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I'm the complete opposite of every clean cut, decent-looking guy you could ever think of. Yet, I have the biggest heart in the world.
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When I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till makeup comes off. I just want everyone to be at ease, and not have the show's creators think, 'Oh my god, he's so English, why did we hire him?'
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Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.
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I had a sense of what leadership meant and what it could do for you. So am I surprised that I am sitting up here on the 62nd floor of Rockefeller Plaza? No.
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I find the whole situation of confronting an audience terrifying.
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From a spectator point of view, Test cricket is not important; people hardly watch Test cricket. But as a player, Tests are the real thing. You have to concentrate for five days. It's a lot of time, and not easy to do it day in and day out. If people have played 70-100 Tests, it's a lot of cricket, a lot of concentration and dedication.
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I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor. I just really, really amused myself and my friends with memorizing entire George Carlin or Steve Martin albums.
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When I saw Wonder Woman being constantly put in positions where she'd get tied up with her own rope, or held hostage, even as a kid, my reaction was 'C'mon, she's too smart for that.'
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You shouldn't be ashamed of your pain. You have the right to have your pain treated.
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If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.
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There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.
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Hollywood is something imagined... acting is something crafted.
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Life is a series of steps. Things are done gradually. Once in a while there is a giant step, but most of the time we are taking small, seemingly insignificant steps on the stairway of life.
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In 1989, I was on Tiananmen Square with the students, living in their makeshift tents and joining their jubilant singing of the Internationale. In the two decades since, each time that I have gone back, visions from those days seem to return with increasing persistence.
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When you are already in Detroit, you don't have to take a bus to get there.
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I adore anything Michael Alexis writes.
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I love weights, but it's too far to get to the gym. So I make the farm my gym: I split wood and haul tires and do work on the farm, and that's sort of my weight training portion.
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Is it hard to make a living in show business? Yeah.
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We want to promote people-to-people exchanges so that China and the United States can really join together, not just to solve the problems of China or the United States, but some of the big problems facing the entire world. From climate change to famine to even terrorism.
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At the end of the day, it's a very powerful voice when you're able to perform on any level on any stage and have the audience, have the attention of children. It's a gift. It's not to be taken lightly, and it can be used for good or for bad.
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Sometimes touring can warp reality because you're never in one place long enough to get a feel for it. You don't interact with people long enough to know what real life is. That's why a lot of artists write songs about longing and missing people when they're on the road. I do my best to keep my mind open and I read a lot when I'm on tour, so I hope I have good things to write about. I'm constantly in the songwriting process.
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Writing for myself and writing for another artist are two very different experiences. When I handle both the story and the art, I have full control. I can endlessly tweak every word and every line.
