Evan Esar Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I'm not a character like Rapunzel or Cinderella; my story looks like any other.
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It's always humbling, knowing where we came from. From being friends with the janitor in the bar and being friends with the waitress - because they were some of the only people that were listening when we finished playing - to this, we are able to appreciate every single person and every single piece of it, because we came from nothing to this.
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Sometimes it's less about the character and more about the story for me. I'll play a rock in the background if I think the story is fantastic and I can be a part of it somehow. That's what I look for.
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Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
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Sometimes the kids come up with better endings than the real story.
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I actually spend very little time listening to any new music.
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I know feeling pressure gets you nowhere creatively. You've just got to understand the character, understand the story, and just play it to the fullest extent.
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The reader is going to imprint on the characters he sees first. He is going to expect to see these people often, to have them figure largely into the story, possibly to care about them. Usually, this will be the protagonist.
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Reading a Lydia Davis story collection is like reaching into what you think is a bag of potato chips and pulling out something else entirely: a gherkin, a pepper corn, a truffle, a piece of beef jerky.
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We try to keep a good line of communication open with our children. It's not always about trying to just teach them every moment, but it's about listening to them and trying to understand them and gain that sense of communication so when they need to talk to someone, they know that we're there.
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I like to let the story flesh itself out, and usually, the characters make their own decisions as things get under way. Dialogue especially seems to write itself once I'm familiar with the characters and their backgrounds.
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The writing that feels the best to me, I experience sometimes, is a kind of weirdly deep listening - like, it feels like if you just listen hard enough, the next sentence will tell you what it needs to be.
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A news organization has a much different responsibility. I might not be telling you the whole story. I might not be telling you a story in a manner that is properly sophisticated.
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I'd dropped out of high school without really doing it on purpose - I'd just go home at lunch 'cos I didn't have friends, then stay there all afternoon listening to rap. It got to the point where I wouldn't have passed even if I'd gone back. I was depressed, basically.
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A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.
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As cliched as it sounds, if you have an original voice and an original idea, then no matter what anybody says, you have to find a way to tell that story.
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It is expected that a children's story will raise a difficulty and then resolve it: increasingly, this resolution is so prompt and so resounding that one forgets what exactly the difficulty was.
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I wrote my first story when I was six or seven.
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I have the most eclectic music taste out there. I can be listening to an indie pop song just as easily as I could be listening to a Carly Simon song from the '70s to a country song.
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We've gotten to play shows where I'm the headliner, so people are buying tickets to come see me, and that's when you really learn, 'Okay, who's listening to this music?' That and social media. But I couldn't feel luckier about the fan base that is starting to grow... People have just been super, super supportive and awesome.
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I'd like 'Rookie' to be a helpful resource, but I never want it to be too prescriptive. Hopefully, it also makes the reader feel encouraged to think for herself.
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We started out when I was 6 years old. We played ukuleles and sang Everly Brothers songs.
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It's definitely longer than the buzz cut you see most of the time in the federal government. I would pale in comparison to rock and rollers with my haircut. I would be a lightweight.
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The best way to make a long story short is to stop listening.
