- All Quotes
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Mirabelle replaces the absent friends with books and television mysteries of the PBS kind. The books are mostly nineteenth-century novels in which women are poisoned or are doing the poisoning. She does not read these books as a romantic lonely hearts turning pages in the isolation of her room, not at all. She is instead an educated spirit with a sense of irony. She loves the gloom of these period novels, especially as kitsch, but beneath it all she finds that a part of her indentifies with all that darkness.
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My problem is that I don't get the same exhiliration from success as I get depression from failure.
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I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian.
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You know, you're really nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a really big door.
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Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
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I believe you should place a woman on a pedestal: high enough so you can look up her dress.
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He never complicates a desire by overthinking it, unlike Mirabelle, who spins a cocoon around an idea until it is immobile.
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Comedians don`t get Oscars, so I gave up on that a long time ago. And I can`t really speak about the Oscar-worthiness of my own performance.
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I would get records by Earl Scruggs... I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking... And I kind of worked out my own style of playing.
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I loved doing 'Pennies from Heaven.' Because you have to understand that I'd been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don't think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.
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A remarkable memoir that's packed with anecdotes, advice and humor, all while maintaining a high level of dignity and self-awareness.
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You cannot make your opportunities concur with the opportunities of people whose incomes are ten times greater than yours.
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I just respected comedians whether they were or they weren't, from, you know, new or old.
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I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.
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A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
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I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.
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I really enjoy the social aspects of music as much as anything.
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I think probably the most difficult challenge was just the climb and rise in show business because I went through my entire twenties with some success as a comedy writer but not much as a performer. And you have to be kind of informed and naive at the same time.
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she is nearing forty and not so easily forgiven as when her skin bloomed like roses.
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I would assign every lie a color: yellow when they were innocent, pale blue when they sailed over you like the sky, red because I knew they drew blood. And then there was the black lie. That's the worst of all. A black lie was when I told you the truth.
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Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
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introductions are hard to come by when your natural state is shyness
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At first I had no skills in writing comedy. I didn't know what a joke was, but, as someone once told me, your emotions follow your intent. If you create the intention of starting a comedy act, slowly your mind starts adjusting and you arrive at a new emotional state.
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A friend of mine once asked how to make it in show business and I said "Be so good that they can't ignore you." She thought I was being flip but it's true. The challenge is trying to live up to the opportunities given me.