Michael Shannon Quotes
As an actor, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never known what I was doing. I show up the first day, I'm scared, and I just hang out. It's like being in detention - you just wait for it to be over. Then gradually I start to figure out what's going on.
Quotes to Explore
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My daughter is my passion and my life.
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Inappropriateness is funny to me. Rudeness is hilarious.
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I got to grow up in an incredibly artistic family.
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I've had death threats, if you can imagine.
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The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more.
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Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
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Could today's construction worker married to a clerical worker guarantee four children a college education and buy a house? That's what we're fighting about.
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Girls grow up scarred by caution and enter adulthood eager to shake free of their parents' worst nightmares. They still know to be wary of strangers. What they don't know is whether they have more to fear from their friends.
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His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork.
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A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
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We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.
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People really think that the only way I got to be press secretary is because I somehow had a personal family connection to the Bushes or the Cheneys, and that wasn't true.
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.
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Writing is a strange and solitary activity. There are dispiriting times when you start working on the first few pages of a novel. Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge but to keep going.
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In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.
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I’ve found opposition to my teaching because I said it’s not the strength which does it, it’s a rhythm. You don’t need huge muscles great strength. In fact, if you have that and misuse it, you’re going to damage the material. It’s absurd. It’s a rhythmical flow of an idea, whichever sex you are.
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Ideology is a system of beliefs, held in common by the members of a collectivity.
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There's a place for him, but he's the final determinant as to whether he achieves that or not. He needs to capture the imagination of a universe hungry for decent thought and passion. All he has to do is be truthful and have a vision for what to do and stop playing a goddamn game of politics. If he does that, he'll get everything he needs.
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Now that I'm staring down the barrel of the last act of my life, I'm less excited about control and solo effort, and I resent the way the business aspects interfere with my space for creative writing.
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I, perhaps, at that stage, had the kind of ambition that others may have had; you know, namely based on the concept that if you were trained the world was out there waiting for you to provide a certain kind of leadership and give you an opportunity. But with the Depression, I began to see that there were certain social forces over which the individual had very little control.
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I find it very interesting these days that films are bringing in so many people of different ethnicities, and I'm proud to be a part of that cultural shift.
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In shape they were like horrible toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved.
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It's nice to have recognition for doing a good job, but at the end of the day, I'm just an actor and I'm doing my job and I'm always trying to get better at doing that job.
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As an actor, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never known what I was doing. I show up the first day, I'm scared, and I just hang out. It's like being in detention - you just wait for it to be over. Then gradually I start to figure out what's going on.
