Ben Yagoda Quotes
Memoir today is like one big game of misery poker: The more outlandish, outrageous, or just plain out-there the recounted life, the more likely the book is to attract the attention of reviewers, talk-show bookers, and, ultimately, the public.
Quotes to Explore
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Every writer I know got their start in a library somewhere. We read a book, and we thought, 'I want to do that.'
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I enjoy building more than managing.
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I would love to have some sort of 'Back To The Future' Delorean time machine travel device so I could go back to 1981 to see that very first Jackson 5 concert I went to, back when I was a kid.
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The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle.
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Yesterday morning I amused myself with an exercise of a talent I once possessed, but have so neglected that my performance might almost be called an experiment. I cut out a dress for one of the women.
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After World War I the resentment of the working class against all that it had to suffer was directed more against Morgan, Wall Street and private capital than the government.
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William Shatner has one style. We have completely contrasting personalities. We're very good friends. I adore him, but we're very different people, so they were smart enough to write characters that reflected that.
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Education is at the heart of achieving your dreams.
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I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.
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I kinda like the idea of having an album that's all me.
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I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.
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Granted, I've changed internally as I've gotten older - I take it easy, I know when to stop and take care of myself, I laugh much more and with my belly and soul - but this comes from the confidence and acceptance that comes with maturity.
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Our family business was operating batting cages. The pitching machine spit out the balls at lightning speed. Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax. Whitey Ford. 50 cents for 12 pitches. Of course, my mother ran the place, and I was her slave: selling candy, hosing down the street, and the most dreaded of all jobs, feeding the pitching machine with balls.
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In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.
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I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.'
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I came face-to-face with a gorilla which was quite good, but it was a 10-hour trek in bad weather, up hills, covered in mud, with mosquitoes everywhere and when we got there the gorilla's just sat there doing nowt.
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As an American roughly the same age as Barack Obama, I will not be ridiculed or reduced to a stereotype. I want to age appropriately.
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I think somehow men understand other men's need for respect differently than they understand it for a woman. I'm disappointed to have to say that, but I think it's undeniably true.
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I would like to think that I curse expertly - it's not something that I do without considering it. I never curse without intending to; it's not something I resort to because of inability to articulate or find the correct word.
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It's no coincidence that the word 'holiday' suggests a holy day, or that the longest book in the Torah concerns the Sabbath. If you wish to advance in any sphere, the best way is to take a retreat.
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I don't weigh into politics.
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A record is worth 10,000 live shows.
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Memoir today is like one big game of misery poker: The more outlandish, outrageous, or just plain out-there the recounted life, the more likely the book is to attract the attention of reviewers, talk-show bookers, and, ultimately, the public.
