Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
Before I nodded off, I thought about what my dad had said—that life wasn’t all nice and neat like a book, and life didn’t have a plot filled with characters who said intelligent and beautiful things. But he wasn’t right about that. See, my dad said intelligent and beautiful things. And he was real. He was the most real thing in the entire world. So why couldn’t I be like him?
Quotes to Explore
-
There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.
-
The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction.
-
Put paying your dues and all that puts so much into being a success. You have an understanding of what it's about, being on your own for three or four years and living day to day on $3, or living in an apartment with no electricity.
-
You like the style of the people you like because it reflects something inside them.
-
I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process.
-
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
-
The VA does a lot of good things, but determining if a firm is a small business is not one of them.
-
I've always tried to be fair, even-handed, not an advocate for any group.
-
My mom would always play me a lot of late-'50s, late-'60s rock.
-
Without literature my life would be miserable.
-
Athol Fugard became famous as a playwright, so although 'Tsotsi' the book was written in the '60s, it was only published in the '80s. It was then optioned pretty much every year by producers. I think the problem was that holding onto its period setting made it very hard to get finance.
-
The importance of creativity in our country is greatly misunderstood.
-
We are all so busy and constantly trying to save time and balance everything.
-
While 'Friends' was about a 20-something population and what they were going through, they were also dealing with issues with their family.
-
People always come up to me and say that my smoking is bothering them... Well, it's killing me!
-
Being a hooker does not mean being evil. The same with a pick-pocket, or even a thief. You do what you do out of necessity.
-
Like 'real', 'free' is only used to rule out the suggestion of some or all of its recognized antitheses. As 'truth' is not a name of a characteristic of assertions, so 'freedom' is not a name for a characteristic of actions, but the name of a dimension in which actions are assessed.
-
By the end of the time I'm writing a book, I'm tearing my hair out and I want to go do stand-up. And then I want to do something else. I don't know why it is true with me that I can't just be satisfied doing the one thing, but I'm constantly flitting from one thing to another.
-
Improv relies just as much on listening as it does you delivering dialogue. That's the hard for some people. Some people just concentrate on what they're going to say, and they're not listening. You have to listen in order to see where the other person is going to.
-
When you try to build a team, you need a mix of talent.
-
We created a whole lot of millionaires to boot. Businesses did just fine. And you know there are plenty of patriotic, successful Americans all across the country -- I meet them every day -- who'd be willing to make this contribution again because they understand there is such a thing as the common good. They understand that we're in this thing together.
-
Before I nodded off, I thought about what my dad had said—that life wasn’t all nice and neat like a book, and life didn’t have a plot filled with characters who said intelligent and beautiful things. But he wasn’t right about that. See, my dad said intelligent and beautiful things. And he was real. He was the most real thing in the entire world. So why couldn’t I be like him?
