Ricky Jay Quotes
I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.

Quotes to Explore
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I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all.
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The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.
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Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.
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I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.
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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
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Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.
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I'm always up for going back to the stage.
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Writing can be a very solitary profession, and when deadlines are looming, it's tempting to glue myself to my desk, but I try to make sure I get out a few times a month with friends just so I don't forget what it means to be social.
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I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.
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While I'm writing, I'm also the first reader, and I want to write a book where I'm excited about what happens next.
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By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.
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You should live in a manner that should enable you to devote time to writing and contemplation. As is often said, the writer is at work even when he is simply looking out the window.
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The world isn't going backward, if you can just stay young enough to remember what it was really like when you were really young.
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There's no better satisfaction than writing. I feel that writing is the best and everything else comes with it.
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All the things worth writing about are outside me. I'm a lens, not a source. And even if it's not always a comfortable journey, it's always a stimulating one.
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I had heard about the nightcrawling world, and I'm very aware that there are tens of millions of young people around the world who are facing bleak employment prospects.
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There's something so wonderful about writing in rhyme where it isn't just the meaning of the words, it's the music to the words and the shape and the sound.
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I don't see myself as an artist, as a writer. The sort of writing that I do, which is popular fiction, it's work. I have contracts to fulfil, and I have deadlines to meet.
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I think I get certain pleasure from writing what I'm performing.
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A lot of folks just get it in their head that, for instance, like writing memoirs is just easy. You just write down what happened. It doesn't quite work that way.
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The most important thing is to stay positive.
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I don't think this team realized how good we are, ... I think we are one of the top three teams in the country, I really do.
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When I was fighting at a weekend, I would be in when my friends were out. I never had time to go out and go off the rails.
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I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.