Dan Bern Quotes
Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one.
Quotes to Explore
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If you love attention and have a pretty decent voice, that's a pretty good combination.
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Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.
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There's not a day in my life I'm not proud of being gay, but I just wasn't ready for that attention to be placed on it. I remember being on Oprah. Well, not on Oprah. Near Oprah. She started saying, 'Now, Nathan, you got all those girlie moves going down in 'The Birdcage,' where's all that coming from? You're so good at all that girlie stuff!'
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Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.
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If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.
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I never see myself as writing satire. I think I write about people as they really are, without making them better or worse.
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When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.
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Because our fight has been for such a long time we are isolated from the world, even after reconstruction we don't have much attention from people outside.
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Anytime you get an audience that's paying attention, you enjoy it more.
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I was already writing 'The Lost Symbol' when I started to realize 'The Da Vinci Code' would be big. The thing that happened to me and must happen to any writer who's had success is that I temporarily became very self-aware.
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Everyone needs a theme song! It should make you feel like a million dollars.
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In the '50s and '60s, the life of a gay man was a secret. Homosexuality was illegal, so you didn't draw attention to yourself.
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I think sometimes you are born with a song.
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It's kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.
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Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.
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In the country places of Ireland, writing is held in certain awe: a writer was a dangerous man from whom they instinctively recoiled.
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I'm not a chef. I haven't created any new technique in the kitchen. I'm not a rocket scientist. I think I'm good at writing accessible, fun, and affordable meals for the average American family. That's what I think I'm good at.
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I started writing songs at age 15.
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If even dying is to be made a social function, then, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party.
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But when it comes to democratic political parties, I prefer that monks and nuns not join them - in order to ensure proper democratic practice.
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Criminals together. We're in hell, my little friend, and there's never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing.
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You reason color more than you reason drawing... Color has a logic as severe as form.
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Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one.
