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
-
Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song.
-
If you love attention and have a pretty decent voice, that's a pretty good combination.
-
Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.
-
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!'
-
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.
-
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.
-
I never see myself as writing satire. I think I write about people as they really are, without making them better or worse.
-
I start writing with only the vaguest idea about who my characters are and what is going to happen, and the characters and plot come into existence as I go. I've tried doing it the other way, but for me, outlining is a waste of time because I never follow the outline.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Anytime you get an audience that's paying attention, you enjoy it more.
-
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.
-
Everyone needs a theme song! It should make you feel like a million dollars.
-
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.
-
I think sometimes you are born with a song.
-
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.
-
Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.
-
In the country places of Ireland, writing is held in certain awe: a writer was a dangerous man from whom they instinctively recoiled.
-
I am not driven.
-
Americans have always been excellent at making romantic comedies - but dramatically, we don't really try to do it.
-
If you want toget the most outof a sketch, youneed to leave bigenough holes forthe imagination to fit in.
-
I've challenged Cain Velasquez to a fight three times. He's a little boy who doesn't want to fight. He said no, live on TV.
-
Everybody needs four things in life: Something to do, someone to love, someone to believe in and something to hope for.
-
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.
