Dan Chiasson Quotes

I was never trying to be funny. Being funny feels to me like an alternate form of confessionality - that is, a way of dismantling the distance between writer and reader, a way of saying, "come in a little closer."

Dan Chiasson

• Never
• Distance
• Saying
• Alternate

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Quotes to Explore

• I come from an immigrant family, but I know no other nationality apart from British.

  

  Maajid Nawaz
  • Family
  • Know
  • Immigrant

• I am always early to work but sometimes late to other things.

  

  Zooey Deschanel
  • Work
  • Early
  • Late

• You can't deny RCA's past and its history. I was also on Capitol Records, so I have that past history.

  

  Garth Brooks
  • History
  • Past
  • You

• One of the great things about being a writer/journalist is that my boss loves me to go out and do features on being someone else. I did a feature on Kate Middleton, where I went to an incredible fancy state home in the countryside, put on a wedding dress and posed for engagement pictures with a fake Prince William.

  

  Caitlin Moran
  • Great
  • Home
  • Fake

• Nothing is less suspenseful than a threat that threatens the maker of the threat at least as much as the subject of the threat. Congress hasn't learned this yet, but America has learned it over and over.

  

  Walter Kirn
  • America
  • Nothing
  • Congress

• I'm still overwhelmed and, at the same time, kind of star struck that I am part of this New England Patriots organization.

  

  Randy Moss
  • Star
  • Organization
  • New England Patriots

• Seriously, I do a lot of yoga, so I'm in control of my body.

  

  Randee Heller
  • Control
  • Body
  • Yoga

• The second trial was a fair trial. I do not call it a second trial. I call it a fair trial, as opposed to the first trial, which was an unfair trial, a Roman holiday.

  

  Sam Sheppard
  • First
  • Holiday
  • Unfair

• Ignorance and prejudice make for bad advisers.

  

  Samantha Power
  • Bad
  • Ignorance
  • Prejudice

• It takes the pressure off of your better players to know they don't always have to be on top of their game for the team to do well.

  

  Cal Hubbard
  • Game
  • Team
  • Pressure

• One drawing demands to become a painting, so I start to work on that, and then the painting might demand something else. Then the painting might say, 'I want a companion, and the companion should be like this,' so I have to find that, either by drawing it myself or locating the image.

  

  Gary Hume
  • Work
  • Myself
  • Painting

• The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations.

  

  Aaron Swartz
  • Up
  • World
  • Over

• If you look at weak democracies, the oligarchies that have taken undue control of them always seek to tamper with the vote. It is important for oligarchs to have elections to give their guy a veneer of legitimacy - and important for the vote always to turn out 'their way.'

  

  Naomi Wolf
  • Important
  • Guy
  • Control

• I went to private school my whole life. Growing up in Los Angeles, you're surrounded by not just Connecticut privilege but, like, your-dad's-a-movie-star privilege.

  

  Paloma Elsesser
  • Life
  • Up
  • School

• The interesting thing about London is that there are always stylish surprises around every corner.

  

  Natalie Massenet
  • Interesting
  • Always
  • London

• Subject matter is sort of overemphasized in the way books get discussed, I think.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Think
  • Way
  • Matter

• I have never been one of those actors who say, 'Oh, my character wouldn't do this,' or 'My character never wears an orange shirt,' or any of the number of inane things I've heard on movie sets throughout my career.

  

  D. B. Sweeney
  • Character
  • Movie
  • Career

• That's hot.

  

  Paris Hilton
  • Hot

• Go, lovely rose! Tell her that wastes her time and me That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.

  

  Edmund Waller
  • Time
  • She
  • Sweet

• I never considered the working class anything other than something to get out of.

  

  Dalton Trumbo
  • Never
  • Working
  • Class

• We're a nation of celebrity and hero worshipers, so much so that we make heroes out of those who aren't, such as John Wayne: a patriotic, red-blooded, two-fisted American who spent the Second World War in the trenches on the movie lots of Hollywood.

  

  Vincent Bugliosi
  • World
  • American
  • War

• On some days in prison you might just need to get out of there, but on some days - not all days, but some - you might be able to see the sky and see the blue in it.

  

  Uzo Aduba
  • Sky
  • Blue
  • Prison

• In Korea, when I started, there wasn't a trend where people chose to be both actors and singers. I was the first to do both. It was a great deal hard work, but I got a lot of support and love from my audience. And for me to receive the same treatment overseas, I felt that I was also very lucky.

  

  Rain
  • People
  • Work
  • Great

• I was never trying to be funny. Being funny feels to me like an alternate form of confessionality - that is, a way of dismantling the distance between writer and reader, a way of saying, "come in a little closer."

  

  Dan Chiasson
  • Never
  • Distance
  • Saying