Dani Shapiro Quotes
When it comes to the personal essays I write, I just convince myself that no one will ever read them.

Quotes to Explore
-
If only one in 1,000 people that I talk to goes on to write a good book, that's one more good book that I've helped along... and maybe it will be a book I love myself five or 10 years down the line.
-
I can think of no one that my grandparents knew, that told me stories and that I experienced myself, had any sense of social inferiority growing up in segregated Washington. None whatsoever.
-
When you have that connection to say, 'I'm going to play for something bigger than myself,' man, you have a chance to do something good.
-
I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.'
-
I'm not on fire for the Lord, so I tried to make myself generate this fire for the Lord.
-
I read comics and I did science, and never really put them together until I accidentally found myself in the middle of one.
-
Back then I said to myself 'screw football.' Actually I just took part in this camp as there was nothing better for me to do. They also didn't draft me because they thought I was too wild and undisciplined.
-
I acted at school but got very bad parts - things that they'd made up in Shakespeare plays like 'Guard 17' - so I wrote plays and gave myself parts, then I wrote sketches, then I did stand-up. Even in the school nativity I was the emu in the manger.
-
I hate committing myself to anything. It's probably the lack of discipline, honestly. I'm probably a spoiled brat worried about getting my way every time.
-
I'm always trying to do the impossible to please people. It comes from not being secure in myself and not looking at the things within I have to fix. Sometimes you keep going because you don't want to face the truth.
-
I love talking about myself.
-
When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.
-
I'm guilty of it myself, sort of thinking, 'Classic novels: snoozeville.' But there is a huge amount of wonderful material.
-
I like to think of my customer and make sure that season after season she is getting what she wants. Ultimately, I suppose I have an image of myself. That is the person I am designing for - a woman who loves and appreciates fashion and luxury, and somebody who wants to feel empowered with the best version of themselves.
-
I pride myself on not being run of the mill. I don't want to be your umpteenth Fantine in 'Les Miz.'
-
I will reveal the secrets behind these doors.
-
I never set out to become 'famous.' I mean, when you're 14 you think 'I'm gonna become a writer and people will want my autograph and that'll be cool,' but you grow up and you learn that's just not how the world works. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never be published and if I did it probably wouldn't be a big deal.
-
I did a play called 'On Golden Pond' in a dinner theater in Maine and then went to New York for a talent competition having put together a three-man juggling routine and some one-liners and I got myself an agent from that.
-
I call myself a literary agent simply to distinguish myself from actors' agents.
-
Something like your parents divorcing never quite leaves you. What you thought was real isn't real anymore, and that changes your perspective. It makes you more wary but also means you are better equipped to deal with challenges.
-
As with all the other rappers I've worked with, Biggie and I shared common ground. Even though Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Chicago, we came from the same 'hood.
-
I think my dad is this great, wonderful... man with a lot of integrity, who is fighting for things he believes in and is serious in what he wants to see happen and serious in helping people.
-
The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.
-
When it comes to the personal essays I write, I just convince myself that no one will ever read them.