Dani Shapiro Quotes
There's a danger in romanticizing what it means to be a writer. Because what it really means is hard, hard work. It means tearing your hair out. Feeling like your head is about to explode.
Quotes to Explore
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I promised my mom that if, after a year of putting 150 percent into my career it didn't work out, I would go back to school. I never did go back.
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When I went to drama school, I knew I was at least as talented as other students, but because I was a black man and I wasn't pretty, I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed.
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Imagine if someone like John Lennon or Bob Marley, Sid Vicious, Picasso, whomever, were doing their work, and some corporation, some CEO, some branding entity was saying to you, 'Well, you can do that, but you've got to remove this aspect of your work.' There would no longer be that purity anymore.
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I want to work with producers who are unique and have a different sound.
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You can't get emotional about your work.
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Glory is attained from hard work, step by step.
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I always work with a goal - and the goal is to improve as a player and a person. That, finally, is the most important thing of all.
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Making $30,000 on my first business deal was exciting, but not as exciting as the sudden knowledge that I did not have to work for anyone again.
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Malicious attacks on the Soviet Union produce a natural feeling of indignation.
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This old notion that work is drudgery is nonsense. Most days, even back when Xerox was under siege, I could not wait to get to the office.
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I focus on projects I am passionate about and only work with people I respect. Without these supportive teams, partners and clients, I could never work on so many things. I am fortunate that they see the value in the multiplicity of my work and how it all comes together in a kind of virtuous cycle.
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I think great artists have no time to waste with having disproportionate egos and irrational requests. They're too focused on their work to actually lose themselves in hysterical spirals where they become monsters or tyrants.
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You can't get dressed without good hair.
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Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.
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My scientific work is much more practically minded - to change something, to effect something. And the music I do is much more soft power, about changing minds.
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A novelist's lack of awareness of and critical distance to his own body of work is due to a phenomenon that I have noticed in myself and many others: as soon as it is written, every new book erases the last one, leaving me with the impression that I have forgotten it.
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What I see now is the consumerisation of IT. I don't want my company to tell me that I have to use a BlackBerry or I have to use a Windows phone. I just want to use the phone I want and have it all work.
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I am not a celebrity. I work with celebrities, and it is very difficult. When a celebrity wears a dress, it's good for business, so brands fight for the red carpet. Me? I don't like it, because fashion becomes a job about dressing celebrities. And it's a bit boring.
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I've never seen hard work fail.
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Man is mortal. Everyone has to die some day or the other. But one must resolve to lay down one's life in enriching the noble ideals of self-respect and in bettering one's human life. We are not slaves. Nothing is more disgraceful for a brave man than to live life devoid of self-respect.
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All governments in all wars have used all the means at their disposal to put their own motives, decisions and actions, and the actions of their military forces, in the best possible light.
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War creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.
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When I got inaugurated in 2010, OneRepublic donated their time and played for the inauguration. And my stepfather, who is 86, came out. He usually goes to bed at eight o'clock, but he stayed for the entire concert. It was awesome.
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There's a danger in romanticizing what it means to be a writer. Because what it really means is hard, hard work. It means tearing your hair out. Feeling like your head is about to explode.
