What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.
You have to put your ego aside as an actor. Or you're using your ego to tell the story. Your body is a part of a tool to tell the story. So if you feel something, it's wrong. It means you're not inside of the character.
You don't want to be glib; you want to treat every story respectfully.
History is not what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago; it's a story about what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago.
Story is the language of the heart.
Change but the name, and you are the subject of the story.
There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.
There's only one story, the story of your life.
Cure for writer's block: blow something up(in the story)
Let me tell you a secret: there is no such thing as an uninteresting life One day you must tell me your full and complete story, unabridged and unexpurgated. We will set aside some time for it, and meet. It's very important. Maneck smiled. 'Why is it important?' It's extremely important because it helps to remind yourself of who you are. Then you can go forward, without fear of losing yourself in this ever-changing world.
The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.
I spy with my little eye a great story.
Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
When something is dramatized, it provokes a much more emotive response than just hearing a story on the news.
Every human is an artist. And this is the main art that we have: the creation of our story.
I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down.
Memory plays tricks. Memory is another word for story, and nothing is more unreliable.
If your life were a book, and you were the author, how would you want your story to go?
The complete absence of the story - that was the best thing about this whole thing, because you know that nothing's going to happen and everything's going to happen. It's just the gaze. You create your own zone.
The value of a story isn't that it just has a narcotic effect. It's that it awakens something in you that makes you want to think, that makes you talk to other people, that stirs something that makes you examine the story that eventually turns into self-examination.