Trying Quotes - Page 455

When you're casting, you have to do quite a bit of research. But I always think you have to do it with a pinch of salt with actors, because it's so unfair to pigeonhole them and so often they are. I try to be as open as possible and if people are really interested and really want to have a go, then let's get them in and see them.

Bob Dylan had been a big sort of presence in my life but I'd never quite registered what he was trying to tell me. He was always this kind of figure, a sort of bear-like figure in the corner of the room. You know, every time I imagined what Bob Dylan looked like, he looked a bit like Steve Earl used to look - with the beard.

The big cop-out would be to accept popularity rather than opting to try to create potent work. It's so easy to do the popular thing, the expected thing, and that's where you start to cheat yourself - and your fans, in the end - because there's an inherent dishonesty in pandering and dishing up what everyone's expecting.

There are lots of problems in Transnet, which we are trying to sort out, but we are quite confident we will. We can't avoid the increase in the capacity of Spoornet. So, whatever problems there are in Spoornet, they must be solved. The same goes for the harbours. And the same goes for the airlines.

If you look at government policy generally, what government tries to do in all instances is to make sure that we take care of all elements that might relate to a particular issue.

At the same time, you have got these traditional councils. And the challenge is how to make sure that they function together [with municipal councils], smoothly, and that is part of what this legislation is trying to address.

I try to make the set as relaxed and fun and stress-free as humanly possible, while still having control over things. It's usually tension that hurts a performance or makes it seem self-conscious.

It's certainly a difficult time right now to try to make small, smart films. I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy.

I'm just trying to keep myself in basketball shape and take care of my body while I can.

But you ain't part of it, are you?" said Granny conversationally. "You try, but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?

You can't map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

ASTONISHING, said Death. REALLY ASTONISHING. LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS.

People are bound to get excited when they see a ten-million-ton starship trying to fly down the street.

I'm up to my neck in the real world, every day. Just you try doing your VAT return with a head full of goblins.

People like that don't need a reason apart from "because I can". They have a nightmare and try to make it happen.

All he knew was that you couldn't hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that'd make the world, in a small way, a better place. Like shooting someone.

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

Chicago theater vs. New York theater. There's just nothing to say about it really. If you've seen Chicago theater, you know that the work is true to what is there on the page. It's not trying to present itself with some sort of flashy, concept-based thing. It's about the work, and it's about the acting you're about to watch. So acting-based theater feels like it was born there to me.

Once you play something, then you get 20 more of those. So I've tried to avoid getting stuck. I try to take roles that are the opposite of the last thing I did as much as I can.

I have to match wits with the ads. Like, there's pop-ups that, like, move around and you have to chase them like it was a video game or something. And then there's ads where, like, you know, the X to, like, close the ad screen is so kind of small that you can't find it and you have to actually go looking for it. And so I spend all my energy - instead of, like, absorbing what the advertiser wants to communicate to me, I spend my energy trying to figure out how to defeat the ad.

If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.

Invariably, what I'm trying to do is more ambitious than the budget, but we manage to do it somehow.

Man eternally tries to get back to an organic past that has slipped just beyond his reach.

Hollywood is a bit of a publicity game where it's constantly trying to portray things and put up this image and I was not interested in that.