Joseph > Joseph's Quotes

“Writing makes you a writer,” he’d told me. “If you get up every morning and write, then you’re a writer. Publishing doesn’t make you a writer. That’s just commerce.”
― Joanna Rakoff, My Salinger Year: NOW A MAJOR FILM

“2.22 What a picture represents it represents independently of its truth or falsity, by means of its pictorial form.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“I've been reading your thesis over again. And again I just truly wonder at your brilliance. Honestly dear, it shows many, many hours of hard work, but even more it shows intelligent correlations, new research, and conclusions. I'm enjoying it so much. (Alice to Joe)”
― Martha Holoubek Fitzgerald, The Courtship of Two Doctors: A 1930s Love Story of Letters, Hope & Healing

“Empathy smartens you”
― Beth Kephart, Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir

“Think of how much better the world would be if people craved compliments about the beauty of their heart rather than the beauty of their face.”
― Penny Reid, Grin and Beard It

“It was in the early Renaissance that the art of the joke was reborn, and the midwife was a man called Poggio.”
― Jim Holt, Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes

“Last night I went and saw Good Will Hunting, which takes place not exactly where I used to live, in Boston, but pretty darn close, so I've been all flush with nostalgia for it. I was in Boston from summer of '89 until spring of '92...

...I think it's the ultimate nerd fantasy movie. It's a bit of a fairy tale, but I enjoyed it a lot. Minnie Driver is really to fall sideways for. And there's all sorts of cool stuff. It's actually a movie that's got calculus in it. It takes place in Boston.”
― David Foster Wallace, Conversations with David Foster Wallace

“I know the name of your character now,' Tommy said, looking at me. 'You will be called Mark- like this guy Mark Damon.”
― Greg Sestero, The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made

“Writing is the best. The writer has the real power. You can create something and the world will be forever indebted to and dependent on you.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“I was watching Rocky with a friend of mine. And there's all these scenes of him sitting on this dirty mattress, alone- this guy is so alone, it's beautiful how alone he is. Nobody's alone like that anymore. Nobody.”
― Louis C.K.

“We cannot escape history.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Zarathustra received his revelations from the archangels at age thirty, when he began his prophetic mission; Siddhartha's great renunciation of his princely life took place in his thirtieth year. Thoreau at age thirty finished his self-imposed isolation at Walden Pond.”
― Kevin Dann, Expect Great Things: The Life and Search of Henry David Thoreau

“The panel flew open and the person tumbled out in a heap in front of me, right on his face! My God: it was Joey Ramone, all six-plus feet of him! The lanky lead singer got up without a word, replaced his glasses and mumbled something unintelligible before shuffling away even as I offered an apology to his disappearing back”
― Carter Alan, The Decibel Diaries: A Journey through Rock in 50 Concerts

“Way to go Joey! You made us all proud down in Florida!”
― Lee Irby, 7,000 Clams: A Novel

“The destiny of people cannot be reduced to a sociological or scientific formula; it contains mysterious, if not mystical factors.”
― Elie Wiesel, And the Sea is Never Full

“The inside story on a man was that if he wanted to be successful, he must become a rugged individualist, but then should make some adjustments.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“The guy selling programs just outside Gate A pauses just long enough in his spiel to ask me how I'm feeling. I tell him I'm feeling fine. He says, 'Do you thank God?' I tell him, 'Every day.' He says, 'Right on, brotha,' and goes back to telling people how much they need a program, how much they need a scorecard, just two dollars unless you're a Yankee fan, then you pay four.”
― Stephen King

“You can be a slave to current magazines or a slave to history”
― Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir

“Good or bad, the reality is most people become ‘famous’ or get ‘great jobs’ after a very, very long tenure shoveling shit and not because they handed their script to someone on the street.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“The dialogue Tommy composed for the flower shop scene, which flies back and forth like some sort of postmodern 'Who's on First?' sketch, has the super-compresed density of experimental verse:

Hi
Can I help you
Yeah can I have a dozen roses please
Oh hi Johnny I didn't know it was you here you go
That's me how much is it
That'll be eighteen dollars
Here you go keep the change hi doggie
You're my favorite customer
Thanks a lot bye
Bye bye”
― Greg Sestero, The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made

“God, I wish you could have been there.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Or are you just looking for some Cliff-Note summary so you can incorporate the impression of depth into some new panty-removal campaign?”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“If it comes at all, Emerson has cautioned that one's call might not come for years. If it doesn't, he remarks it as only a reflection of the universe's faith in one's abstinence, nothing to move the heart to fret”
― Frederick Exley, A Fan's Notes

“His heart is too big.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Gravity is always attractive.”
― Gerald Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth

“You have to care about your work but not about the result.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“Every project you finish has value.”
― Jenna Fischer, The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide

“There is nothing magical about metacognition, though it is certainly a wonderful and marvelous ability.”
― James Kingsland, Siddhartha's Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment – The Neuroscience of Meditation for Focus in the Age of Distraction

“Is a joke truly funny when we laugh at it, or is it merely some aberration of our frontal lobe?”
― Gerald Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth

“Scotch tape is a miracle of progress.”
― Lee Irby, The Up and Up: A Novel