“No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.”
~ Harry Houdini, b. 24 March 1874
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Harry Houdini (b. March 24): “Don’t bite off red-hot iron unless you have a good set of teeth.”
24 MarJim Parsons (b. March 24): “Intelligence is sexy until it becomes irritating…”
24 Mar
“I think intelligence is usually sexy until it becomes irritating. After that, you’re stuck.”
~ Jim Parsons, b. 24 March 1973
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Jonathan Ames (b. March 23): “I don’t know what’s more difficult, life or the English language.”
23 Mar
Jonathan Ames, born 23 March 1964, is an American author of novels and comic memoirs, which include Wake Up, Sir! And The Extra Man. He was also a columnist for the New York Press. He created the HBO television series Bored to Death.
Quotes on writing:
- I don’t know what’s more difficult, life or the English language.
- A lot of writing is a form of seeing – putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape.
- People don’t expect too much from literature. They just want to know they’re not alone with being confused.
- A lot of writers, probably because they’re sensitive and that makes them want to be writers, have fears about their masculinity, so they overcompensate by having an interest in boxing and tough-guy things.
- When I was in college, I had the good fortune to have Joyce Carol Oates as my writing teacher. She told me that I could take an aspect of myself, and from that one bit of personality, I can create a character. This is what I have done, particularly in my novels.
Joan Crawford (b. March 23): “I need sex for a clear complexion.”
23 Mar
“I need sex for a clear complexion, but I’d rather do it for love.”
~ Joan Crawford, b. 23 March 1904
Gary Oldman (b. March 21): “Women are stronger than men.”
21 Mar
“Speaking very generally, I find that women are spiritually, emotionally, and often physically stronger than men.”
~ Gary Oldman, b. 21 March 1958
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J.S. Bach (b. March 21): “The aim of music should be the refreshment of the soul.”
21 Mar
“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. Now let’s rock!”
~ Johannes Sebastian Bach, b. 21 March 1685
B.F. Skinner (b. March 20): “Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.”
20 Mar
“Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.”
~ B.F. Skinner, b. 20 March 1904
Spike Lee (b. March 20): “Parents kill more dreams than anybody…”
20 Mar
“It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.”
~ Spike Lee, b. 20 March 1957
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Richard Condon (b. March 18): “Writers are too self-centered to be lonely.”
18 Mar
Richard Condon (born 18 March 1915, died 9 April 1996) was a prolific and popular American political novelist whose satiric works were generally presented in the form of thrillers or semi-thrillers, including Prizzi’s Honor and The Manchurian Candidate.
Five quotes on writing:
- Writers are too self-centered to be lonely.
- I’m a man of the marketplace as well as an artist. I’m a pawnbroker of myth.
- Amateur psychiatric prognosis can be fascinating when there’s absolutely nothing else to do.
- I think the most important part of storytelling is tension. It’s the constant tension of suspense that in a sense mirrors life, because nobody knows what’s going to happen three hours from now.
- Although the paranoiacs make the great leaders, it’s the resenters who make their best instruments because the resenters, those men with cancer of the psyche, make the great assassins.
Alice Hoffman (b. March 16): “Books may well be the only true magic.”
16 Mar
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Alice Hoffman, born 16 March 1952, is an American novelist best known for her novel Practical Magic, which was adapted for a film of the same name. Many of her works fall into the genre of magic realism.
Quotes on writing:
- Books may well be the only true magic.
- No one knows how to write a novel until it’s been written.
- You can’t dispute the ridiculous. You can’t argue reasonably with evil.
- I think love is a huge factor in fiction and in real life. Is there a risk? Always. In fiction and in life.
- That is the joy of reading fiction: when all is said and done, the novel belongs to the reader and his or her imagination.
- After a while, the characters I’m writing begin to feel real to me. That’s when I know I’m heading in the right direction.
- I’ve been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays.
- All the characters in my books are imagined, but all have a bit of who I am in them – much like the characters in your dreams are all formed by who you are.
- The original fairy tale was about the youngest sister going into a room in the castle and finding all the bodies of the wives that came before her – she is confronted with truth, thinking about how often we think we know people and we really don’t.
- My theory is that everyone, at one time or another, has been at the fringe of society in some way: an outcast in high school, a stranger in a foreign country, the best at something, the worst at something, the one who’s different. Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.
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