R. H. Dana Quotes

I'm no longer afraid of not making enough mistakes.

As Global Warming raises temparatures, it takes longer to cool pies on window sills, and I wonder if this whole thing was caused by hobos.

How do I ask my shrink to stop responding to everything I say with, Too much information! and then giggling behind a pillow?

Very few positive experiences begin with being told to count back slowly from ten.

Approached literally, there's but a hair's difference between You'd better not pout, you'd better not cry, and Don't scream.

Being funny is not the same as being happy.

I'm a workaholic, only instead of working I like to drink liquor.

The gun legislation was doomed the minute it became associated with the words common sense.

Have you ever dated a Goth chick for four or five months until you realized she was just an Orthodox Jew? They have the same costumes.

My whole approach to marriage is simple: my wife will do something that drives me insane, I won't say anything, and then, later, I'll die of cancer.

For men there are costumes like fireman, policeman and vampire. For women there are costumes like slutty fireman, slutty policeman and slutty vampire.

Why is it, when I have nothing to do, I drink more coffee? It's as if I'm in a big hurry to get nothing done.

I think I had an argument with a hypnotist this morning. It makes perfect sense as I have no memory of it.

I know that big, important things don't just come together overnight, but I've been me for a long time now and it's still not working.

A lot of people are looking for their soul mates. Along the way, it's nice to bump into some genital pals.

Once you break someone of the habit of up-talking, they can start to see immediate improvement in their careers.

That which does not kill you usually circles around and tries again.

All roads lead to Wall Street, but we feel the effects of Wall Street on every street corner. Certainly in Syracuse, N.Y., where I live.

Reports about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without any representation or charges, is distressing.

The blogosphere rewards no-holds-barred smartassery.

All people are half actors.

The profoundest facts in the earth's history prove that the oceans have always been oceans.

If we could stop wasting food, imagine how many more people we could feed!

I've reached a place with my work where I'm ready to concentrate more on life.

I'm tired of defending my character. I am what I am. What you see is what you get.

To lose the approbation of my dog is a thing too horrible to contemplate.

I have a theory that if you're famous more years than you're not famous, then you get a little nutty.

I tried to go out for theater or theater arts, but I was too scared or too intimidated. But I had a lot of friends on the cross country team that had great senses of humor.

I graduated from the University of Whatever.

I'm thirty years old, but I read at the thirty-four-year-old level.

The issue isn't, Am I good enough? No. The issue is, Do I not have any other choice? Will and desire don't matter. Ability doesn't matter. Need is the only thing that matters.

They're just words. And words alone don't really mean anything. It's what you feel and what you believe when you say them that matter.

I have a theory that as long as you have one good friend, one real friend, you can get through anything.

I always think the novelist should go to the culture's dark places and poke around. Pose a lot of hard questions.

Over a third of the Newenhan population was under eighteen,which didn't make his job any easier, the hormonally challenged being terminally and all too often fatally prone to acts of stupidity.

My teaching forces me to articulate what I think works in a piece of fiction and how I think it works. All of that gives me energy as a writer.

There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels.

The writer has to take risks and go somewhere full of mystery and possibility for the novel to deepen over the years it takes to write it.

The writer has to be brave, I think.

The Republican Party is the party of Eddie Haskell and the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

I want what I write to be deeply engaging and strange and true.

When I write characters, I need to hear their voice. As soon as I get them speaking, and I feel how they use language, I understand who they are and what they want.

Usually there is a paradox in what a character wants. A conflict is built deeply within them. And then you put them in motion, throw everything at them until they reveal themselves further.

I'm the Forrest Gump of comedy.

You are always working towards the moments in which characters experience reckonings or insight or change. I like to track them past those moments.

I take the outline from a real person as inspiration, but the in-line is totally made up. Which is why I usually invent imaginary names.

Let's all start wearing bolo ties, and when they become hip again, we'll all say we were kidding.

Even a documentary portrait of a person that tries to be very accurate is shaped by the filmmaker in so many ways.

Love is like pancreatitis; it starts off slow, then builds in intensity until you become consumed and develop violent cramps.

Tell me it's forbidden, unthinkable, and that's where I want to go. Because the chances are it's complicated, and the complications are meaningful.