Will Allison Quotes

I'm not inspired by songwriting at all; that took place years ago. I'm pretty well established, as far as my influences go. I don't listen to music anymore. It all sounds the same to me.

I didn't feel anything [frustraiting]. I just kept working 110 or 120 nights a year.

I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me.

A young man ain't nothin' in the world these days

I don't care what anyone does, as long as they go through the copyright office.

Oh, where is the Fairy Godmother of explanations when you need her?

I never bothered about keeping track.Every now and then someone records one of my songs, and I get credit for it.

I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was a different person. I met a lot of good jazz players in the army.

[The producer told me:] "We can try one more record, and we'll see how that one does." Those records never did anything. My music never got mentioned. My color got mentioned.

My child was one of Nature's Tories pitted against a mother who was one of nurture's Lefties: it was no contest.

I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York.

I just have a lot off different influences.

For centuries, the question of men needing to comprehend women simply didn't arise. Men were valued according to how they measured up to the manly virtues.

The quickest way to stop noticing something may be to buy it, just as the quickest way to stop appreciating a person may be to marry them.

I looked back at some high school journals and discovered that I definitely wanted to be a writer, but not necessarily comedy.

Writing is just my first love. And I still have some issues with telling people what to do.

Women are often pushed into the idea that they write softer, more character-driven jokes.

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

The idea was I'd never amount to anything in music, The theme there was that I was talented, but I wouldn't work hard enough to do anything with it.

I sang and wrote songs when I was 12 years old.

There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.

I actually write some pretty tough jokes. I don't want to push the "soft" angle too much.

I remember one guy saying, "You're the only human out of all of them," and feeling a little concerned that somehow that meant I wasn't as funny.

I did improv at Yale, with the Exit Players. It was great, but they played a little rough.

My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.

I've met a surprising number of comedy writers whose parents are scientists. Both have an antiauthoritarian slant - they're both skeptics.

I do love science. My father is a scientist.

In high school, I was performing "forensics." You take a section of a play and portray all the characters. I even went to camp for forensics.

I'm playin' the music I like.

I operate with this sense of needing to live up to what I am asking of people. I am, by far, my own worst critic.

I'm improvising all the time. Everything I do is improvised. On the piano, at least.

I think I'm the most positive guy still going in my generation, and I'm out there to prove that.

I want people to recognize Luther Allison when I play.

What I want to do, is play music for somebody who believe in me.

Coming from the cotton plantation, the southern regions, I was brought up with real nice kids, mannered kids, who would go to church on Sunday.

I would prefer to keep my clothes on. Unless there's a brisk breeze or something, I tend to keep them on.

I'm a big Aqua fan. "Barbie Girl" was a big deal growing up.

My whole background is character acting: weird costumes, fat suits, playing men, playing animals - I've never played anyone with whom there's any overlapping Venn diagram.

I love making people uncomfortable, and when people say, 'I cringed watching [that] scene,' that's the biggest compliment you can give me.

I'd be worried about myself as a human if I hadn't been nervous.

Garry Hill is a pleasure to be around, and his work is a rewarding reflection of my career.

I have a terrible memory.

Mama learned to laugh with them, before they could laugh at her, and to do it so well no one could be sure what she really thought or felt.

fiction is the great lie that tells the truth

Every kid I meet who's a reader has got something like that, their fantasy world. And science fiction is the best, especially for girls because it's the one place where you can do the forbidden.

I claimed myself and remade my life.

People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.

Eventually kids become grown-ups too, and from there, the world is whatever they choose to make of it.

I might have felt broken, but at the end of it all, I didn't allow myself to break.

There's no time to hold grudges when you've seen how fragile things can really be.