Matt Taibbi Quotes

Both of my parents were journalists, and my rebellion, such as it was, was to become a fiction writer.

My father was the child of academics and was probably destined to become an academic himself but vetoed that idea. Bailed, dropped out of graduate school and just went to work for an insurance company. But the house was full of books and music and all of that.

The music that I chose during my life, it wasn't arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn't heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn't do it authentically.

My parents made us do everything, try everything.

My father was a journalist for 50 years in Leeds and Fleet Street. I thought about a career in business to show I could do something different, but the reaction among prospective employers was, shall we say, underwhelming.

I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing presses rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.

My plan was never to be an actor like my father.

My dad was a journalist. He was in Rwanda right after the genocide. In Berlin when the wall came down. He was always disappearing and coming back with amazing stories. So telling stories for a living made sense to me.

My mother insisted that I have a normal upbringing.

My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath,' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.

Acting is not in the blood. My parents weren't actors, but I imagine that if you've been brought up with actors, you have a lovely time at home and just want that to carry on.

I was brought up in a publishing home, a newspaper man's home, and was excited by that, I suppose. I saw that life at close range and, after the age of ten or twelve, never really considered any other.

Why was I so single-minded about acting? Acting wasn't in the family; no one went to the theatre in my street. It wasn't encouraged in my school.

A lot of things come down to your roots and how you're brought up.

I grew up never thinking about acting as a profession because that was what my mum did, and often, you don't want to be like your parents.

Growing up, I always said I would never go in to education. Both of my parents were teachers - my dad was also a principal and a superintendent. I just didn't want to be part of the school system.

My father was a television director and producer, working on documentaries and current affairs programmes including 'Panorama,' and I didn't think he'd find acting a sensible option. But as soon as I'd finished my A-levels, I got on a train to Edinburgh, and that was it.

I didn't want to play music because the whole family did it. I wanted to work in a cubicle. I saw Office Space as a young tween and missed the point of the movie. I was like, "This looks good!".

When I was a kid people always asked why I didn't act like the rest of my family, and parents would say, "Well, she needs a childhood! We would never allow her to do that even if she wanted to". They were as involved in my life as any parents are in any person's life.

I've been acting since I was ten years old. I had two lines in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at the community theater I was very focused and I loved it. My parents believed in the arts and being well rounded. So I played piano and violin, I danced and acted. They never thought I would go into acting though. They just wanted a well-rounded child and it was a bit of a shock to my dad when I said "I want to go to acting school" because he is a psychology professor and was thinking of something more academic.

I have a big family and no one ever treated me like a child. They always treated me like an adult, like an equal.

The name 'Chuck Jones', according to my uncle, limited my choice of profession to second baseman or cartoonist.

Mercy Falls was all about rumors, and the rumor on Jack was that he got his short fuse from his dad. I didn't know about that. It seemed like you ought to pick the sort of person you would be, no matter what your parents were like.

I've always been this way. My father taught this to me. Here's the thing, you have to understand; the thing about having money: Money and fame don't change you, all it does is allow you to be more of who you are anyway.

I think my parents wanted me to do something very normal, have a normal person job and not be confronted by the instability of an artistic pursuit, but there wasn't really a lot they could do to stop me. I was, at one point, going to go to law school when I finished high school, but the next day I got accepted into acting school and there was no real question in my mind of what I was going to do.