Alan Lightman Quotes

It's just a moment that doesn't feel 100-percent truthful, a kind of a square peg/round hole situation. Which is why the preproduction on a movie is so important, because you can't just push those through.

I think it's vital to be honest with yourself. You do have to satisfy yourself first. If you're drawing something, you have to ask yourself if it's something you genuinely think is funny. Or is it starting to fall into just a category, just kind of a shtick thing? I think it's important for all cartoonists to be honest with themselves about their own sense of humor and what they're doing.

It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things.

If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important - and you do that by being genuine and humble.

In our program, the truth is the basis of all we do. There is nothing more important than the truth because there's nothing more powerful than the truth. Consequently, on our team, we always tell each other the truth. We must be honest with one another. There is no other way.

When you're more focused in getting your message across than you are worrying about how people are viewing you, that's huge.

I have a hard time taking myself seriously. My band the New Pornographers doesn't take me seriously, which is why I love them. We can't stand up there and pretend. What we're doing is really important to me and it's my job and I love it, but I can't just stand there unflinchingly noble in front of the audience.

I think values are really, really important, but I also think that too many values are just words.

I realized that if you're trying to reach an audience, being as subjective as possible and really trying to write from something genuine is the way to go. Really it's mostly from my own process, my own experience.

Weirdly enough, I don't like to pretend. I try to use things in me, and translate them into the situation and the characters, so it always needs to run through my own veins.

If you become very self-conscious about what you are doing, you kill. You kill the character. Then it doesn't work. You have to come from a sincere place. And you don't think too much. I don't go to the hotel and I start thinking what am I going to say tomorrow and start writing things down.

Whenever it feels uncomfortable to tell the truth, that's often the most important time to tell it.

You don't write for success. That takes part of your attention away from the writing. If you're really doing it, that's all you're doing: writing.

If you're an artist like a really, really long time, it stops being a performance. I'm not performing anymore. I reveal myself to the audience... I show you some of me. It's not a show no more.

I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth. - Blanche Scene II

I think it's important to just be a good, honest person and be true to who you are.

What I'm saying not a lot of people say: What is considered good acting today isn't necessarily good acting, because everybody knows what they are doing. Doubt is an important part of the human being. Trust has to be attained.

I don't want to be coy. It's so important for me to be as genuine as possible, so I don't want to stop when it comes to rendering sex the way that most people have it, which is unclothed.

Speak the essence and live by it.

I say what's in my head, and I'm on honest ground. That is worth so much, and I think it does make my job, as a writer, easier. It makes it possible for me to give people stuff that they like.

The two important facts I should say, are emotion, and then words arising from emotion. I don't think you can write in an emotionless way. If you attempt it, the result is artificial. I don't like that kind of writing. I think that if a poem is really great, you should think of it as having written itself despite the author. It should flow.

It takes me probably about four hours to get into the groove [with making music]. And it's really important for me to not break the groove.

You cannot live your life other than walking in the truth. Your means are as important as your ends.

I don't want to be some actor talking about how he wants to be a musician. It's something I'm really passionate about and I don't want to be spouting off at the mouth about something before it's out there and can speak for itself.

I say too much sometimes, but I'm honest, that's the important thing.