B. J. Novak Quotes

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

I can't act. I simply must be myself, do the things that seem natural to me. When I get with a director who wants me to act, I'll be lost.

The difference between Martin Sheen and George W. Bush is Martin Sheen is actually convincing when he acts like he's president.

If what you write is true, it will not be so because of what you are as a writer but because of what you are as a being. There can be no literary equivalent to truth.

I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.

Never say never - and I certainly don't judge anyone who does it. But most of the characters I play are going through some kind of emotional turmoil, so my job requires me to have expression. If my face was froze, what right do I have to play that part? All the women who haven't done anything to their faces are still able to play great roles. And some of the ones who have done something have messed it up - they look freakish. Anyway, for me it's about playing women with rich lives - and the longer the life, the deeper the wrinkles.

A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.

I can fill my cup up with real human interactions that allow me to be an actor. If I had no basis for relationships, as Kristen Bell, the human, I couldn't be an actress.

Some celebrities, it's interesting, because they're fantastic playing a character when somebody is writing the lines for them, and they're amazing actors, but they're not as comfortable on television in front of a live audience and just having a conversation and being themselves.

There's this message to comedians in particular, that you shouldn't write it, and a television writer should write it. And that's a prevailing conventional wisdom that I think is really wrong. That's not to say that television writers aren't great, but I think that the belief that some comedy writer's going to be able to capture your voice is naive.

We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

If you're going to play a character who has a deformed face, you should have a deformed face.

Writers tell more truths, and more lies, than most.

There are two kinds of writers: hustlers and sanctimonious hustlers.

The writer's job is to tell the truth.

Get too conceptual, too cute and remote, and your characters die on the page.

The biggest secret weapon we had in regards to really being true to this part of the world, and making sure this part of the world could see themselves in this film [Moana] in a way that felt positive and accurate, was Opetaia, my co-writer, Opetaia Foa'i, who has a great band called Te Vaka and is an amazing musical and cultural ambassador.

I never studied acting, yet the first time I auditioned and did a cold reading, I surprised everyone for my honesty and limpidity. They told me I could play any role because I have no walls, I don’t put anything between me and the character I have to play.

All writers start with a layer of truth, don't they? If not, their stories would be nothing but spools of cotton candy, a fleeting taste wrapped around nothing but air.

You have to make sure you have the characters you want. That's really the most complicated part.

I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them.

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!

These are the young women [in Stand by Me] that we grew up knowing and hopefully they feel a little rough around the edges, because it's true to life.

My job has always been to not only make my character look like a badass but to also make the actor I am fighting opposite to be the character they need to be too.

I'm a storyteller, I'm not a literary writer, and I don't want to be a literary writer. People say to me, "Oh, when are you going to write something different?" What? I don't want to write anything different. I'm writing relationships between people, all different colors, all different sizes, all different sexual orientations, and that's what I want to do.