Nora Ephron Quotes

I just feel like content is content; people want to see it resonate.

The closer you can get to being personal, the better the work is, or the more interesting the work is.

If you can't move the audience, they don't want you.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone - everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal, and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same, and everyone is unique.

That's the secret to anything we write. You have to bring your experience to it. Otherwise, how do you expect anyone else to connect to it?

There is so much competition and content floating around right now, so comedy has to have a lot quirk and heart.

If people can't relate to something, there's no use of the song being there.

I no longer wanted to satisfy myself. I really want to connect with the world and make my music mean something to people.

Success means being heard and don't stand there and tell me that you are indifferent to being heard. You may write for the joy of it, but the act of writing is not complete in itself. It has to end in its audience.

I don't want to walk in the middle. I want people to read what I write and feel strongly about it. If, at some point, whatever I am doing is failing to elicit a response, whether it's very positive or very negative, then I am going to stop doing it.

If I'm in something funny, I like to try and find some kind of serious line in it that people can relate to.

Every time I reach a new audience, that means I'm doing something right.

If our message reaches the kitchen tables, we are in good shape.

I feel so much feedback in a very profound way from the 10,000 people who are listening to me, watching me. I just get this deep sense of what works and what doesn't work.

There's only so many things to sing about, so what's going to make a song appeal to you more than someone else's is just a unique way of saying the same thing.

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

If after you read something, you connect with it, you want to do it.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

How does my music connect to an audience? That is just a complete mystery to me.

The minute you start assuming that the audience is very happy to see the same show again, you're dead.

Each gig should be unique. You're always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear.

I think the thing that is meaningful is when I can tell that someone's been affected by the movie or by anything I made.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

I never write down to my audiences. I respect honest sentiment and honest pratfalls.

I'm trying to communicate here. I'm a communicator, I like to communicate, and if a million people buy it then we've touched a million people, if only 10 people buy it, then we've only touched 10, and that's important, because I'm satisfied with only 10. But, I love a million.