Greg van Eekhout Quotes

Our subjectivity is so completely our own.

Comedy's about opening up and being unique, but to a point where the audience can relate to what you're saying.

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.

I may have a little bit of a talent for music, but I've learnt to tap into my own self when I write. When I put the drill bit inside my heart, sometimes I come up with something light and frothy, sometimes with something deep and painful, but it's great to connect with the audience.

What appears on the page comes out of your experience, and no-one is going to see it in quite the same way - so, that being so, you're already doing something in a thoroughly individual and idiosyncratic way anyway.

I do not write for an audience.

I'm not writing non-fiction. I don't feel anything about me as a kid was unique. Except that I had more interest in being alone and using my imagination.

The feeling of being an outsider was a big part of my childhood. I think that helps comedians. That feeling of being an outsider. That desire for a perspective that's all your own. The idea for me to make stuff myself with my own meaning came from that as well.

Everybody has their thing they like or don't like to see. It's all in your head. That's why people take their own pictures, because it's difficult for someone else to capture what you seek.

The truth is that personality inevitably bleeds into all forms of our intellectual life. We all extrapolate from our own lives in order to understand the world.

I don't know what the secret to doing standup well is, but I do know the goal is to be yourself as much as possible. And working harder than everyone else.

The secret to success is to be yourself.

I wrote about scenarios that I was going through and then disguised them.

I've always felt like an outsider, and I'll probably continue to always feel like an outsider. Hopefully that's a good thing. I feel like I approach things differently than other designers.

My life is not a sound bite.

All great and precious things are lonely.

Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.

The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.

There are lots of artists in the world. But there's only one you. And the only person who has your point of view is you. If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff that only you could have brought to it.

You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

How can anybody say they know how I feel? The only one around here who is me, is ME.

My life may not be something special But it's never been lived before.

Even if it's such a lowly art as TV, you've got to get stuff off your chest, because that's what makes something different and original, your particular take on stuff.

Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.

Who's to say what's better or worse anyway? Who's to even say what's normal or average? We're all different people and we're allowed to be different from on another. If someone ever says you're weird, say thank you. And then curtsy. No, don't curtsy. That might be too weird. Bow. And tip your imaginary hate. That'll show them.