Jonathan LaPaglia Quotes

People are often surprised that I am so upbeat. I'm always hearing, 'You're so light and funny, and your books are so dark and twisted.' There's a dichotomy. I like books that are dark and creepy. I don't control it - it's just what I gravitate toward.

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.

If I just did music, I might go insane. I need words; I need stories. And it's the same the other way around.

The scientist and the artist are both passionate about their exploration. What leads to my work is that I'm equally an artist and an engineer.

Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing.

I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.

It's almost required with major artists that there's some duality. And I've got duality everywhere.

Yeah, at home it's all moonbeams and puppy-dog tails, so I guess I do have a darker side - and I like writing about it.

A lot of my personal life feels very separate from my music.

It's two sides to everybody. I'm a manager - I'm a promoter - and I'm a fighter, so it is two sides to me. That's a balance there.

A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it's actually a being. 'Harry Potter''s a good example. So Harry's the hero, right. But he's tainted with evil. There's a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It's well balanced.

I think the most interesting characters are those in which you can see both sides.

I have a fun side and a serious side.

There's two heads to every coin.

A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature.

My whole life was duality: Here's my life at home, here's my life on the road.

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem?

Art and order, the relatives that refuse to relate.

In my serious work I am striving for the essence of things and for goals which are possibly unobtainable. On the other hand, everything humorous has great attraction for me, and a childish streak leads me into all kinds of frivolous endeavour.

I like to be wild in passion and calculated in expression! I'm both. I like to be wild in passion more. But I think the balance is what's essential.

He [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime.

The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper

two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, and each will wrestle for the mastery there.

It means we're looking one way, while following another. We're for one side and also the other. We mean what we say, but our intentions are different.