Rachel Cohn Quotes

On the streets, hanging out with the fellows, there are things you learn that no book can teach you.

What you learned on the streets of Brooklyn will be a damn sight more helpful to your president than anything you learned at Harvard.

Gotta keep your ear to the streets. That's Rule No. 1.

The streets helps you a lot in music, cause it let's you know that you can't trust nobody and that nobody's gonna wait for you. You can't just sit there with dope in your pocket and think that people are gonna come to you. You gotta put the product out there.

I'm married to the street; I ain't gonna switch over. I ain't gonna go religion on nobody. I believe in God - God is for the thugs too - but the streets are in the most trouble. So I'mma keep it focused on the streets and the struggle. That's what I'm mainly about.

Sometimes street knowledge can be as important as book knowledge.

There were uncles in my life that definitely knew the street life.

There are many things in common with my life and my character in 'American Crime.' My upbringing has definitely helped me out in this role.

I'm from the street. We all know that.

Growing up where I did, you met a lot of colorful characters whose business was on the other side of the law, or more likely you didn't know what they were up to, and you never would. So playing those kinds of characters now, I can draw on that. The rest of it, you can practice or learn from books. But mostly, I draw from my experiences. That's all I have, you know.

I compose songs with a lot of simplicity because my school has been the streets, and people have been my books.

You simply can't get inside the heads of other people and say to them, 'Look, I went through some rough times.' It's impossible to explain everything the streets taught me, and that was quite a lot.

Make your characters believable, and your reader will believe what they believe.

I take nothing away from my existence in the 'hood, because it sharpened my instincts. We had a different way of living that developed our survival instincts, and I use those to this day when I make films. You can't buy that.

I would ask to tweak stuff during the action, because I thought Elektra would more likely express herself with a slap, for example. I wanted to keep the characteristics of my character even during the fights and express the violence as she would do it, not like somebody else would.

In 'Poster Boys,' every character is well defined.

The streets spoke to me in a way that religion didn't.

I just love Ottawa because I was able to develop a lot of things, my own character as a man.

Spending my 20s in Detroit has been incredible for me.

I'm what they call an intelligent hoodlum.

As an actor, I'm thankful I have lived not one life, but many.

It's dialogue that gives your cast their voices, and is crucial in defining their characters.

Legitimately produced, and truly inspired, fiction interprets humanity, informs the understanding, and quickens the affections. It reflects ourselves, warns us against prevailing social follies, adds rich specimens to our cabinets of character, dramatizes life for the unimaginative, daguerreotypes it for the unobservant, multiplies experience for the isolated or inactive, and cheers age, retirement and invalidism with an available and harmless solace.

I try to have all my characters have a sense of humor. To me the most interesting thing is a desperate character. I think desperation is funny.

There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions - is he tall, is he short? - he had better quit.