Alia Shawkat Quotes

When you are an elite talent, you cannot allow anyone that comes into your 'eliteness' and take you down. You have to make them rise to your level.

Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something.

And they know I didn't hold expectations for them like I do for myself. But I also tell them I'm not going to lower the expectations I do have for them because we're playing Division II.

Hollywood views regular people as children, and they think they're the smart ones who need to tell the idiots out there how to be.

It's important for me to put out things that I think are good - I want to be a fan of my own stuff. I also want my live shows to be really awesome, and dance is such an important element for me and my performances.

I know that I'm a bit of a snob now, because 'The Lover' put me up here and I just don't want to accept anything less than that. I don't see why I should.

I've never put out a song that I wasn't completely proud of and that I didn't love. In that sense, I've never felt like I sold out in any way.

If I look at it and feel there is someone who can do it better, I won't do it. Whether it's 'Party Down' or 'Piranha 3-D,' I'm going to bring something to it to make it special.

I try to write for highest common denominator. I don't write for dumb people. I figure if everybody doesn't get it, that's OK. Someone bright enough will get it, and that's who I write for. It's probably not the way to make million-sellers. What can I say? I won't apologize for trying to write for smart people.

My parents were extraordinarily focused on education. It was the topic of every dinner conversation, is are you number one, are you getting all As, if not, why not. You need to do better. So my entire orientation and focus growing up was around doing your best and making sure that you were going to get the best education possible.

When the news is slow, or when there's just so many other responsibilities bearing down on me that I don't have the time to do it right, that's when it gets frustrating. As an artist, you just don't wanna put bad work out. So when you have to do it seven days a week, you're just gonna have some bad days and bad weeks and bad months and bad years.

It's a really weird mindset to kind of try to take my mentality on the basketball court and bring it here on to the golf course. I don't want to have too high of expectations on, like, each hole, just try to enjoy the process, but hopefully get out to a good start tomorrow and be in the conversation and see what happens.

Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.

One thing I can't do is do anything half-assed. I want to make sure everything is right, that the song is fully realized.

The uncouth hordes of common men are not fit to recognize duly the merits of those who eclipse their own wretchedness.

I need a challenge. I need the intellectual stimulation. I'm a member of a community on each film, working in concert to try to bring an idea to life. It's a great job.

He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.

Never read bad stuff if you're an artist; it will impair your own game. I don't know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art's the same way.

I have so much music to release, but I'm meticulous. I'm like, "You've got to redo that part, redo that part." And people are like, "Just forget that and go ahead with it." But it's all about perfection, about trying to make it as good as you can.

This has been one of the more comedic aspects of this 72 hours - watching a cavalcade of extremely wealthy pundits, editorialists and political operatives from New York and Washington tell me how rural Americans won't stand for this.

I had read enough mediocre scripts and was determined not to inflict another one on the world.

I'm not trying to write for the masses. I don't care.

When you're playing Shakespeare, it forces you to think and feel and speak all at the same time, which really is what acting is. It expands your imagination and expands your size of thinking.

I honestly feel like my job since I was 22 has been to be an Olympian.