Sometimes I think being an actor is like being a dog for a director; it's like they throw a stick, and you want to fetch it and bring it back to them. You want a pat on the head for it.
When you are an actor, you are in the most powerless position in this business.
I have to submit to much in order to pacify the touchy tribe of poets.
I stopped asking a long time ago, "why would you want me to play that?" I'm an actor. That's what I do.
I aspire to be an instrument of the director. I'm happiest like that. The stronger the director, the more I'm willing to give them.
It was memorable the first time 'The New Yorker' bought a cartoon from me. I had been sending them batches for years every week, and they didn't respond to them.
I love having a master. I have no problem serving my director. That's my job. I want to make them happy.
It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven.
The title of the poems was The Only Bar in Dixon. We sent it out to The New Yorker on a fluke, and they took them and printed all three in the same issue.
I just let the songs tell me what to do - they are my guides, and they are the boss. So I am subservient to the songs, and I let them tell me what to do. I don't judge them; I just write whatever comes to me.
