Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.
Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else.
The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.
In fiction you're not often writing about the typical; you are interested in outliers, the points of interest. Part of it comes from feeling I was the only Asian or person of colour... another part comes from my personality: I'm an introvert, and my usual survival mode in a large group is to stand by a wall and watch everybody.
You have to be an outsider to write.
I think comedy is an angry art form; it's an outsider art form.
I had always been interested in race and racial justice, but mostly it was with my nose pressed up against the glass, looking at the South from a long way away.
No, as much of an insider as I become, I will still always be an outsider. It's just the essence of me being who I am and doing what I do.
I've always identified with the misfits.
It is often true that those who sit in the wings can see more than the players.
I've always worked on the fringe of the British press establishment, carving out this niche for myself.
Do you ever have the feeling you're a tourist on earth?
All my close friends are non-conformist. To say 'misfits' sounds bad, but there is something positive about being a little on the outside - it gives you an interesting perspective on things - and I think that's something Robyn and I share.
In a way, perhaps, there's an advantage of being on the edge of something and looking in as the observer, because as the filmmaker, you're the storyteller, and you're pulling out this universal story.
I'm three-quarters Russian, so I've always felt an outsider. But I don't think you can be in a play with John Of Gaunt's 'This sceptred isle' speech and not feel proud to be British.
I love interesting people with eccentric stories and outsiders of the world.
The member of Congress who is not making a career of politics looks quite differently at the world.
Entrepreneurial knowledge has little to do with certified expertise, advanced degrees, or the learning of establishment schools. The fashionably educated and cultivated spurn the kind of fanatically focused learning commanded by the innovators. Wealth all too often comes from doing what other people consider insufferably boring or unendurably hard.
I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way.
Being on the outside of something, watching someone make a risky decision, it's so easy to judge someone for that. But when you're in it, it's impossible to see it.
I've always been on the outside looking in. I was never popular in school, despite my success in athletics. I would win track and field competitions, but I wouldn't go to parties. I'd be alone.
The thing about being an outsider... is that it teaches you to hear what people are thinking because you're constantly looking for the people who just don't give a damn.
A lot of people do comedy about India, but they're not from India. It's a Kwik-E-Mart perspective. I want to provide a genuine view and maybe one on how we see the West.
I am not an expert. That is someone else's job. If I were expert, the approach would be all wrong. It would be from the inside. I am a blunderer. I usually don't know what I am going into at the start. I go into the fog and trust something will be there.
I often felt myself to be an outsider, which is great training for all writers.
