I've been very fortunateit's just been an amazing piece of luck. I haven't had to suffer for my art but I've suffered enough inside to hopefully be called an artist.
Christopher PlummerRead
I was always a happy kid. I'd play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It's a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?
Interpretation
Happiness is not meant to be a constant state; fluctuations in emotions are natural and necessary.
In this quote, Christopher Plummer reflects on the nature of happiness, suggesting that while he experienced joy as a child and had various talents, the idea of being perpetually happy is unrealistic and even burdensome. It highlights the importance of emotional variety in life, indicating that a constant state of happiness might lead to a lack of depth in experience, ultimately rendering life dreary.
In practice
When discussing the ups and downs of life at a motivational talk.
I've been very fortunateit's just been an amazing piece of luck. I haven't had to suffer for my art but I've suffered enough inside to hopefully be called an artist.
A lot of people want to retire; I couldn't. You don't retire in our business. What, play golf and watch television? Oh, please.
I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.
Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.
I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.
All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy.
Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you.
When 'happiness' eludes us - as, eventually, it always will - we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.
Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.
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