People have responded to my stories so well. They come up after a show and say things like, 'Your album really helped me,' or 'I have stage four cancer. I'm terminally ill.' Somebody told me it gave them the courage to die.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the profound impact that art can have on individuals facing difficult circumstances, providing them with strength and comfort.
Tig Notaro's quote reflects the powerful role that storytelling and music play in the lives of people, particularly those grappling with terminal illnesses. It underscores how her work offers not just entertainment, but also solace, companionship, and courage to those who are facing their mortality. The personal responses she receives from her audience highlight the deep emotional connection that can occur through artistic expression, illustrating that art can serve as a source of strength during life's most challenging moments.
In practice
In a speech at a charity event for cancer awareness, one could use this quote to illustrate how art connects with and supports those in hardship.
I get kind of, um, bored by all the sexuality and gender labels because I feel like that's where the problem comes in, when people feel that they need to have these particular identities. If you didn't have these labels, and you just acted on how you genuinely felt at any point, then you wouldn't have anything to contend with.
People write me every day. It feels like this cycle that keeps giving, because as far along as I get in my happiness and success, hearing other people's stories is a constant reminder of where I came from, where people are, and how much help everybody still needs.
It's not the child's responsibility to teach the parent who they are. It's the parent's responsibility to learn who the child is.
It's important that when you do standup, you do small places like coffee shops and also big places like colleges. It helps you find the little nuances in your set that don't work, and you can shave off the excess.
When you first start out in stand-up and, probably, as any performer, you enjoy the attention so much, and even though that hasn't died down on stage, it certainly has satiated whatever was in me that was needing that much attention. When I'm off stage, it's not something that I really need.
Before I had a double mastectomy, I was already pretty flat-chested, and I made so many jokes over the years about how small my chest was that I started to think that maybe my boobs overheard me... and were just like, 'You know what? We're sick of this. Let's kill her.'
"Mr. Thornton," said Margaret, shaking all over with her passion, "go down this instant, if you are not a coward. Go down and face them like a man. Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here. Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don't let the soldiers come in and cut down poor-creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man."
I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done...in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done!
Do not give back to his master a servant who has gone in flight from his master and come to you: let him go on living among you in whatever place is most pleasing to him.
If I can sit down for freedom, you can stand up for children.
I have come up at the end of a dive, and the boat was not where I left it. I had to take care of a buddy who did panic. But I was confident the boat would come back.
To understand your fear is the beginning of really seeing.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.