The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.
Interpretation
The joy of creativity comes from the act of writing, while acting is about being prepared for collaboration.
Steve Martin highlights the joy found in the craft of writing, where the creation of sentences brings fulfillment. He contrasts this with acting, which involves waiting for others to be ready, suggesting that while both forms of artistry are important, writing allows for more personal expression and spontaneity.
In practice
Using this quote during a workshop to illustrate the joys of creative writing.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.
I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian.
...it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.
Reviews for someone like me come in three packages. One is justifiable praise, the second is justifiable criticism, and the third is, "This is only published because he's a celebrity."
If he thinks he would harm Mirabelle, he would back away. But he does not yet understand when and how people are hurt. He doesn't understand the subtleties of slights and pains, that it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.
I'm a songwriter, and people will tell you the greatest stories about their lives, whether you want to hear it or not.
Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.
Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.
What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn't have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that's startling or is so poignant.
I grew as an actor just by watching Kamal Haasan acting. I had the good fortune of being able to observe Kamal Haasan from close quarters.
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