I'm probably my biggest critic. I worry that if you spend any quality time reveling in good things then karma will slap you upside the head, so I try to stay as even keel as I'm able.
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
I don't know, on a sitcom, and in theatre especially, you have to really be listening to an audience. And if you're losing them, you can hear the sniffs, and the playbills shuffling and whatnot.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Engaging with an audience is crucial for performers, as their reactions guide the performance.
In this quote, Neil Patrick Harris emphasizes the importance of being attuned to an audience's reactions during a performance, particularly in theatre and sitcoms. He suggests that attentive performers can sense when the audience's interest wanes through subtle cues such as sniffles and the rustling of playbills, indicating the need to adapt and keep the audience engaged.
Themes
AudiencePerformanceTheatreEngagementListening
In practice
Example use cases
During a director's speech about the importance of audience interaction in a play.
More from Neil Patrick Harris
All quotes →I need to stop carving out four-hour chunks to do random things and go home and watch my children grow up.
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
I enjoy darker sardonic wit more than knock-knock jokes. I spent the first healthy chunk of my career playing all-American, pleasant, average, nice people, so it's fun to have some complications there.
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
I'm a big proponent of monogamous relationships regardless of sexuality, and I'm proud of how the nation is steering toward that.
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
I don't know, but I think kids just want to be listened to, so I want to make sure I do that.
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Yes!! Progress!! Thank you everyone who worked so hard on this!! A historic night!
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
Similar quotes
I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the new. I have made an intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me.
Sergei RachmaninoffRead
A piece of sculpture can have a hole through it and not be weakened if the hole is of a studied size, shape, and direction.
Henry MooreRead
What is essential in a work of art is that it should rise far above the realm of personal life and speak to the spirit and heart of the poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind.
Carl JungRead
My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he will find himself guided along paths which will heal him, and this is more important, actually, than any of the poetry he writes.
Robert BlyRead
Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
Ray CharlesRead
The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.
Peter CareyRead