A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things.
Mike NicholsRead
There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Finding your true purpose can be a surprising and euphoric experience, much like falling in love.
This quote by Mike Nichols highlights the profound joy and excitement that comes from discovering one's true calling or purpose in life. It draws a parallel between the exhilaration of unexpected self-discovery and the emotional high of falling in love, suggesting that both experiences bring a deep sense of fulfillment and astonishment.
Themes
DiscoveryPurposeLoveFulfillmentAstonishment
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a motivational speech about career choices.
More from Mike Nichols
All quotes →You could say that it's in talking movies that inner life begins to appear. You can see things happen to the faces of people that were neither planned nor rehearsed.
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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.
Mike NicholsRead
I've learned that many of the worst things lead to the best things, that no great thing is achieved without a couple of bad, bad things on the way to them, and that the bad things that happen to you bring, in some cases, the good things.
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Plays, especially great plays, yield their secrets over a long period of time. You can't read it three times and say, 'OK, I got it. I know what's happening.'
Mike NicholsRead
Things come in waves, and I'm always more interested in places like, for instance, Chicago, where people don't follow fashion. They're not galloping past your window on the way to the latest anything. They're living their lives. You do a play, they come and see it and say, 'That's nice', and then they go home.
Mike NicholsRead
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