Quotes About Insight

When you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.

My films are very rooted in specific people's point of view. Some film-makers give a more global point of view, like God looking down at the characters.

If I'm extra happy or excited, it'll take me an hour or two to write a song. Or, if I'm really sad or something, it will take me about a day. But I have a specific way of writing: I just listen to the beat. I think about what I'm going to write over the beat.

I like to understand, very specifically, what it is I'm seeing, and where it is and where it's going, and a lot of that is just hitting the mark and following the dotted line. But that's good, too because there's concentration and focus that's involved in that.

I don't know anything about bullying in Huntington Beach specifically, but I would assume it's very similar to other places.

When you do a really good play, the audience and the performers are looking into the same looking glass, the same microscope. And the specimen they are looking at is human life and that's why I do it, that's why I like it.

Precisely because I'm a man who is attracted to women, there may be some things that I have to say as a spectator of feminine grace that women themselves may not be able to see.

In 'Uthamaputhiran,' 'Velaiyilla Pattathari' and 'Yennai Arindhaal,' I was a mute spectator to everything.

I have learned that it is far easier to write a speech about good advertising than it is to write a good ad.

As a journalist, I interviewed people, and you begin to feel different rhythms in speech, and you can use those things to help carve out a character.

For the liespotter who knows how to listen well, the random words, sounds, and phrases in a person's speech are never as random as they seem. They offer a clear sightline into the liar's psyche.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

Mostly, I would like people to ask other writers about the craft of their writing so we could learn from one another. We ask movie directors why they chose to use certain lights and angles and speeds of film, but most of the time, we ignore the craft of a writer.

You can see a lot of politics on a lot of different channels. I'm not interested, really, in talking in some wonky conversation about politics, though. It's not my speed. I'm not interested in the ins and outs of health care.

What I tell a lot of the younger guys is, 'My speed isn't the same, my agility isn't the same, but yet I still can talk.' That's an extra defender out there.

You have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math.

I spend a lot of my time looking into people's bags and handbags - with their permission, of course.

If you spend enough time around something like baboons, you start to look at humans differently.

I spent my entire childhood observing people. I still do.

Since I have spent so much time with film-makers, and I understand the process, I would love to direct a film some day.

I've heard everything that anybody can make up or spin, and I know how to cut right through and get to the heart of any issue.

I realized the world spins without me having to spin it.

I'm really looking at questions of power, navigation, and spin. Then I am also looking for real-world stories that give me greater insight into smart and new ways of thinking.

After years of practice, I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs.