Quotes About Validation

Wherever I go, people behave like a very big superstar has entered, and I am never able to believe that they all are talking about me.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

But when it became an international hoopla where careers lived and died on whether or not you did or didn't get an Oscar, then it got out of hand.

For a filmmaker, whether the film is liked, understood or appreciated counts as much as the moolah.

I never went to drama school, I don't have any certificates saying: 'He's a qualified actor.' But I did think that 'House' was something I didn't have to apologise for. It was something I was really proud of and it was sort of... whether you liked it or not, it was undeniable.

I cannot sit back and think that I am the best. I have to prove again and again that I am the most original music director around, even if I'm everyone's favorite whipping boy.

When the whole 'Saw' thing died down, I feel like I had praise withdrawals. I had never been congratulated so much on something in my life. So, it was a really amazing whirlwind when 'Saw' came out.

I love readings and my readers, but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright, and the din of voices inside whisper that I am a fraud, and that the jig is up. Surely someone will rise up from the audience and say out loud that not only am I not funny and helpful, but I'm annoying, and a phony.

I want everyone to whistle when I come on screen. However, even if that doesn't happen, I hope people like my work.

It would be real nice to have some kind of bell or whistle attached to this film - it would give it a longer life. People seem to need that validation to go to a film these days.

I'm always thinking about what a black lady would think about what I'm doing, just because I feel like they have such great taste, mostly because as black women, we've spent a lot of time downloading what a white male narrative is, so in my head, I'm like, 'If a black woman likes it, if she responds to it, then it's probably pretty damn great.'

I'm thin and white and blond, but I'm not an airbrushed, perfect thing. I have stretch marks all over. I have cellulite; I have acne. To me, it feels like you can't really be what you can't see, and so if you don't see those things, then you don't feel like you're valid.

If you take a loud pride in anything, people will rightly shoot you down.

Television has become the government, priest, psychotherapist - the legitimiser of our egos.

The desire for attention has become a primal need along the lines of food, water, and clothing.

I used to be so excited when I saw my name in print.

Prior to the 'Chappelle's Show,' you know, no one would even listen to me, in the frame of, 'Oh, he is trying to be funny.'

When popularity is your only goal, doing well in class is going to feature very low, if at all, on your priority list.

It's a real wrenching thing to go from being a private person to being a public person, especially when you're being autobiographical. But it's what everyone wants - to get everyone's attention, to have your music make a living for you, to be validated in that way.

Prove to them people that you should have gotten picked earlier, and then you make your money. The privilege is just getting drafted, and once you get picked, prove to them that you were supposed to be drafted.

Nobody really expects a Nobel Prize call.

You're a human being, and every time a list of prize nominations comes out and your name isn't on it, you do have that thumb-in-the-eye feeling.

I've always felt that the Nobel Prize gives me nothing as far as science is concerned.

People say 'chick lit,' and what they mean is 'crap.' And so even though you might sell 100,000 copies of a book, you're never going to win a prize. These are books that people don't just read, they devour them - they stay up into the early hours because they want to devour them.