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- “I knew [I was a director] from the beginning. It was just a matter of proving it.” — Martha Coolidge
- “It’s important not to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them.” — Robert De Niro
- “What are you gonna do, talk the alien to death?” — James Cameron
- The last photo and the Stutz
- “I had never seen anything like him . . . I vowed nothing would stop me from signing this boy for films.” – producer Hal Wallis on Elvis Presley
- “There’s no one ‘right’ way of making a science fiction movie; there’s no one way of making any kind of movie, really!” — Nicolas Roeg
- “Yeah, and I’m buddies with Alfred.” — Eminem on Alfred Hitchcock
- “I like myself poems that are gentle rather than arrogant intellectually. Where language fades into cries or whispers.” — Medbh McGuckian
- “One day I hope I can write happier poems, but most of the things I think about aren’t very cheerful.” — poet Philip Larkin
- “I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it’s true: I really did.” — Esther Williams
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Category Archives: On This Day
“I do not write for the public.” — poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
“I shall shortly have some sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came like inspirations unbidden and against my will. And in the life I lead now, which is one of a continually jaded and harassed mind, … Continue reading
On This Day, 1957: Jerry Lee Lewis Kicks the Stool Back
Jerry Lee Lewis made his TV debut on the Steve Allen Show. The performance is terrifying. Who else is this terrifying? I suggested the Sex Pistols on Facebook. They did, indeed, terrify. But they were almost 20 years later. Jerry … Continue reading
“I would insist that poetry is a normal human activity and its proper concern all the things that happen to people.” — Michael Longley
“I write out of a jumble of emotions and vague notions and scraps of knowledge. At some stage a form or, rather, a shape mysteriously emerges.” — Michael Longley Poet Michael Longley was born on this day in Belfast in … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Belfast, Eavan Boland, Ireland, Irish poetry, poetry
4 Comments
“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” — Edward Hopper
It’s his birthday today. I wrote about Edward Hopper quite a bit in my Present Tense column at Film Comment, detailing the Hopper-y vibe of Tom Noonan’s great film about urban loneliness, What Happened Was… In fact, I have a … Continue reading
Posted in Art/Photography, On This Day
Tagged art, Edward Hopper, Terrence Malick, What Happened Was
36 Comments
Happy Birthday, Edward Herrmann
With a career as long and diverse as Edward Herrmann’s there is much to discuss. When he died, I wrote a piece for Ebert, focusing on just one moment in Warren Beatty’s Reds, a moment that (in its small way) … Continue reading
“The rhythm is jazz.” — Hart Crane
“What I want to get is … an ‘interior’ form, a form that is so thorough and intense as to dye the words themselves with a pecularity of meaning, slightly different maybe from the ordinary definition of them separate from … Continue reading
“When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes, and that is my idea.” — Ernest Hemingway
Paris Review interview, 2007: Interviewer: Is it possible [Hemingway] showed a generation how to get emotion into a sentence without mentioning emotion? Norman Mailer: Yes, and he did it more than anyone ever had before or after. But he’s a … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Elizabeth Bishop, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Joan Didion, Truman Capote
11 Comments
July 20, 1969: Tranquility
President Kennedy to the joint session of Congress on May 25 1961: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
18 Comments
“The reality is you don’t arrive, you don’t have a crone ceremony and suddenly get wisdom.” — Olympia Dukakis
“I recognize that the real pulse of life is transformation, yet I work in a world dominated by men and the things men value, where transformation is not the coinage. It’s not even the language! Winning is everything in Hollywood. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Olympia Dukakis
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“I think something once broken and put back together is even stronger.” — Jared Padalecki
It’s his birthday today. Jared Padalecki talks a lot about his process (when he’s asked, which is not too often unfortunately). He reads the script over and over again, reciting the lines over and over, as he takes a run, … Continue reading

