Be As Smart As You

Your Assumptions Are Your Windows On The World. Scrub Them Off Every Once In A While Or The Light Won't Come In. If You Challenge Your Own, You Won't Be So Quick To Accept The Unchallenged Assumptions Of Others. You'll Be A Lot Less Likely To Be Caught Up In Bias Or Prejudice Or Be Influenced By People Who Ask You To Hand Over Your Brains, Your Soul Or Your Money Because They Have Everything All Figured Out For You.

I Really Don't Like Plays Or Movies That Service Propaganda.

I Have A Final Word Of Advice To Our Students. If You Work Very, Very Hard, This Is The Kind Of Actor, Writer And Director You May Turn Out To Be, And If You Work Extra Hard, This Is The Kind Of Person You May Turn Out To Be.

The Difference Between Listening And Pretending To Listen, I Discovered, Is Enormous. One Is Fluid, The Other Is Rigid. One Is Alive, The Other Is Stuffed. Eventually, I Found A Radical Way Of Thinking About Listening. Real Listening Is A Willingness To Let The Other Person Change You. When I’m Willing To Let Them Change Me, Something Happens Between Us That’s More Interesting Than A Pair Of Dueling Monologues.

For A While In My Teens, I Was Sure I Had It. It Was About Getting To Heaven. If Heaven Existed And Lasted Forever, Then A Mere Lifetime Spent Scrupulously Following Orders Was A Small Investment For An Infinite Payoff. One Day, Though, I Realized I Was No Longer A Believer, And Realizing That, I Couldn't Go Back.