Author: Kelsey Mihachik

“We always want more, instead of being happy with what we have.” – pg. 199

“We are more powerful than we think and are actually the co-creators of our lives.” – pg. 200

“All I ever wanted to do was make people laugh.” – pg. 6

“I hate when people use the phrase ‘you are who you are’ as an excuse to ler themselves be less than the person they could be.” – pg. 209

“I wanted to be creative and have my creativity bring other people joy.” – pg. 230

“Rather than focusing on what you don’t want, focus on what you do want.” – pg. 233

“If you’re going to listen to the fan who says you’re a genius, you also need to listen to the fan who says you’re a piece of shit.” – pg. 240

“We all have moments like that, moments when we make a silent vow to ourselves and think, I never want to feel this way again.” – pg. 37

“Sometimes the only way to correct trauma is by not passing it to the next victim.” – pg. 81

“The message from an Apostle is always met with opposition. If you were capable of hearing it, wouldn’t you have come to it on your own?” – pg. 87

“When the student is ready, the teacher will reveal themselves.” – pg. 90

“I just didn’t feel like I deserved any of it, I didn’t feel like I belonged there, I don’t know why other than the famous quote, ‘I’d never want to be a part of any club that would have me as a member.'” – pg. 114

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus, pg. 119

“You’ll never truly see the damage you’ve caused until the rain stops pouring and the wind dies down.” – pg. 133

“Live in the world that is, instead of the world you think you deserve.” – pg. 150

“Comedy is economy. How can you do the most with the least?” – pg. 156

“Living in a perpetual state of what if requires your life to be in some version of a holding pattern.” – pg. 163

“It’s incredible how a safety net can sabotage you if you let it.” – pg. 199

“Scared of what would happen if I stopped and scared of what would happen if I kept going, that’s never a good place to be.” – pg. 201

“Most people can be critical because most people know when something doesn’t work.” – pg. 208

“Nothing good in life can be maintained without practice.” – pg. 210

“What are you willing to let go that stands between you and happiness? […] That relationship you think you can’t live without, that job you think defines you, can you let go of that? Because, if you’re really serious about getting happy, you might be forced to let it all go, to know you can be okay without it.” – Anonymous Speaker, pg. 218

“People let go of their dreams every day.” – pg. 229

“If you’re telling me at thirty-three you don’t know what the fuck to do with your life, I would say you sound exactly where you’re supposed to be.” – Harris, pg. 230

“Friends in the business would say to me, ‘Once you stop caring, that’s when things will start happening, you just have to not care.’ I hated this advice because no matter how hard I tried to will myself into not caring, I ALWAYS CARED.” – pg. 238

“You’ll probably get everything you ever wanted. It just won’t be in the way you expected.” – Neal Brennan, pg. 238

“Happy is like the weather, unapologetically ever changing.” – pg. 242

“Too much sunshine brings about a desert.” – Anonymous Friend, pg. 243

“There is a certain resolve that a person must have to persist at something that seems intangible at times.” – Steve Carrell, pg. xi

“There’s a unique and personal awareness that comes when you’re forced to dig deep, look honestly at yourself, and question your artistic resolve.” – pg. xv

“Professional athletes train in the off-season. So should you.” – pg. 10

“When you’re able to use your experiences to feed your creativity, […] it doesn’t seem as hard. Mining for gold is not easy. But if you do it long enough, you get to be the person who found gold.” – pg. 35

“The very best way to advance your career is to be seen.” – pg. 84

“Establishing good luck isn’t just about being in the right place at the right time. It’s about making the kinds of choices that put you in the right place at the right time.” – pg. 90

“I’m a big believer in specificity when it comes to manifesting successes in your life.” – pg. 94

“People can feel when you have a real interest or a calculated one.” – pg. 98

“It’s normal to get frustrated when you feel like things aren’t moving as quickly as you would like.” – pg. 101

“Never stop working hard to create opportunities for yourself. […] Keep yourself active, and you will keep yourself moving forward.” – pg. 101

“People remember good work.” – pg. 124

“You’ll have to determine how much you can endure. Because the roadblocks, doubts, and insecurity are all part of living an artistic life.” – pg. 180

“Ultimately, you have to find your own way. And you will.” – pg. 181

“You are in charge of your momentum.” – pg. 190

“I was just doing something I loved to do without the worry of expectations.” – Mark Proksch, pg. 92

“Whatever you do, know it’s going to be a disgusting mess of awfulness. And then, do it anyway. Something awful is better than something incomplete. […] Every project you finish has value.” – pg. 193

“You’ve chosen an unpredictable life, but certainly a life worth living. […] We are in need of artists and stories to remind us of our shared humanity. As you go forward, though you may get discouraged, please don’t hold back your gift.” – pg. 203

“Artists frequently hide the steps that lead to their masterpieces.” – Matt Weiner, pg. 204

“If you keep going, the muscle that moves you forward will get stronger.” – pg. 205

“It’s not going to happen right away and it’s not going to happen the way you think it’s going to happen, but it’s going to be great. Just stick with it.” – Natalie Zea, pg. 217

“If it’s not fun for you, it’s not fun for the audience.” – Sean Gunn, pg. 224

“My biggest struggle is always that I’m not working enough.” – Sean Gunn, pg. 226

“Find people whose work you admire, and whose work ethic you admire and surround yourself with them as much as you can.” – Sean Gunn, pg. 227

“Be you and no one can ever touch you.” – Derek Waters, pg. 237

“I believe that you choose people to fulfill roles in your life.” – pg. 56

“As someone who has spoken the written word for thirty-five years, without [writers] we are nothing.” – Alan King, pg. 79

“You can only be avant-garde for so long before you become garde.” – Anne Beatts, pg. 81

“Your days are spent making up things that no one ever said to be spoken by people who do not exist for an audience that may not come.” – Herb Gardner, pg. 181

“We write the story we wish to tell.” – pg. 183

“We all live slightly different versions of the same lives.” – pg. 200

“One of the great perks of doing what I do is that you get to meet the people whose work you admire.” – pg. 221

“I truly believe funny is innate. It’s a mind-set of how you look at the world. […] It’s about one’s inner wiring.” – pg. 233

“As long as you write from your core, you will connect with your audience. The audience will respond to the validity of your voice and find your words meaningful because of their honesty.” – pg. 246

“We are all in search of a story that explains who we are.” – pg. 11

“The words we use hold weight.” – pg. 12

“Buy what would still be classic in ten years.” – pg. 31

“We don’t know what stains a pure heart.” – pg. 45

“That’s the funny thing about limitations; sometimes they aren’t about you at all.” – pg. 59

“We play the parts we are given.” – pg. 62

“As adults, we pull our childhoods with us wherever we go.” – pg. 62

“It means something big to have something of someone else’s.” – pg. 116

“Grief is love that you can no longer express.” – pg. 183

“I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.” – John Steinbeck, pg. 256

“Every person on this earth needs just one person who sees them and roots for them.” – pg. 259

“I can’t profess to understand the mysteries of the universe. All I know is that I desperately love a story.” – pg. 287

“I was incapable of articulating the pain I was in, especially because ‘my dreams were coming true,’ or at least that is what I was being told.” – pg. 9

“If they were a character in a screenplay the first note would be, ‘too much.'” – pg. 57

“We do not realize the extent of the energy we are losing until we find where it is seeping from.” – pg. 134

“Someone will break your heart but you will break one too.” – pg. 141

Link to video here.

“I wrote once that a good story lasts forever. However, sometimes the ending just isn’t what you want it to be. It is up to us to figure out the joy of the story, no matter how it ended. That’s why we want to read and feel more of them. That’s why people continue to write.

What I said earlier, I’ll always remember: If you’re good to the game, the game will be good to you. So in closing, I’m gonna go back to a story that I love to tell. It’s about the Hall of Fame coach, the late-great Fred Shero, back in the mid-70s. […] He walked into the room before the Stanley Cup clinching game, and he walked up to the chalkboard and he wrote this – it’s my favorite quote in all of hockey: Win today, and we walk together forever.”

“People with children don’t know how to tell stories. That’s not a story. […] At best, [what you said is] a middle. It’s a middle where you’re thinking, ‘Get to the end!’ But there is no end. Or beginning. It’s just this constant flow of ‘middle.'” – pg. 6

“Therein lies the risk and reward of jokes. We joke about things we are most anxious about to diffuse the anxiety of the actual threat. […] Jokes that touch on the most painful topics can often bring the deepest laughs and the most healing.” – pg. 70

“If you ever meet someone who you know doesn’t really care about meeting you: Tell them a secret.” – pg. 75

“I lived in this town where everyone was pretending to be happy and pretending to be in a good marriage and pretending they had a nice house with a nice living room.” – pg. 141

“A joke without comedic timing is a statement of pure insanity.” – pg. 213

“When I got older it started to occur to me that some people are just filled with existential dread, and maybe I’m one of those people too.” – pg. 230

“The truth is often uncomfortable.” – pg. 239

“I’ve been so busy, I forgot to be secret.” – J. Hope Stein, pg. 239

“You have to go through shit to really connect to your material, or have a point of view.” – pg. xiii

“You’ve got to learn to play like you practice. That’s true for anything in your life.” – pg 39

“It’s a cold world without your parents, the two people who unconditionally love you.” – pg. 58

“A good comedian should be able to relate to the audience and talk about things in a natural way.” – pg. 81

“You get to be many things in life, even when you are in between.” – pg. 103

“You have to have a purpose, something to do. […] When you’ve got too much time on your hands you end up obsessing over little bullshit.” – pg. 105

“If you can carry yourself properly and show the world that you won’t be fucked with, you probably won’t ever have to fight.” – pg. 107

“The only way to like yourself and truly know yourself is, I believe, through something bigger than you.” – pg. 125

“It’s amazing when you finally realize that God is not surprised by who you are.” – pg. 127

“I couldn’t just be funny – I had to work this craft.” – pg. 133

“I had great ideas, I just had not learned how to sell them.” – pg. 196

“You either believe in yourself or you don’t. I’m not desperate; I have a talent. And I’m a business.” – pg. 205

“Mixing things up helps me get outside of myself.” – pg. 237

“You are gonna fail. But failing helps you recognize success. Failure is not bad, but I’m also not glamorizing it. I’m glamorizing growing.” – pg. 246

“Work to be you. Find out where you really fit.” – pg. 266