Category: Bookshelf

“A stable, loving family is something that should absolutely, fundamentally never ever be taken for granted!” – pg. 22

“Nothing is taken away without it being replaced.” – pg. 45

“I love Love and have plenty to give.” – pg. 50

“And that’s why I always feel so guilty when I am wrong. Because I am the only person to catch it and make a case for being better.” – pg. 75

“You do absolutely nothing on your own. By yourself, you are just a solo daydreamer. But with a partner or team, you are unstoppable.” – pg. 85

“We just tried to make stories that we really personally enjoyed and believed in. We kept our heads down and always tried to let the work speak for itself. To us that was everything.” – pg. 87

“Be authentic. Be yourself. And most important of all… make it personal.” – pg. 108

“There is as much merit in trying to ease people’s suffering for a moment as there is in ‘focusing’ on it. To ease someone’s pain through a distracting, silly, joyous laugh […]. That is one church I am staying loyal to. The Church of Laughing.” – pg. 187

“In life you have to make your dreams come true. Even if there are just the ones you have to figure out.” – pg. 191

“It is so amazing that someone can put out through their hand what is in their head and make it beautiful at the same time.” – pg. 204

“I don’t know why we treat [being single] like some disease we are trying to cure with a remedy of ‘where is he’ because I don’t want to know where he is all of a sudden.” – pg. 215

“To love without end is perfectly safe.” – pg. 227

“You hold yourself accountable. You stay grateful. You hold on tight to your friends.” – pg. 240

“All great comedy has managed to circumnavigate executive meddling.” – pg. xiv

“Success was a by-product, not the goal.” – pg. xv

“What has bothered me most for the last few years is that kind of lazy, political comedy, very safe but always pretending to be brave, that usually gets what my colleague Seth Meyers calls, ‘clapter.'” – James Downey, pg. 3

“I avoid anything I feel is a cheap laugh based on shock or just being dirty. You can always get a laugh, but you don’t want it to come at the price of your dignity.” – James Downey, pg. 11

“Writers tend to write ordinary people in weird situations. Performers tend to write weird people in ordinary situations. That’s a broad generalization, but it’s fairly true.” – James Downey, pg. 12

“I like to think that unless you’re making an observation, and that observation is true – and I hope fresh – it’s not worth writing a piece.” – James Downey, pg. 14

“You also need confidence to communicate what it is you do that’s different from what everyone else is doing.” – James Downey, pg. 21

“We’d write together, and we were almost writing for this seventh voice. There was always that image of another voice that was there. It was the Python voice, really.” – Terry Jones, pg. 25

“If you want to create comedy, try to make people laugh. If you can make people laugh, head in that direction. If nobody laughs… well, that’s not good news. Head in the opposite direction.” – Terry Jones, pg. 29

“Other people’s ideas are never as important as yours.” – Diablo Cody, pg. 31

“If you really love it, you’ll keep doing it even if you’re not successful. If you don’t love it, you don’t belong here.” – Diablo Cody, pg. 31

“Write about how people attempt to navigate this awful screwed-up world and to then find a way to be happy within it, and to make things better.” – Mike Schur, pg. 39

“Jokes are fleeting, but good characters and emotional stories are forever.” – Mike Schur, pg. 43

“Someone said that the best ending for a story is at once inevitable and surprising. That it was the only way it could’ve happened, and yet the audience didn’t see it coming.” – Mike Schur, pg. 44

“Staffs should ideally be like the X-Men – lots of different weird mutants with specific voices and talents.” – Mike Schur, pg. 45

“For that, never underestimate the importance of carefully weaving your own voice into your submission well enough that it cannot be easily separated from your ideas. That’s the balance that I think is important to strike: supplying something familiar that no one ever saw coming.” – Todd Levin, pg. 57

“You’re going to need a very unique comedy voice to stand out.” – Andres Du Bouchet, pg. 59

“The only advice is you just have to do it.” – Henry Beard, pg. 76

“Somewhere, somehow, you can get your script read. And if it’s good, you will be noticed.” – James L. Brooks, pg. 82

“And if you’re in a genuine process, there are no mistakes. If nothing gets down that day, it’s supposed to be that way.” – James L. Brooks, pg. 82

“Just write. Lose yourself. And when you look up, maybe you’ll be somewhere you always wanted to be.” – James L. Brooks, pg. 83

“You know, having a writer’s room is very conducive to getting nothing done.” – Peter Mehlman, pg. 109

“If you approach everything from a pure creative angle, the work and employment will take care of itself.” – Paul F. Tompkins, pg. 113

“We always try to make our movies one-third satire, one-third parody, and one-third original storytelling.” – Adam McKay, pg. 118

“It becomes very, very funny when characters deny that the ship is sinking, even as the water’s rising past their knees.” – Adam McKay, pg. 126

“The entire game is to make your character as awful and irresponsible as possible, while still keeping a toe in the pond of his still being a human being.” – Adam McKay, pg. 131

“‘It’s all about who you know.’ That’s actually the biggest mistake a lot of people make. It’s really about jumping in and doing it, and just starting to write, starting to make sketches and movies, and just putting them up on the internet no matter who or where you are. You just have to start doing it – even if you’re not getting paid.” – Adam McKay, pg. 135

“Part of success is just starting something, working towards a goal, and then living long enough to achieve it.” – Adam McKay, pg. 136

“You usually struggle in the dark for years and years. The trick is that if you love it enough you’ll keep going.” – Adam McKay, pg. 136

“I actually have such a love-hate relationship with writing. I kind of hate it. [Laughs] But you have to tell yourself, ‘I get to do this.'” – Kay Cannon, pg. 179

On Dan Harmon’s ‘Spit Draft’: “You write the scene with dummy dialogue that you’ll later replace with actual jokes. […] If you can’t get through a script that way, then chances are your story doesn’t work.” – Carol Kelb, pg. 194

“You aren’t good at writing, but if you can get over that, then one day maybe you will be okay at writing.” – Gabe Delahaye, pg. 203

“Write what you think is funny. […] Make friends with smart, highly motivated, encouraging, wonderful people who are more talented than you.” – Gabe Delahaye, pg. 204

“It is impossible to work in television without having original material.” – Joel Begleiter, pg. 233

“The ability to get away from your ego enough to recognize your limitations, and to take actions toward becoming a writer or working for a sketch group – that’s a big moment.” – Marc Maron, pg. 237

“The truth of the matter is that eventually you’re going to have to do the work. You’re going to have to find your consistency and your groove – somehow.” – Marc Maron, pg. 238.

“I think because I wrote only for wanting to crack up my friends, and I was cracking myself up in the process, it worked.” – Dave Hill, pg. 266

“Once I was truly at the point where I was not trying to get anyone’s attention, that’s when I got everything I wanted.” – Dave Hill, pg. 266

“Do your best to entertain yourself. Or entertaining the fifteen year-old in you. Or just creating something that you want to see exist.” – Dave Hill, pg. 267

“A problem never comes without a gift in its hand.” – Tom Scharpling, pg. 277

“You have to trust what you’re doing. There’s something running through everybody that others will eventually respond to.”– Tom Scharpling, pg. 279

“All you can really hope for is to connect with people and to hopefully put food on the table – and to then get a chance to do it again the next day.” – Tom Scharpling, pg. 290

“It’s really more about time than it is about perfection. Just put in the time, and don’t be too precious about things. Work with your friends. And maybe, eventually, you’ll get paid.” – Amy Poehler, pg. 301

“If you stick around, if you’re a good collaborator, if you’re open to new ideas and you keep trying, then you’ll find there’s a lot of different ways you can work as a writer.” – Amy Poehler, pg. 301

“If it makes you laugh out loud, it probably belongs on the page. […] Have trust in amusing yourself.” – Patton Oswalt, pg. 326

“It’s the ones who just keep going who eventually make it.” – Patton Oswalt, pg. 327

“I always say not to do it unless you can’t not do it. If you need encouragement from a stranger, then you shouldn’t do it.” – Daniel Clowes, pg. 350

“I’d avoid reading interviews with writers. None of us know what we’re doing. You can learn more from reading a good book than all the floppy advice from the people who make them.” – Daniel Handler, pg. 358

“I preferred to either read someone’s original pilot or original play or original screenplay in order to see the invention they were able to come up with.” – Paul Feig, pg. 390

“I’d much rather see a writer come up with, ‘I knew somebody like this.’ Or, ‘What would it be like if these three people got mixed together?’ At that point, you can then ask, ‘Okay, what’s the best context for them to be in? What situation?'” – Paul Feig, pg. 391

“That is the key to comedy as far as I’m concerned: lightning in a bottle. You have to capture that moment when it first happens, because that’s when it’s funny.” – Paul Feig, pg. 391

“With stand-up and writing, it’s about trying to be good at it in the way that my heroes, the people I admire, are good at it.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 401

“Even the missteps are productive, because you’re getting something out of your system.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 403

“I had no idea that comedy could be more than just jokes. That the whole thing could be in service of exposing some truth. […] To realize that I could also say something that I believed in, or describe a worldview I shared, or attack a dishonesty that bothered me, through comedy – that changed everything.” – Dan Guterman, pg. 407

“The danger, when you do it for long enough, is that comedy can become a series of variables in a mathematical equation. I know that if I balance the equation correctly, that if I manipulate x and y in just the right way, the end result will be laughter.” – Dan Guterman, pg. 411

“Someone could be an outright genius, but they’d still pass on him or her if they were a fucking asshole.” – Dan Guterman, pg. 414

“There was never a honeymoon period with comedy. I took it way too seriously, way too early.” – Dan Guterman, pg. 417

“Having your self-worth inextricably linked to your work may be unhealthy, but it’s also responsible for most of my success.” – Dan Guterman, pg. 417

“I’ll never be the kind of person who does cartwheels or stands around parks holding balloons. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the life I have. Sometimes I don’t remember to enjoy it enough, but I’m extremely happy that I get to do what I’m passionate about.” – Dan Guterman, pg. 419

“It’s similar to the medical profession. You come in, you look at the patient, and you identify what’s wrong. Then you describe what you can do to remedy it.” – Alan Spencer, pg. 422

“I’ve noticed that it’s very important to have a wonderful third act – a powerhouse ending.” – Alan Spencer, pg. 423

“There’s always a virtue to listening, and there are intelligent people in Hollywood. You have to be a politician and a diplomat. Also, a human being.” – Alan Spencer, pg. 426

“Just write as much as you can. That’s the only way you’re going to get better at it.” – Mike Dicenzo, pg. 429

“You can’t teach writing. You can teach some basics of writing: act one, two, and three; how to create a premise; how to develop a story; how to sharpen jokes. But you can’t ever teach people how to get talent in their guts. You can’t teach people how to express this gut-level talent. That’s just impossible.” – Mel Brooks, pg. 434

“You can be silly, but you still have to hew to the underlying truth. If my heart’s in the right place, I can go anywhere.” – Mel Brooks, pg. 436

“The characters are everything. If you’re talented, you’ll find a good idea to put these characters in.” – Mel Brooks, pg. 38

“The real struggle is to take a premise, the center of it, and blossom it into a punch line.” – Mel Brooks, pg. 440

“I was here. I did something. I made my mark. And I will not be completely erased by death.” – Mel Brooks, pg. 447

“Whatever you write has to make you laugh. Not just laugh, but really laugh, from your belly, laugh with your gut.” – Mel Brooks, pg. 447

“Determination is something you can control. […] Determination, if you have it, will more than compensate for shortcomings in your talent.” – pg. xv

“Write the show that you know and love!” – pg. 14

“One of the persistent themes of situation comedy is that human beings overreact to minor problems.” – pg. 54

“Sitcom stories work best when they have a theme: when there’s a reason for telling the story.” – pg. 55

“If you find yourself struggling, don’t be discouraged. If this were as easy as it looks, everyone would be doing it.” – pg. 75

“Trust your instincts. If it feels right, it probably is right.” – pg. 76

“If we understand why a character is doing something, we will accept almost any behavior no matter how outrageous.” – pg. 121

“Most people never try to write anything. Most of those who try never finish. Writing is a lot about talent, and it is also a lot about following the rules and doing the preparation, but writing is every bit as much about finishing. If you don’t finish, you aren’t a writer. If you do finish, you are a writer!” – pg. 147

“If criticism doesn’t hurt, then I don’t believe you care very much about what you wrote.” – pg. 151

“There is truth in even the dumbest note.” – pg. 151

“You’ll never get your lucky break if you aren’t hanging around the neighborhoods where lucky breaks happen.” – pg. 162

“If your spec scripts are good enough to get you into one pitch meeting, they’re good enough to get you another one” – pg. 173

“if they’ll write your whole script for you in the pitch meeting, let them!” – pg. 181

“They key to getting a second writing assignment is doing a good job on the first assignment.” – pg. 194

“The smartest writers are the ones who keep a smile on their face even when everything around them is falling apart. If they need to vent their frustrations, they wait until they get home.” – pg. 218

“The real living that you are going to do on this planet will happen away from your job.” – pg. 223

“The less starry-eyed you are about Hollywood, the better you’ll navigate your career.” – pg. 243

Notes Log:

Seven Plot Elements

• First Goal
• Obstacle
• First Action – Involves an unwise decision
• Act Break – First Action backfires, and the character is further away from goal (heightened emotional state, cliff hanger)
• Second Goal – Desperate Plan B to solve new problems
• Second Action – Plan B makes things even worse
• Resolution – Problem is solved with ironic twist

“There’s liberation in admitting you don’t know what you’re doing.” – pg. 10

“Love is life’s greatest mystery and wildest adventure.” – pg. 13

“People who follow their creative passions are fascinating but also complicated.” – pg. 26

“Accepting defeat has always been an issue for me, and I think that speaks to my determination (if we’re being generous) or my pride (if we’re being honest).” – pg. 102

“People should constantly calibrate the amount of joy versus the amount of discontent a person brings them.” – pg. 124

“‘Hot girl’ has never been an identity that I’ve been fully comfortable with… And that’s not because I think I’m unattractive or anything. I just think you have to take yourself really seriously to identify as hot.” – pg. 165

“Being able to ignore the unhelpful feedback from friends is hard, but so important… I think one of the best skills anyone can have is the ability to cherry-pick the friends who have good intentions and want the best for you.” – pg. 211

“I don’t think the fact that I don’t need everything on demand makes me a pushover, I think it makes me a self-sufficient adult.” – pg. 267

“I’ll never not feel fear when I put myself out there, but that’s okay. I’ll keep doing things I have no right to do, because I don’t like wading in the shallow end. I’d rather get pushed into the deep end and then attempt to touch the bottom. That’s just how I operate.” – pg. 301

“I wish we had more words for love.” – pg. 306

“The fights you have are never about the thing you’re fighting about. It’s always something else.” – Barack Obama, pg. 136

“Staying ready for it is what detaches you from life.” – Judd Apatow, pg. 139

“I really believe that there is a force in the universe that has a sense of humor.” – Conan O’Brien, pg. 146

“Either you choose to live in the panic; which 99 percent of the time will turn out to be a waste of fucking time and energy, or you fucking let go and say, ‘You know, it’s out of my hands.'” – Marc Maron, pg. 244

“I often say if you’re not at least a little depressed you’re just not fucking paying attention.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 259

“You can’t let in just the good stuff. If you want to really, really love the world you have to accept the things about the world that you hate.” – Patrick Stickies, pg. 260

“Life is super hard. Once we achieve peace with that knowledge, then happiness can be possible.” – Rob Delaney, pg. 267

“Those who work really hard and harness their talent, if they have it, can find a way.” – Marc Maron, pg. 279

“I think it is important to understand that failure is not part of the bad stuff. Failure is actually a building block of the good stuff, if you have the courage to keep going.” – Stephen Tobolowsky, pg. 299

“It isn’t that you’re looking for something. It’s that you recognize it when you see it.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 334

“It’s a beautiful story and sometimes I forget that. Because it is cool to achieve something that you’ve always wanted, and to do it kind of on your terms.” – Jenny Slate, pg. 341

“Part of the meaning of life is knowing that you’re going to die, that’s part of where you derive meaning, knowing that life is a measured amount of time, so you have to use that time wisely.” – Terry Gross, pg. 348

“If you want to live a life, you’ve got to realize you are not going to be the writer of your own script. Life is something that happens. You don’t happen to it. It happens to you.” – Bruce Springsteen, pg. 374

“There’s something about knowing you need others in order to be remarkable, that’s a big deal.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 384

“As soon as I stopped pretending and performing for people, I started attracting way more amazing ones. When you’re authentic, you attract people who want a self-actualized person, not some Mrs. Potato Head who is customized based on who she’s with.” – pg. 58

“I realized that the generation of women I’m proud to be a part of have no idea how to ‘take it easy.'” – pg. 111

“If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that it’s short and the line of people dedicated to making your dreams come true is even shorter.” – pg. 115

“The song doesn’t say, ‘All you need is love, but when you have it, you should still put yourself first, have boundaries, and keep your social life.'” – pg. 225

“Everyone asks if being a female in comedy is hard, and I never have a good answer because I feel like everyone has a hard job. It’s hard to be a male and a female in any career because working sucks sometimes.” – pg. 253

“I think deglamorizing knowing everything is the way we can actually really get some insight.” – pg. 272

“Your life is a joke – and that’s the good news. Wake up and smell the comedy around you.” – pg. 23

“We usually think that we are the only sane ones in our families, but we are solely mistaken. We are not normal. We are comics.” – pg. 35

“Brave people are not unafraid. What distinguishes them is that they act despite the fear.” – pg. 46

“I’ve learned that it’s not always the person with the most talent who succeeds – it’s the one with the most endurance.” – pg. 51

“You might get depressed, because it will seem like every topic has been done. Well, yes, they have. Except for one, that is: your life.” – pg. 111

“There’s no safety net with brilliance.” – pg. 179

“Technique can carry you only so far. Passion and soul have to take you the rest of the way.” – pg. 211

“I fell into the trap of equating fame with success… It took me a long time to realize that success is a state of mind.” – pg. 276

“Sometimes it’s the little moments, when we take the time to recognize others, that we are truly a superstar.” – pg. 338

“A dopey letter is still a dopey letter, no matter how you dress it up.” – pg. 144

“The smack and clatter of a typewriter suggests that you’re actually building something. At the end of a miserable day, instead of grieving my virtual nothing, I can always look at my loaded wastepaper basket and tell myself that if I failed, at least I took a few trees down with me.” – pg. 147

“I know it sounds calculating, but if you’re not cute, you might as well be clever.” – pg. 156

“If I have one saving grace it’s that I’m lucky enough to have found someone willing to handle the ugly business of day-to-day living.” – pg. 247

“For a long period of time, you go through this period of swearing you will never make the same mistakes as your parents. But then you realize that they didn’t really make mistakes. They just did what had to be done. That’s just the way it works out sometimes.” – Tom Hanks, pg. 42

“How romantic to learn that your best-friend-turned-lover adores you for you. Your personalities. Your eccentricities.” – pg. 83

“It takes courage to love. And there’s always going to be problems. And you have to have a certain faith that the problems will be solved.” – Shanley, pg. 101

“You just have to make it up as you go along and hope you don’t screw it up too horribly.” – Nora Ephron, pg. 107

“[Tom] thought Sleepless wasn’t so much about the fate as the idea that ‘one person’s second chance can be the other person’s first.'” – pg. 132

“I don’t think that there’s a million people you can fall in love with… I actually think to make a great match is a very lucky thing.” – Delia Ephron, pg. 174

“There’s no one who’s more romantic than a cynic.” – Nora Ephron, pg. 175

“The idea that there is someone out there that maybe no one else can touch, for you.” – David Word, pg. 198

“Many of life’s flops, like marriages, are obvious in retrospect. If you knew it, you wouldn’t do it, but you didn’t, so you did.” – Delia Ephron, pg. 212

“The older you get, you’re going to realize that things change and there’s not very much that you can do about it.” – Nora Ephron, pg. 269

“The Ephron woman makes us feel less alone in a man’s world – and inspires us not to give up.” – pg. 295

“It’s an incredible gift to be able to make your own fun.” – pg. 12

“You cannot just blithely drift through life in your canoe whilst turning a blind eye to the bullshit going on around you.” – pg. 67

“Such a sunny disposition can make a body powerfully stupid some of the time, but it’s mostly worked out for me so far.” – pg. 133

“No matter how you decide to spend a little more time on your gestures of giving, the point is just quite simply that you do.” – pg. 174

“Engage in romantic love. It truly makes life worth living. Romance affords you the opportunity to do a lot of giving, which I believe I have read is said to be better than receiving.” – pg. 255

“Make your life happy. Sounds pretty simple, right?” – pg. 311

“I don’t achieve my happiness by taking it easy, but instead by using my time and abilities to be productive.” – pg. 319