Laurence Housman Quotes

I was never good at school, couldn't get a job. I was a disaster when I tried to do things the way the world wanted me to.

I don't really have any advice, other than to say it's the most appallingly difficult thing I've ever tried to do and I wish I had a better idea of how to do it. In my experience what you end up with is the by-product of your failure to achieve what you set out to do. It may turn out OK, but it wasn't what you meant and you've no idea how you got there.

I liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because 'you aren't going to make a living doing that.' I liked looking in art books at the work of painters.

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'

Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special.

Joni Mitchell seems destined to remain in a state of permanent dissatisfaction - always knowing what she would like to do, always more depressed when it's done.

I've got this horrible feeling that I'm one of those people who'll always have to flog their guts out to get anywhere.

People say if you're doing an art project, that's different from a book, but I honestly don't see it. I try and try, and I just don't.

I had a similar year back in 1984 when I felt like I couldn't lose.

I think that's just part of how it is with making art. Sometimes you're just flooded with ideas, and then other times you're questioning all the ideas you ever had before, and everything is just... lame.

By the time I hit college, my secret shame was the reason I was an actor was my own words sort of dried up. I stopped writing. I stopped being able to form my own vision. That's actually what my first feature is about - looking back at two different selves.

An incident that left an impression on me was the 1999 sub-junior national boxing championship held in Calcutta. I had trained extremely hard to get there but got kicked out in the first round itself. 'If others can win, why can't you?' I repeatedly asked myself.

Looking back, my life seems like one long obstacle race, with me as the chief obstacle.

When we made that album with Gary Moore, I was still kind of searching for the right direction for myself. Although the music is quite good the direction was like a box of fireworks that caught light all at the same time.

I remember when I was on 'Saturday Night Live' my first year, and I wasn't getting much. I was down; I was ready to quit.

You get so tired of having your work die. I just wanted to make something that people would actually use.

I kept trying to write these books that were sort of outside of my realm, and I kept failing.

But a lot of writers - and I'm one of them - do tend to feel dissatisfied. It makes you a little hard to live with, but it's a goad and does keep you alert and restless.

A writer is seldom satisfied with the condition he finds himself in. We're all given to fretting a lot.

I actually sat down and started three Alexanders at the same time. Two of them went in the trash and got stomped on because I hated the idea so much. And the one I came up with, I got very excited by. And that's 'Alexander, Who's Trying His Best to Be the Best Boy Ever'.

When I first started playing in a youth football league, I was the worst kid on the team. I quit the first year. And then the next year, I was still the worst kid - I didn't even play.

You try to be the best you can and sometimes it ain't damn good enough.

Whenever you're having a down year, it's always tough, especially when you expect a lot from yourself.

I feel like I didn't really know how to cope with not playing well.

I just spent five, six years sacrificing so much to try and fit into that one ideal, that one small standard, and I was never good enough. And it was just frustration that turned into motivation... That became my ammunition, all the people that told me I couldn't.