Creative Mismatch Quotes

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

I have never felt in tune with the whole rock industry.

You can have a wonderful time doing a movie and believe in it completely, and then you see the final product, and it doesn't look anything like what you thought it was going to.

To ask a novelist to talk about his novels is like asking somebody to cook about their dancing.

It's like that scene from The Player when they talk about merging Star Wars and Kramer vs. Kramer, or whatever. You could do that with music and it would just be awful.

The weird part is actually, there were so many exceptionally talented people there [ on "MADtv"]. But it was a disaster. I don't think I enjoyed any of it, really. I had a different sensibility.

Everybody told me to stay in Hollywood. This was the place they said I could have a big career. What they failed to mention was that no one would quite know what to do with me.

When Chaplin found a voice to say what was on his mind, he was like a child of eight writing lyrics for Beethoven's Ninth.

I did actually have a deal with Columbia, but it became increasingly clear to me after signing with them that they didn't know what to do with me and I didn't know what to do for them, so we agreed to go our separate ways.

If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn't really work.

I made this film 'The Beach,' which didn't take place in a city, and it didn't really suit me.

I don't want to name any names, but I've worked on television shows where there's a guy writing for my generation who's, like, 60 - and it doesn't work.

When you think of Gallant's music and his voice, you don't automatically think, 'Oh, Eric Nam would be great a fit' or 'Hey! Tablo would be an amazing fit.'

The greatest romance in the life of a lyricist is when the right word meets the right note; often, however, a Park Avenue phrase elopes with a Bleecker Street chord, resulting in a shotgun wedding and a quickie divorce.

The last person they expected to connect with a screenplay was the comedic, blonde actress with the funny voice.

My husband and I had the opportunity to write some stuff for other people. We both tried it. I think it lasted about two weeks, and we both felt ridiculous. It just didn't work for us.

I've seen too many comics who got their own shows and were undone because they worked for an executive producer who didn't understand their comedy or their sensibility.

You write these songs which are really dear to you about your family or friends, loved ones, and then you get this call, and they say, 'It's perfect for two vampires making out in the back of a car.' It's some random TV show, and so I say, 'Oh, yeah, perfect - that's what I meant it for.'

I'd found that what I wrote and put out on records somehow was not fitting into how I perform on stage.

Yeah, I have the detail-obsessed, controlling personality of a novelist, but I somehow ended up writing plays.

Sometimes reactions can be quite surprising: readers like things that you, the author, feel you've barely gotten away with; or they dislike one of the parts you secretly think is one of your little gems.