I went right to Chicago to do improv [after law school], but I wish I had gone, "Let me just bypass this law thing." I mean, sure, it helps you read a contract, but I can read a contract regardless. It's just common sense, contracts.
All I'm doing, all I have done for 40 years, is spend time with the best scientific experts, gain their confidence, and take advantage of their patience in explaining things to me over and over again in progressively simpler language that I can understand, so that I can read it back to them and get their sign off, where they say, "Yep, that's it, Al. You've got it." When I understand it, I know I can explain it to other people. When the scientists' predictions end up being true, I see that as an opportunity to say to people, "Listen carefully to what they're saying now."
I'm not a writer, but I'm very good at editing. That's my specialty. I can read something and tell you everything that's wrong with it and what's great about it and what needs to change, but it's hard for me to organize my thoughts.
I have an unconscious burglar living in my mind: If I read something, it's mine. I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.
. . . since being a Jew not only means that I bear within me a catastrophe that occurred yesterday and cannot be ruled out for tomorrow, it is-beyond being a duty-also fear. Every morning when I get up I can read the Auschwitz number on my forearm, something that touches the deepest and most closely intertwined roots of my existence; indeed I am not even sure if this is not my entire existence. Then I feel approximately as I did back then when I got a taste of the first blow from a policeman's fist. Every day anew I lose my trust in the world.
Generally I finish a first draft in 2-6 months, then I set it aside for a while so that when I come back to it I can read it with fresh eyes and figure out how to improve it.
I'm not a Wall Street expert, but I can read the papers.
I keep thinking of the gifts of my own upbringing, which I once took for granted: I can read any book I choose and comprehend it. I can write a complete sentence and punctuate it correctly. If I need help, I can call on judges, attorneys, educators, ministers. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up without such protections and supports. What cracks would have turned up in my character?
Normally, when I read a script, it takes me two and a half hours. I usually put it down and come back to it. So, I know if I can read a script in one sitting, it's a fantastic script.
The role always attracts me. Sometimes I can read something and I can barely see the rest of the script.
I don't give a f***. We're not fighting. I don't care what anyone thinks about me. All the stuff I have to do outside the fighting, the promotion, this, I don't give a f***. But when I am facing up for a fight, I know what they're thinking. I can read their minds. When I am going face to face with an opponent, nose to nose, I can smell the fear, and I'm feeling no fear at all.
I was in front of an ambulance the other day, and I noticed that the word ambulance was spelled in reverse print on the hood of the ambulance. And I thought, Well, isn't that clever. I look in the rear-view mirror; I can read the word ambulance behind me. Of course while you're reading, you don't see where you're going, you crash. You need an ambulance. I think they're trying to drum up some business on the way back from lunch.
Do you think I can read [Alain] Robbe-Grillet in an underdeveloped country? He does not feel himself maimed.
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