Alan Ball famous quotes

I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it personally.'
-- Alan Ball

#Buddhist #Belief

I would say try to tell stories that you care about as opposed to stories that you think will sell.
-- Alan Ball

#Thinking #Trying #Stories

I'd seen 'Interview with A Vampire' and saw Dracula movies growing up, but I never thought, 'I love vampires; I have to do a show about vampires.'
-- Alan Ball

#Growing Up #Vampire #Saws

I'm from the South, so while I personally find it impossible to live there, I still have a fondness for it as a geographical region.
-- Alan Ball

#Impossible #Stills #Fondness

If a scene is longer than three pages, it better be for a good reason.
-- Alan Ball

#Three #Pages #Reason

The difference between film and TV is the pace. You don't have the leisure of time in television.
-- Alan Ball

#Differences #Pace #Television

When I go home, the last thing I want to do is read about the popular lore of vampires.
-- Alan Ball

#Home #Vampire #Want

You know, I'm gay and I grew up being aware of that at a very early age, in a fairly repressed family.
-- Alan Ball

#Gay #Age #Grew Up

I am so spoiled. I cannot watch a show where it gets interrupted for ads. I have to TiVo it and skip through the ads, because the culture of advertising is so false and phony that I just... ugh, you know?
-- Alan Ball

#Watches #Culture #Ugh

I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process; it's probably the closest I come to having a religion.
-- Alan Ball

#Stories #Storytelling #Process

Life is suffering. We have desires and expectations and egos, and we compare the reality we have, which is miraculous and wondrous, with this reality we desire. That somehow distances us from actually taking part fully with the reality we do have, and that creates suffering. For me, the thing that I love is that it's all about the present moment.
-- Alan Ball

#Distance #Reality #Love Is

As a writer, it's fun to create. And once you get into a long-running show with very established characters and a very established tone and format, after a while it's a really great job, but that's what it is - a job.
-- Alan Ball

#Running #Jobs #Fun

I definitely see the good in people. Certainly in my own life I strive to be somebody who is functional and well adjusted and can face conflict in a non-emotional and non-destructive way, and those are the people I try to surround myself with in my life. But as characters, they bore me.
-- Alan Ball

#Character #Emotional #People

I know a lot of shows are like, 'Here's the pages,' right before they start filming. I'd have a heart attack. The anxiety would be way too much for me. I don't have as strong a backbone as those other show writers.
-- Alan Ball

#Strong #Heart #Anxiety

Most of us live in artificial environments and then we go to work in artificial environments and the world becomes something that you see through a window.
-- Alan Ball

#World #Environment #Window

I will say that the environment I grew up in was not the most progressive.
-- Alan Ball

#Environment #Progressive #Grew Up

I think vampires are a timeless powerful archetype that can tap into people's psyches.
-- Alan Ball

#Powerful #Psych #Thinking

I think the world is a place for oddballs and freaks. I'm only interested in oddballs and freaks as characters.
-- Alan Ball

#Character #Thinking #World

I'm at the point in my life where I don't want to work as hard. Actually, I've had to take a good hard look at workaholism and it's effect on one's mental health.
-- Alan Ball

#Looks #Want #Mental Health

I'm a huge freak, and always have been. I spent the first part of my life trying really desperately not to be one, and it was just a waste of time.
-- Alan Ball

#Trying #Waste #Firsts

I'm used to American actors who have a movie career thinking television acting is beneath them.
-- Alan Ball

#Thinking #Careers #Acting

Obviously death is a theme I'm fascinated by.
-- Alan Ball

#Theme

Vampires are total sexual metaphors; there's just no way around that.
-- Alan Ball

#Vampire #Way #Metaphor

And as I stumbled onto Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, it was the first time I had ever read any sort of philosophy that really made a tremendous amount of sense. What I liked that was missing from my experience of Christianity growing up was a sort of acceptance, a sort of being OK with being imperfect and not focusing on the sin.
-- Alan Ball

#Growing Up #Philosophy #Buddhism

In my own life, I think legends of supernatural, mythic things are really just a manifestation of the collective unconscious. So I don't really get freaked out. I mean certainly, you read about things people did to each other in the pursuit of some mystical or occult goal, and it's horrifying. But that's just human nature.
-- Alan Ball

#Mean #Thinking #People

Ultimately, physical resemblance isn't as important as whether this person can bring this character to life in a way that's compelling and makes me care about what happens to them.
-- Alan Ball

#Character #Important #Care

Death is a companion for all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we're aware of it or not, and it's not necessarily a terrible thing.
-- Alan Ball

#Companion #Terrible #Acknowledge

Directing is physically exciting because there's a ticking clock, you're working with people, it's very social, it's very enjoyable.
-- Alan Ball

#People #Clock #Social

Happy relationships are boring. We all want them in our own life. But I don't want to watch them on TV.
-- Alan Ball

#Happy Relationship #Watches #Want

I am a little suspicious of industry paradigms. I feel like so many movies and TV shows feel so familiar because of over-reliance on these paradigms.
-- Alan Ball

#Tv Shows #Littles #Tvs

I believe forgiveness is possible for everybody, for everything, but I'm a Buddhist.
-- Alan Ball

#Buddhist #Believe #I Believe

I think sexuality is a window into someone's soul.
-- Alan Ball

#Thinking #Soul #Window

There are times when I am directing, and there are a couple of moments I didn't get the way I wanted, but I know I still have other angles to shoot and I have to be done by noon; I move on.
-- Alan Ball

#Couple #Moving #Noon