It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.
William HurtRead
You cut off the capacity for grief in your life, and you cut off the joy at the same time. They both come up through the same tunnel. You don't have one without the other.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Experiencing grief and joy is interconnected; to avoid one is to diminish the other.
This quote highlights the dual nature of human emotions, suggesting that grief and joy are deeply intertwined experiences. When one attempts to shield themselves from the pain of grief, they inadvertently block the ability to feel joy, as both emotions arise from the same fundamental human experience. Embracing the full spectrum of emotions is essential to living a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Themes
GriefJoyEmotionsLifeExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing life’s ups and downs.
More from William Hurt
All quotes →You get older, and people start passing away. And so if you're lucky - my mom died very young, for instance, and I have friends who died very young - but the point being that, I think if you're awake, you know you're going to pass on. And that the real treasure in life is the long term - relationships that you really value.
William HurtRead
But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.
William HurtRead
I'm coming from the notion that acting is an art. It is not a business. It is about building characters, not about selling personalities.
William HurtRead
The problem with Google is you have 360 degrees of omnidirectional information on a linear basis, but the algorithms for irony and ambiguity are not there. And those are the algorithms of wisdom.
William HurtRead
The enemies of acting are mood and attitude and other general homogenized disruptive entities. Whereas acting is about action - doing - and unless you can figure out a way to craft in an imaginative reality to which you don't submit, you're going to be out of control. You'll flip out. The job is to be surprised.
William HurtRead
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Biographies of me have usually been compiled from old newspaper clips, untruthful publicity stories, and reminiscences of people who claim to have known me well.
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I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
William Butler YeatsRead