Comic Reflections: Eddie Izzard

Emmy award-winning comedian Eddie Izzard reflects on writing during his early stand-up career.

…I started to work on one show ’til it was good, and then people would come as oppose to write shoddy, quick stuff and then shove it in people’s faces, and say,”look, it’s brilliant. ‘Cause it wasn’t.”

- Eddie Izzard, Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story

Inspirations for Creativity

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. – Erich Fromm

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers. – Arthur Koestler

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams

Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else –and failing. – Raymond Radiguet

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. – Charles Mingus

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too. – Jimmy Buffett

Inspirational quotes are courtesy of Quoteland.com and BrainyQuote.com.

Comedy Reflections: Damon Wayans on Mediocrity, Anger in Comedy

Comedian-actor Damon Wayans shares his views on what’s missing in stand-up comedy.

“One of the other things I am working on in my stand-up is that nobody wants to be great anymore,” he told the San Francisco Examiner. “What happened to the desire to be great? Everybody is shooting for mediocrity. In my lifetime, I saw Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, The Beatles. What do we have now? Jon Gosselin? Flava Flav? Sarah Palin?”

“I’m learning that I don’t have to be angry to be an artist. All these years I thought that comedy comes from anger, but what I’ve realized is that anger is only a pilot light, not the flame, and you can control that flame.”

Inspirations for Outdistancing Your Peers

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. – Thomas Edison

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. -  Arthur Schopenhauer

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