Quotations: Volume 9

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes this week:


Me: [D-Train], you look more likely to kick yourself than the other guy right now.
D-Train: That's how I feel!

"I can do it in the pool!" - All-The-Way, on walking on her hands

"Invest in your homework. That's where you grow." - Acting Professor

"I sound like a parrot. Which is wonderful. And I guess my job. That's how you know I mean business." - Acting Professor, on how he repeats the same concepts every day

"You said that line for the audience, and then you had a beautiful moment of 'I am'. It was like throwing one last bone to the dogs, and then saying, 'go to hell'." - Acting Professor, to Alicia after an etude

"Sometimes these etudes can be boring, and that's a beautiful thing. When it's exciting, it's all for the audience. When it's boring, the actor is really getting something out of it." - Acting Professor

"The ways that plays should be rehearsed, frankly, is that the calm moments need to get to one-hundred-percent truth, and then the cataclysms will take care of themselves." - Acting Professor

"I'm glad no one put it in their mouth. It looked filthy." - Big Show, about a shoelace that was being used in an etude

"The resemblance of an emotion is like the light of a dead star." - Acting Professor

"You're cuter than, well, at least me." - O.D. to Two-Shots-Up

"I already forgot your first etude. Sorry." - Acting Professor

"I wouldn't make a PhD dissertation out of it." - Acting Professor, on explaining what happened in an etude

"I'm at C4. D5? You sunk my battleship." - Killer, when asked to work "on the grid" in a Viewpoints exercise

"An artist works with what they have on a given day. If they do that, it will be enough." - Movement Professor

"I know I'm going to hit the rope. There's just too much [Iceman], I feel like." - Iceman, when trying to do Capoeira low to the ground underneath a rope

(singing) "[D-Train], [D-Train], [D-Train]! Capoeira, that's my s***!" - [D-Train], making up his own lyrics to one of the Capoeira songs

"Choice is a horrible thing. You must act when there is no choice." - Acting Professor

"Actors must have nerves of steel." - Acting Professor

"When I butcher a word, you still get it, right?" - Acting Professor, whose Russian accent made the word "steel" difficult to understand

"You have to kill your time waiting for the train." - Acting Professor, on doing wasting time in an etude while waiting for an impulse (the train)

"I do believe that something you discover for yourself is worth thousands of cases where you were pointed toward it." - Acting Professor

"You're the ten people I'm gonna be stuck with in Hell." - Big Show

"Stop whining until I close the door." - Analysis Professor

"I can guarantee you, you're never gonna forget The Wild Duck." - Analysis Professor

"Sooner or later, you will stop saying, '[Analysis Professor] wouldn't agree with this', and start saying, 'I don't agree with this.' And that's called indoctrinating and brainwashing." - Analysis Professor

"Our job in the theatre is to manipulate the audience and not let them know that they're being manipulated." - Analysis Professor

"A kick is like a bullet. If I pick one up and throw it at you it'll bounce back. But put some speed in it, and it'll go right through." - The Capoeira Mestre

"What's gonna make you get hit is the fear." - The Capoeira Mestre

"The snake charmer is not afraid of snakes, because they know what the snake can do. You're only afraid until you understand." - The Capoeira Mestre

"I just hope he isn't following impulses anymore." - Acting Professor, when Iceman walked out of the room in an etude and wasn't coming back in