“If you expect to sell what you make, you must also fabricate information about it.”
Source: Self-Annihilating Sentences, 1992, p. 11
"Hecklers are Garbage" (20 September 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYlRFGL8UQ
Context: First I'd like to address the hecklers (cause I know you're out there!)... There are people who contribute, people who create, and people who destroy.... Nobody likes hecklers — nobody likes heckling — it's not interesting, it's not funny, it's certainly not appreciated, and it's of no use and no good. And it just hurts people. And I'm not sure if the intention is to hurt people, in which case you are evil — and if not, that's what you are doing, so it is not constructive, at all. The whole idea of 'I must be honest, so here is what I think' is complete baloney. If there is information you must transmit to another, you must do it empathically, or it is worthless....
Essentially, what I have for you heckler victims is this: If you do what you must, and you do what is right, you are bulletproof! Don't bother changing — don't listen to any of that garbage — because it's garbage!
“If you expect to sell what you make, you must also fabricate information about it.”
Source: Self-Annihilating Sentences, 1992, p. 11
“If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge.”
Variant: If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it...
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must not do it.
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
“It must be fun to be you
And play with love as you do”
"It Must Be Fun To Be You"
Mexican Hayride (1944)
Context: It must be fun to be you
And play with love as you do
To treat each new romance
As merely one more dance
Or just another book to glance through
It must be fun to acquire
Whatever heart you desire,
And when you're bored with it
To tear it in two,
It must be fun to be you.
As quoted in A Galaxy Not So Far Away : Writers and Artists on Twenty-five Years of Star Wars (2002) by Glenn Kenny, p. 99