Fiske Quotes & Sayings

It is in the irony of things that the theatre should be the most dangerous place for the actor. But, then, after all, the world is the worst possible place, the most corrupting place, for the human soul. And just as there is no escape from the world, which follows us into the very heart of the desert, so the actor cannot escape the theatre. And the actor who is a dreamer need not. All of us can only strive to remain uncontaminated. In the world we must be unworldly, in the theatre the actor must be untheatrical. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

Is it honest for me to go and sit there on communion day and drink the wine and eat the bread while feeling it all to be mummery? — John Fiske

To attain, and to keep, a professional-managerial job requires class-specific human capital. Developing and displaying that capital is a central preoccupation of upper-middle class life. — Susan T. Fiske

The essence of acting is the conveyance of truth through the medium of the actor's mind and person. The science of acting deals with the perfecting of that medium. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

Idealistic producing is safe. Sensibly projected in the theater, the fine thing always does pay and always will. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

Realism is not a matter of any fidelity to an empirical reality, but of the discursive conventions by which and for which a sense of reality is constructed. — John Fiske

Among the most disheartening and dangerous of ... advisors, you will often find those closest to you, your dearest friends, members of your own family, perhaps, loving, anxious, and knowing nothing whatever ... — Minnie Maddern Fiske

Above all, ignore the audience. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

You must make your own blunders, must cheerfully accept your own mistakes as part of the scheme of things. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

The way we make sense of a realistic text is through the same broad ideological frame as the way we make sense of our social experience or rather, the way we are made sense of by the discourses of our culture. — John Fiske

Many a play is like a painted backdrop, something to be looked at from the front. An Ibsen play is like a black forest, somethingyou can enter, something you can walk about in. There you can lose yourself: you can lose yourself. And once inside, you find such wonderful glades, such beautiful, sunlit places. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

People whose understanding and taste in literature, painting, and music are beyond question are, for the most part, ignorant of what is good or bad art in the theater. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

No damsel was ever in more distress, no dray horse more flogged, no defenseless child more drunkenly abused than the English language today. And — Robert Hartwell Fiske

Fiske spoke sharply to the four walls. "We need medical attention immediately. We have a gunshot wound that requires treatment."
"You're not going to get through to them by talking like an English professor," scoffed Reagan. "Hey!" she bawled. "Get a doctor down here! She's in pain, thanks to you! What are you going to do about it? — Gordon Korman

Most of all the actor will love the boys and girls, the men and women, who sit in the cheapest seats, in the very last row of the top gallery. They have given more than they can afford to come. In the most self-effacing spirit of fellowship they are listening to catch every word, watching to miss no slightest gesture or expression. To save his life the actor cannot help feeling these nearest and dearest. He cannot help wishing to do his best for them. He cannot help loving them best of all. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

This is an age of specialization, and in such an age the repertory theater is an anachronism, a ludicrous anachronism. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

An actor is exactly as big as his imagination. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

I have never known a movement in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various uplifting activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

A Princeton University scholar, Susan Fiske, has used scans to show that the brains of high-achieving people see images of poor people and process them as if they were not humans but things. — Nicholas D. Kristof

My design was not so much to contribute new facts as to shape the narrative in such a way as to emphasize relations of cause and effect that are often buried in the mass of details. — John Fiske

Go into the streets, into the slums, into the fashionable quarters. Go into the day courts and the night courts. Become acquainted with sorrow, with many kinds of sorrow. Learn of the wonderful heroism of the poor, of the incredible generosity of the very poor — Minnie Maddern Fiske

As soon as I suspect a fine effect is being achieved by accident I lose interest. I am not interested ... in unskilled labor ... The scientific actor is an even worker. Any one may achieve on some rare occasion an outburst of genuine feeling, a gesture of imperishable beauty, a ringing accent of truth; but your scientific actor knows how he did it. He can repeat it again and again and again. He can be depended on. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

The world is not likely to tire of an amusement which never repeats itself, of a game which today presents features as novel and charms as fresh as those with which it delighted, in the morning of history, the dwellers on the banks of the Ganges and Indus. — Willard Fiske

The persecuting spirit has its origin ... in the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct. — John Fiske

Be reflective ... and stay away from the theater as much as you can. Stay out of the theatrical world, out of its petty interests, its inbreeding tendencies, its stifling atmosphere, its corroding influence. Once become — Minnie Maddern Fiske

She sounds... cruel."
"There were many sides to Grace," Fiske said.
...
Beatrice leaned closer to the screen. "Grace made her own husband, Nathaniel Harford, an Outcast. — Jude Watson

As Susan Fiske and Kareem Johnson describe in the first two essays of this anthology, recent research in social neuroscience has revealed that prejudiced reactions are linked to rapidly activated structures in the brain that were developed long ago in our evolutionary history. Does this mean that racism is hardwired into our neural circuitry? — Jason Marsh

The real worth of a person came from how he acted during the bad times. (John Fiske) — David Baldacci

Trying to get more learning out of the present system is like trying to get the Pony Express to compete with the telegraph by breeding faster ponies. — Edward Fiske

Nooooooooooo!" Screaming the word, Amy and Dan moved as one.
Time slowed down, which, Dan knew from experience, often happened when you were in midair. By the time they leaped onto the hood of Fiske's car (oops, dents), and Dan had ripped off a windshield wiper to use as a weapon (probably not the best idea, but hey, he was improvising), Scarey Harley Dude had turned around.
He strode off in his motorcycle boots, moving swiftly to his bike without seeming to hurry. His helmet back on, sunglasses adjusted, he roared off straight into the road, weaving through the thick traffic like smoke.
Amy's face was squashed against the windshield. Dan held the wiper aloft like a club.
And Evan Tolliver stood on the sidewalk, blinking at them.
Dan waved the windshield wiper at him. "Hey, bro. We didn't want to miss our ride. — Jude Watson

You must not allow yourself to be advised, cautioned, influenced, persuaded — Minnie Maddern Fiske

We now witness the constructive work on a foundation that will endure through the ages. That foundation is the god of science - revealed to us in terms that will harmonize with our intelligence. — John Fiske

We shall be inclined to pronounce the voyage that led to the way to this New World as the most epoch-making event of all that have occurred since the birth of Christ. — John Fiske

It is typical for implicit status hierarchies of influence and esteem to emerge in interpersonal encounters, especially those that are goal oriented. — Susan T. Fiske

Strange priests are they who never straightly walk But all aslant through sideways passage stalk Who never seek their goals in forward lines But move askew as fraught with sly designs — Willard Fiske

The actor who lets the dust accumulate on his Ibsen, his Shakspere [sic], and his Bible, but pores greedily over every little column of theatrical news, is a lost soul. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

while we remain immersed in the study of personal incidents and details, as what such a statesman said or how many men were killed in such a battle, we may quite fail to understand what it was all about, and we shall be sure often to misjudge men's characters and estimate wrongly the importance of many events. For this reason we cannot clearly see the meaning of the history of our own times. — John Fiske

Ours is no bloody battle With woe and horror fraught Our joust is of a gentler kind A measuring of Mind with Mind A tournament of thought — Willard Fiske

I suppose that Paderewski can play superbly, if not quite at his best, while his thoughts wander to the other end of the world, orpossibly busy themselves with a computation of the receipts as he gazes out across the auditorium. I know a great actor, a master technician, can let his thoughts play truant from the scene ... — Minnie Maddern Fiske

One and all, the orthodox creeds are crumbling into ruins everywhere. — John Fiske