Jean Paul Sartre says in "No Exit" that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.
Alan AldaWorking on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right.
Alan AldaWhen I started out as an actor, I thought, Here's what I have to say; how shall I say it? I began to understand that what I do in the scene is not as important as what happens between me and the other person. And listening is what lets it happen. It's almost always the other person who causes you to say what you say next. You don't have to figure out how you'll say it. You have to listen so simply, so innocently, that the other person brings about a change in you that makes you say it and informs the way you say it.
Alan AldaI'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!
Alan AldaWhen I studied how to think in school, I was taught that the first rule of logic was that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. That last note, โin the same respect,โ says a lot. As soon as you change the frame of reference, youโve changed the truthiness of a once immutable fact.
Alan Alda