Quotation
Quote by Mary Tyler Moore
My grandfather once said, having watched me one entire afternoon, prancing and leaping and cavorting, “This child will either end up on stage or in jail.” Fortunately, I took the easy route.
Explore the idea
Understanding this quote
The grandfather saw the child’s wild, energetic movements and imagined two possible futures: performing on stage or ending up in jail. The closing line is a joke: “the easy route” means the speaker chose the stage rather than the much worse alternative. It turns a warning about unruly behavior into a playful description of becoming a performer.
Source & trust
About this quotation
- Source
- Television Academy Foundation, Archive of American Television
- Format
- Official Statement
Explore the idea
Topics
Join the community
Keep meaningful words close.
Save quotes, follow people and topics, join conversations, and publish words of your own.
“We are all - all of us - inventors.”
““Gambling,” says Painter Graham Sutherland, “is awfully like painting. However much you know about painting there’s always the gamble as to whether that actual physical touch will do what you want it to.””
“If I had any ambition, it was to keep putting “actor” on my tax form.”
“Theater is the initial glamorizer of thought.”
“Writing is a renaming of the world.”
“A craftsman can only play flat music but as an artist can make you fly.”
“I like to have the freedom a novelist has.”
Read quote“I hope I’m remembered as a musician who tried his best to share – to share emotions, to write the soundtrack of people’s inner lives.”
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
“I just try to make the best film I can.”
When the Curtains Learned to Glow
Lina and Oren find an abandoned puppet stage beneath their apartment and race to restore it before the courtyard festival. When their beautiful scenery buckles and their late-night show excludes neighbors, they discover that the best theater is built for many kinds of attention.
Read Story