Category: Comedy Books

Comedy Books Quotes

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“Comedy Samurai” Quotes

I recently read Comedy Samurai: 40 Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter by Larry Charles. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you enjoy them, buy the book here.

“I have found after years of doing this that writers enter these first meetings h the personas they want to project—cool, reserved, aggressive,

—but after a few weeks of grinding under pressurized deadlines, masks are discarded and you are who you are. And that’s a relief. Because to interact as a staff and produce the best-quality work, important that people be authentic. Even and maybe especially writers.” (10)

“I realized that people had LA all wrong. The first mistake was comparing it to New York. New York with its skyline and classic iconic architecture was renaissance art. You could look at it and know immediately why it was beautiful. LA was modern art. Jagged and jarring, risking ugliness and formlessness, but if you looked at it long enough and deeply enough, the beauty emerged.” (38)

“I was still trying to figure out what I’d done wrong when the answer was nothing. Life just works that way sometimes. Some people are lucky, and some people, large pools of people—in fact, entire regions of the earth—are fucked.” (41)

“Of course it’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. Its meaninglessness is what’s meaningful. It’s everything, it’s nothing. Embrace the absurdity.” (49)

“Failure is a crucial component of success. There is no success without failure. I’ve worked with some of the greats, and their failures are legion. Publicly humiliating failures. But they were not deterred. But rejection is crippling for some of equal talent and vision and destroys their ability to move on.” (84)

“I walked through the stage, answering a nonstop barrage of questions. That’s what being a show runner is. Answering questions. Solving problems. Making creative decisions. And you hope that you’re right enough of the time to make the show a hit.” (92)

“First, I had to learn to deal with writers as the boss, as a leader. On Seinfeld, there was no writers’ room, which was a staple of sitcoms of the ’80s, ’90s, and beyond, and eventually movies as well. Gangs of writers all pitching ideas desperately, because their jobs depended on it, that rarely meshed. For me, it diluted the singular voice of the show, any show, and reduced it to a corporate echo of what the show should be. This became standard operating procedure everywhere but notably not at Seinfeld. The writers’ room was an early low-tech version of AL.” (93)

“Gordon Hunt, who had such a varied résumé, was a consummate actor’s director. Gordon was a listener. The actors always felt heard.

And he was always willing to explore ideas and thoughts. My epiphany from him was, if you want actors to take chances and make leaps, you must make them feel secure, and each reaches that point a different way.” (95)

“He was a hiatus baby. Get pregnant before the season starts. Give brith when the season ended.” (98)

“One of the key lessons I learned from Curb was to let go of con-trol. Magic can’t happen if you try to control it. You want to guide it, harness it somewhat, but be allowed to unleash the magic and let it flourish. If that happens in front of the camera, you establish that one-of-a-kind, one-time, lightning-in-a-bottle intimacy with the audience. And the audience responds.” (113)

“But Bob was convinced this was the title, and so it was. And I was a believer. Bob was conjuring spirits from another realm. He was pure instinct. No second-guessing. Fearless as an artist. And he taught me to take that final step and be the same. Trust your instincts. That’s all you have. Everything else is bullshit and illusion.” (123)

“But it’s about non-attachment. We can’t change the past. We can only truthfully and honestly report it. Witness to our life.” (142)

“I had failed before. And learned to embrace failure as part of the success equation. And knew that failure, like success, came in many unexpected forms. Not that failure didn’t hurt and leave lingering wounds, but if you choose this path, you have no choice. There’s a price you pay for everything.” (143)

“I needed an agent to negotiate with my own agent.” (144)

“But I was into the show. This was often the problem. I loved Curb. And Entourage. Thought they were great shows. I wanted to contribute to great things, and it made me vulnerable to the unscrupulous behavior of the Hollywood manipulators.” (145)

“Although I thought the show (Entourage) was great and distinctive, that’s all I usually have any control or influence over. The rest-the commercial success or viability of one project or another-always comes as some sort of surprise.” (148)

“The most enlightened people we met on our journey by far, and perhaps most ironically, were the Vatican priests. Why? They were well educated. In fact, they were PhDs. They understand the difference between the value of myth as representative and metaphorical for truth versus reality. They had no illusions about God, Jesus, religion. But they had to continue selling the message to the masses. Somebody had to make payments on the house.” (207)

“Science wasn’t even invented until five hundred years after religion, so of course, religion couldn’t ever reconcile scientific evidence with faith. Religion is not, nor was it meant to be, nor could it ever be, science. That simple timeline explained so many misconceptions.” (208)

“Ray Suarez writes about the Jefferson Bible, a version of the Bible that Jefferson himself wrote, which omits any reference to miracles or the supernatural. How many religious patriotic Americans realize that?” (210)

“Control, to a large degree, is an illusion. Luck occurs in that nonrational realm between complete control and complete letting go.” (256)

“More often in life, there are no heroes or villains. Only flawed humans. And reality.” (276)

“That is the nature of power. Undoing what is already done.” (283)

“Sacha had developed the habit at previews of the previous movies of marking each laugh with a grade based purely on audience reaction, and those gags with lower grades would be dropped. It seemed quite clear to me that he had lost his instinct and was no longer confident to stay ahead of the audience and was satisfied with them telling him what to do.” (285)

“The audience was now telling Sacha what was funny, and that could be lethal.” (285)

“The more reliance on the audience to guide the performers, the weaker and weaker the product.” (285)

“I believe what an audience responds to is a compelling character, good or bad.” (286)

“Structural questions regarding jokes and laughs can be broken down into micro-structure and macro-structure. An example of macro-structure is: Is the premise that this whole scene rests on even funny? And if not, why not? The micro might be, the payoff might be perfect, but the setup is wrong and is stopping the joke from reaching its maximum laugh potential. And what if an audience is laughing so hard from the previous “joke,” they laugh over the joke in question? How do you accurately grade that?” (287)

“Larry David never worried about what the audience thought. And he never worried about jokes. In fact, he was anti-joke and pro-structure. If the character and the situation were well set up, then you didn’t need jokes to make the scene funny.” (287)

“The audience doesn’t want to tell us what’s funny. It’s relying on us to tell them. That is the responsibility of a comedy.” (288)

“Of course, I heard complaints from the writers. It was a natural outgrowth of making creative contributions without the sufficient power or leverage to enforce them. I’d never met a writer who didn’t complain. Including myself.” (288)

“Risking bad taste is an important component of great comedy. Good taste was a target of satire and derision in great comedy.” (290)

“I realized that Sacha didn’t really understand why the Naked Fight worked. It worked because we knew and cared about the characters of Borat and Azamat and were invested in their relationship, so that the Naked Fight arose organically out of the situation and characters, as extreme and radical as it was.” (304)

“Failure is essential to creative growth. Even though I didn’t want to have to live through it again. But there I was.” (308)

“there is no separation between the laughter and tears, the joy and sadness.” (383)

“We all think that the time that we live in is the only time, the most important time, the last time, instead of, oh well, another time. One of an infinite number that exist in multiple realms. It seems like it will go on forever, but the only constant is, it won’t. Not in the way we imagine it.” (383)

“I don’t think I realized until I wrote the book, until I read the book, how much I was the agent of my own misfortune. I had lost my temper, been impatient and uncool, betrayed those closest to me, wasn’t honest especially with myself. Acted impulsively, selfishly, thoughtlessly, with everyone and everything in my life as well. Why was I rushing past everything? What was I rushing for? What was I rushing to? Death? What was the rush? Did my hfear hasten my journey? And what did I miss along the way?” (383)

“I could’ve been more generous with the joy and love I doled out.” (383)

“Rare was the time I was with my children, girlfriends, wives, friends, work, and allowed myself to feel the love and luck of my life. The joy of the moment. Instead I only felt pressure.” (384)

“Are we simply randomly thrown into the brief, brutal earthly existence, long enough to suffer but too short to understand? Funny, right?” (386)

Enjoyed the quotes? Buy Larry Charle’s Comedy Samurai book here.

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“The Work of Art” Quotes

I recently read “The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing” by Adam Moss. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. (It’s an interview book, so the name of the person who said them appears underlined above the quote.) If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“Art happens when instinct meets rigor.” (8)

“Regardless of genres, creative paths look similar.” (15)

“W. H. Auden wrote, “When a successful author, analyzes the reasons for his success, he generally underestimates the talent he was born with, and overestimates his skill in employing it.” James Baldwin thought otherwise: “Tal-ent is insignificant…. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”” (15)

“Being an artist is much more like being a carpenter than like being God..” said the theater composer John Kander (he made this comment when he was ninety-six, so he’d had a long time to think about it). “What we do is a craft. I mean you can have a great inner talent and a lot of people do, but without craft it’s very hard for the talent to emerge.’” (15)

“Along the way, there is making and destroying, self-sabotage, doubt and despair, but the unifying fact of this book is that successful creators do not give up, even when the thwarting seems insurmountable. If this book has a plot, overcoming these thwarts was it. (How stubborn they all were! And, fundamentally, though they would rarely admit it, optimistic-deep down they believed the work would emerge, even if it would require a lot of torture to get there.)” (16)

Eric Fishl:
“Richard Artschwager was overworking a painting. He decided to watch TV and only go into his studio to paint during commercials.
That gave him about two minutes at a time to work. He said it took him most of the afternoon soaps but eventually he got past whatever it was that was holding him back.”

Tony Kushner
“I write in longhand. And then I type it. I always do that. So tha toy first draft is really my second draft. And if anybody looks at your ‘first’ draft, it’s not going to be as bad as your first. It gives you permission to be a terrible stupid idiot.” (42)

“Playwriting sometimes seems reducible to a loci equation – a series of hypotheticals: If I want to connect X character with Y character, what would happen?” (45)

Roz Chast
“So maybe if you feel that you’re not going to make people happy no matter how hard you tried, you might as well do what you want to do, because they’re not going to be happy anyway.” (52)

Michael Cunningham
“By then I had written enough to know that most of the time you get to a certain point in a book you want to give it up. And to write another book that won’t cause me the same trouble. And it does. You just end up stuck all over again.
So you might as well stay with the thing.” (60)

“You always have a better book in mind than you’re able to write. And one of the things you have to be able to do, if you’re going to write novels, is survive that discrepancy between the book you were able to write and the better book you imagined.” (61)

“It’s hard to separate talent from the almost spectrum-y degree of endless interest in something.” (61)

Sofia Coppola
“You’re born into a certain circumstance, and what you make out of it is who you are.” (76)

Thomas Bartlett
“I lean towards thinking it’s innate. We are blind to our own essence, you know? And one of the things I try to do as a producer is to get people to do what comes to them the most naturally, because people underestimate that thing about themselves.”

Twyla Tharp
“I asked if she allows for their suggestions. Tharp said, “If they’re clever, they don’t ask. They just do it and hope you won’t notice… but you do. And you say, ‘Well, that actually is a good idea!’ Because you have to keep them around….” (144)

“The avant-garde is basically, fuck you. It’s icy and isolated and very privileged in its attitude. Just because it’s inaccessible, is it better art? I don’t know about that.” (144)

“Often I go back and redo the beginning, because though you may think you know where you’re going, it’s probably going to end up differently. And I find that it’s valuable to let it evolve and then go back
and take off that fake beginning.” (145)

“AM: How important is the beginning?
TT: You have thirty seconds. Thirty seconds before people are either bored or they love you. You can win them later, but it’s going to be harder.” (145)

“AM: How do you think about editing your work?
TT: Editing means, how much objectivity do you have really? How much can you disassociate from your own bias? How much can you disassociate yourself from the wish fulfillment component that is involved in work of all sorts? You’ve got to become not you.” (145)

David Mandel
“If the story isn’t working, you can papier-mâché over it with as many jokes as you want. But at the end of the day, it won’t work.” (166)

“He finally realized that plotting the right developments int he right sequence with funny jokes in between wasn’t enough. Veep’s mojo lay in its pace and density… There was a lack of chaos. It was almost painfully logical… But what it took was almost taking the scenes and mushing them together because there wasn’t enough happening. And then suddenly it was Veep.” (167)

Ira Glass
“Really, you just have to work your way out of it. That’s the only way. You have to be rigorous, you have to be a soldier, you have to fight. It’s only by making a volume of work that you’ll be forced to confront what it is that you don’t know how to do, and learn to do it.” (267)

Dean Baquet and Tom Bodkin
“Editing is explicitly about distilling, but all art is a form of condensation.” (289)

Elizabeth Diller
“In any project, there are more ideas than there’s really space for. One idea is stronger without the other. The problem with a lot of people who do creative work is a tendency to oversaturate projects with too much.” (303)

Will Shortz
“Even the most unrestrained surrealist or experimental novelist is working within a grid of their own logic… I began to believe setting up that grid and solving problems within it was the primary act of creative process.” (332)

David Simon
“I looked at a couple of scripts. One thing I sensed was pacing. Every line has to justify itself. You don’t start at the beginning of scenes, you don’t end at the end, you come in late and leave early.” (370)

“You hear enough of these stories, you realize how often fortune plays into success.” (371)

“The most difficult question in TV writing is, Why are you doing the show? And if you can answer that question, you usually answer what the show should be. Whether you have a hit or not, if they wheel a fucking semitruck of money up to your driveway and say, ‘Please give us three more seasons of we don’t care what, just keep it coming, you have to be able to look at them and say, ‘I don’t have three seasons. I have other stories.’” (375)

George Saunders
“Generally I let myself do exactly wahat I felt like doing in the first draft. I don’t even worry about it. I just put it down. And then when I really start to destabilize is in revision.” (385)

Liked the quotes? Buy the book here.

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“Breaking Into TV Writing” Quotes

I recently read “Breaking into TV Writing: How to get your first job, build your network, and claw your way inside the writer’s room” by Anton Schettini. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like them, buy the book here.

“In TV, the writers are the be-all and end-all. They decide what happens in every episode of every season, and they are even the final word on a set. A scene isn’t done shooting until the writer tells the director they are clear to move on. Unlike feature films, where the director takes over as soon as the studio buys the writer’s script, in TV the director is a hired gun.” (5)

“A great script isn’t anything if the right person isn’t reading it.” (12)

“In a comedy room, a successful staff writer is often one who is quick with a great joke that keeps the room from getting stuck. A good story pitch gets tossed and turned around in the room, and it’s hard for the showrunner to decipher who it came from or where it started. But a good joke gets credit immediately. And when you’re in this position, credit is important.” (38)

“When entering a new room, it’s best to gauge the next level writer up from you, see how much they’re pitching, and mimic their frequency. They can’t fault you if you’re a staff writer and you’re speaking as much as the story editor. But if you’re talking as much as a co-executive producer or the show runner, you should probably chill out for a few weeks until you get a feel for the room.” (66)

“If you don’t feel that strongly about the pitch, let it go. But if you do feel that this is important for the show, here’s how to approach it. The general rule is that you get two more cracks at it. The second time, you can reiterate your point, present it in a slightly different way, and explain why this is important. If it gets shot down again, then you’re playing with fire. But if it’s important to you and you really need to get your point across, you can give an
“I’m sorry, I’m going to pitch this one more time and then I’ll drop it, but it’s really important to me that..” This shows that you’re aware that you’re harping on the same point, and you feel it’s important enough to pitch again.” (66)

“There may be a time in a writers’ room when a particular plot point is giving everyone trouble. And maybe a fresh framework could shake things up. In that case, it’s perfectly okay to say “Is it all right if I pitch a general area?” or something to that effect. That way, the room is aware that you know you’re not providing a pitch, just an interesting idea that may help the room break through whatever’s holding them back.” However, that should only a be employed when it’s clear that the room is at an impasse.” (67)

“More than anything, it’s important to follow the flow of the room.” (67)

“When a room is really moving, dialogue, story ideas, and character moves flow easily. A good showrunner will follow the direction a story is going and will dictate where to go next. That’s why it’s so important to follow the showrunner’s lead and not go backwards. Rooms that are in the zone can be turned upside-down by somebody saying “Can we go back for a second?”” (67)

“When you know you’re using a piece of someone else’s idea for your pitch, use a “bouncing off of what [writer who was being ignored] was saying” to frame your pitch. This keeps that person in the game. Also, if you hear an idea being taken and repurposed as their own, feel free to call it out. It doesn’t have to be offensive. It can be as simple as “Right, that was a great pitch by (ignored writer].””(68)

“Your goal should always be to maintain and add to your network.” (89)

“The only people who get what they want are the people who ask for what they want. So, keep following up with people and keep them aware of what you’re looking for.” (89)

“With each new revision, a new color is given to the pages of the script, and those colors are nearly identical across all TV shows. In draft order, it goes like this:

  • White (this is the first draft of any script)
  • Blue
  • Pink
  • Yellow
  • Green
  • Goldenrod
  • Buff
  • Salmon
  • Cherry
  • Double White
  • Double Blue (and on and on)” (115)

“At the end of the day, you can’t expect success. You have to go in with the mentality of “How do I just keep writing?”” (140)

“I took freelance jobs in advertising, and I made time to write six nights a week—usually from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., at a minimum. Every single night after my wife went to bed, I was writing.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (149)

“she gave me three sentences of notes: push all your stories up, your characters all sound the same (they speak in the same rhythmic pattern), and if you’re gonna do a spec, then don’t get so creative that the supporting characters are the stars of the show.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (149)

“What I say so often now is, write a story that only you can write in a way that only you can write it. I noticed that people had mastered that presentation of self. I’ve always sold brands; l’ve never had to sell me.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (150)

“volunteer to write on the board (because it might be the only time you get to speak).” -Howard Jordan Jr. (151)


“presentation matters, your room image matters.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (151)

“realize and accept that only 20 percent of the job is writing-if that.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (151)

“I knew coming in that if there’s a one-in-a-million chance that this can be done, I’m that one. That’s the conviction you have to have when you pursue these creative endeavors, because creativity by nature is subjective.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (152)

“Some of the arbiters of whether your great idea succeeds or not have no imagination. That doesn’t make you a bad writer. But it does mean you’re not getting hired. So, you have to figure out your way. You have to work so that you’re always getting better. Don’t keep writing the same version of the same script. Always work smarter.” -Howard Jordan Jr. (152)

“It’s not enough to just be a good writer. And it’s not enough to just be a good salesman. You have to have both, and you have to keep getting better at both.” (152)

“WHAT SHOWRUNNERS LOOK FOR IN A WRITER
The script has to grab me, and the story has to start real fast.
If it doesn’t start by page four or five, I toss it and move on to the next one. Start fast. If it’s a comedy, you better hit me over the head with a big joke real fast, and those act break moments have to pop. I don’t even care if act three is no good. If acts one and two are good, we can fix act three.” -Michael Jamin (173)

“These days, I think it’s easier to break in, but harder to sustain a career.” -Michael Jamin (176)

“All my friends who came up in drama have houses and families. All my friends who came up in comedy are single and unemployed.” (188)

“There is much more turnover in comedy, and it is much harder to get your writing to stand out because so much is dictated by how you perform in the room.” (188)

“TV shows hire writers and form a writers’ room long before their announcement ever happens in Deadline. So, being in the know helps you get to the front of the line.” (206)

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“A Very Punchable Face” Quotes

I recently read “A Very Punchable Face” by Colin Jost. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like them, buy the book.

“Harvard is a quarter athletes and legacies, a quarter geniuses, and then the remaining half are fairly smart kids who suddenly realize they aren’t geniuses.” (53)

“I spent about eighty hours a week at the Lampoon, and took an approach I would later take at SNL: I wrote more than anyone else because I wanted to improve as fast as I could.” (67)

“Only a couple made it into the magazine, I was still learning from all the rejections, too. My thought process was always: Keep writing new stuff. Don’t worry about what gets accepted or re-jected. Just keep moving forward and keep improving.” (67)

“It was the first time I was willing to put 100 percent of my effort into one single pursuit without fear of failing, because I loved doing it so much that I couldn’t focus on anything else. (It’s a miracle I graduated.)” (67)

“No one in comedy (or any field, really) succeeds in a vacuum. And the faster you find friends who challenge you and sometimes make you jealous, the faster you’ll grow as a comedian (and regress as a human).” (69)

“Liz Cackowski, one of the senior writers, warned me: “Don’t let it get to your head. Last year, a new writer got two sketches on his first show and by the end of the year he was fired.” … I took Liz’s advice to heart and completely let go of any joy I derived from my first sketch. It’s a Puritanical pattern I would follow for the rest of my career at SNL: If I had a great week, I would enjoy it on Sunday, then forget about it by Monday. And if I had a bad week, I would fall asleep on a pizza on Sunday, then forget about it by Monday.” (115)

“What you realize years later is that so much of your career is driven by your peers. Lorne always says, “You never want to be the smartest person in the room,” because you always want to challenge yourself and try to get to the level of the people you admire.” (118)

“Being the head writer at SNL is like being an assistant zookeeper at a zoo where you used to be a monkey.” (135)

“The reality is: If there are great writers on staff (and a great cast), you’re gonna look like a great head writer. If the writers are only so-so, then you better find new writers fast or they re gonna find a new you.” (139)

“The only other thing you can do is lead by example. If you want the staff to write smart sketches, then you have to write smart sketches yourself (and occasionally some really dumb sketches to keep them honest).” (139)

“Basically, I was terrified of fucking it up. And that might be the single worst instinct to have when you’re trying to make something your own.” (195)

“Any promotion or opportunity you get in life comes with increased exposure and increased criticism. The more people want your job, the more shit you’re gonna get for not doing it well. And the more famous you get, the more people are gonna hate you.” (199)

“Sometimes it takes a long time to learn how to play like yourself.” -Miles Davis (207)

“If I’m gonna get fired, I might as well get fired doing what I believe in. And after that moment, I never tried a joke unless I wanted to try it. I never went along with a bit I thought was lame just to appease someone else. And I truly didn’t care about getting fired. I wanted to tell jokes and write sketches that I cared about and not really worry about anything that was out of my control.” (208)

“The thing I learned about Weekend Update, and about SNL in general, is that no one (including Lorne) actually knows what they want until they see it succeed.” (208)

“I’ve learned to eliminate any joke I wouldn’t be excited to say on the air, even if it seems like a “safe” joke that “will work.” (I now hate the phrase “That will work.” It’s such a mediocre goal to set for yourself.)” (209)

“I’ve also learned that if a joke makes us laugh in our office on Friday night, it’s probably worth trying even if the audience doesn’t like it. Because why not? Even if the joke bombs at dress rehearsal, at least I can turn to Che and say, “Remember when we thought that was funny?”” (209)

“My first year on Update, Jason Sudeikis told me, “Try at least one thing on Update every week that’s totally your voice. That only you would write.” Four years later, that advice finally made sense.” (209)

“What I didn’t understand, having never hosted an awards show before, is that you need to violently prioritize the one or two ideas you really care about or they will get pushed aside.” (269)

“Out of the roughly thirty writers and cast members, only two of them were married and only one had kids. It’s a job for young, single people, because when SNL is at its best, the cast and writers are essentially living at work. They might go home for a few hours, but they’re still thinking about the show.” (306)

”Being forced to generate something every week means at some point you’ll be tired enough to let down your guard and write the dumbest idea that pops into your head because your brain can’t think of anything better. And sometimes that turns out to be the best sketch you wrote all year.*” (307)

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“The Charisma Myth” Quotes

I recently read, “The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism” by Olivia Fox Cabane. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like them, buy the whole book here.

“Charisma is the result of specific nonverbal behaviors, not an inherent or magical personal quality.” (4)

“When we first meet someone, we instinctively assess whether that person is a potential friend or foe and whether they have the power to enact those intentions. Power and intentions are what we’re aiming to assess. ‘Could you move mountains for me? And would you care to do so?’” (5)

“When you meet a charismatic person, you get the impression that they have a lot of power and they like you a lot… A final dimension underlies both of these qualities: presence.” (5)

“The three crucial aspects of charisma: presence, power and warmth.” (6)

“Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation:

  • Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences.
  • Reduce how quickly and how often you nod.
  • Pause for two full seconds before you speak.” (10)

“People will tend to accept whatever you project.” (19)

“Someone who is powerful but not warm can be impressive, but isn’t necessarily perceived as charismatic and can come across as arrogant, cold, or standoffish. Someone who possesses warmth without power can be likable, but isn’t necessarily perceived as charismatic and can come across as overeager, subservient, or desperate to please.” (20)

“We can’t micromanage charismatic body language.” (21)

“Our body language expresses our mental state whether we like it or not. Our facial expressions, voice, posture, and all the other components of body language reflect our mental and emotional condition every second. Because we don’t control this flow consciously, whatever is in our head will show up in our body language.” (21)

“To be effective, charismatic behaviors must originate in your mind.” (22)

“Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu reportedly said: “To know others is knowledge. To know oneself is wisdom.” (24)

“Because your brain cannot distinguish imagination from reality, imaginary situations cause your brain to send your body the same commands as it would for a real situation.” (24)

“Whatever your mind believes, your body will manifest. Just by getting into a charismatic mental state, your body will manifest a charismatic body language.” (25)

“Charisma has three essential components: presence, power and warmth.” (26)

“Any physical discomfort that affects your visible, external state – your body language – even slightly may affect how charismatic you are perceived to be.” (29)

“Signs of fatigue can easily show up in people’s body language as lack of enthusiasm.” (30)

“Check in with your face from time to time; notice if it is tense.” (31)

“Responsibility transfer:

1. Sit comfortably or lie down, relax, and close your eyes.

2. Take two or three deep breaths. As you inhale, imagine drawing clean air toward the top of your head. As you exhale, let that air whoosh through you, washing away all worries and concerns.

3. Pick an entity-God, Fate, the Universe, whatever may best suit your beliefs-that you could imagine as benevolent.

4. Imagine lifting the weight of everything you’re concerned about this meeting, this interaction, this day-off your shoulders and placing it on the shoulders of whichever entity you’ve chosen. They’re in charge now.

5. Visually lift everything off your shoulders and feel the difference as you are now no longer responsible for the outcome of any of these things. Everything is taken care of.

You can sit back, relax, and enjoy whatever good you can find along the way.

The next time you feel yourself considering alternative outcomes to a situation, pay close attention. If your brain is going around in circles, obsessing about possible outcomes, try a responsibility transfer to alleviate some of the anxiety. Consider that there might be an all-powerful entity-the Universe, God, Fate-and entrust it with all the worries on your mind.” (34-35)

“Try a responsibility transfer to alleviate some of the anxiety.” (35)

“Few things impact people’s performance more than how they feel about themselves.” (38)

“To destigmatize, remind yourself that this internal discomfort, whatever it might be, is a normal part of the human experience and a by=product of one of our brain’s survival mechanisms.” (44)

“Depersonalize the experience. Rather than saying “I’m feeling ashamed,” try “There is shame being felt.” Imagine that you’re a scientist observing a phenomenon.” (50)

“Neutralizing Negativity

Use the techniques below anytime you’d like to lessen the effects of persistent negative thoughts. As you try each technique, pay attention to which ones work best for you and keep practicing them until they become instinctive. You may also discover some of your own that work just as well.

• Don’t assume your thoughts are accurate. Just because your mind comes up with something doesn’t necessarily mean it has any validity. Assume you’re missing a lot of elements, many of which could be positive.

• See your thoughts as graffiti on a wall or as little electrical impulses flickering around your brain.

• Assign a label to your negative experience: self-criticism, anger, anxiety, etc. Just naming what you are thinking and feeling can help you neutralize it.

• Depersonalize the experience. Rather than saying “I’m feeling ashamed,” try “There is shame being felt.” Imagine that you’re a scientist observing a phenomenon: “How interesting, there are self-critical thoughts arising.”

• Imagine seeing yourself from afar. Zoom out so far, you can see planet Earth hanging in space. Then zoom in to see your continent, then your country, your city, and finally the room you’re in. See your little self, electrical impulses whizzing across your brain. One little being having a particular experience at this particular moment.” (50)

“We’re learning here to neutralize unhelpful thoughts. We want to avoid falling into the trap of arguing with them or trying to suppress them. This would only make matters worse.” (51)

“Because trying to suppress a self-critical thought only makes it more central to your thinking, it’s a far better strategy to simply aim to neutralize it.” (51)

“When people are induced into a negative emotional state and then asked to suppress negative emotions, their internal negative experience often remains unchanged and they sustain elevated stress responses in their brain and cardiovascular system.” (52)

“But what if you happened to learn that this apparently reckless driver was actually a distraught mother whose baby was choking in the backseat, and she was desperately trying to pull over into the breakdown lane while reaching back to save her baby’s life? Would that immediately reduce your anger?” (52)

“Deciding to change your belief about what happened (technically called cognitive reappraisal) effectively decreases the brain’s stress levels.” (53)

“Researchers concluded that deciding to change beliefs was a far more effective and healthier solution than attempting to repress or ignore emotions.” (53)

“In most situations, we don’t know for certain what motivates a person’s actions, so we might as well choose the explanation that is most helpful to us and create a version of events that gets us into the specific mental state we need for charisma.” (53)

“I sat down at the desk, pulled out pen and paper and asked myself: What if this unfortunate, unpleasant experience is absolutely perfect just as it is – the insomnia, the nausea, the fact that this is happening the very night before a high-profile assignment? In what way can this turn out to be absolutely perfect for me?” (54)

“I continued to write all the possible upsides of this unfortunate experience. I made this new reality as detailed and sensory-rich as possible: describing what I said, what the audience looked like, when and how they nodded and laughed throughout my speech.” (54)

“Write in the present tense: “The speech is going well…” Or, even better, in the past tense: “The speech was a complete triumph…” (56)

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” (57)

“Putting It into Practice: Getting Satisfaction

• Think of one person in your life who has aggrieved you.

• Take a blank page and write that person a letter saying anything and everything you wish you had ever told them. Really get into this-you have nothing to lose. Make sure you write it out by hand.

• When you’ve gotten absolutely everything off your mind and onto paper, put the letter aside.

• Take a fresh sheet and write their response just the way you wish they would respond. You might have them taking responsibility for their actions, acknowledging and apologizing for everything they’ve ever done that hurt you. You don’t need to find any justification for their actions, just an acknowledgment and an apology. It’s your imagination, so you get to decide exactly what you’d like to hear.” (57)

“The answer, surprisingly, is to delve into those very sensations of discomfort. That’s right. Though it sounds counterintuitive, rather than trying to suppress, ignore, or power through them, your goal is to give your full attention to the very sensations you’d instinctively want to push away.” (61)

“The next time you do this exercise, aim to create images that are even more detailed. Guided imagery must be precise, vivid, and detailed to be effective.” (70)

“When clients ask me if they should use visualization before an important speech, I answer, “Only if you want it to go really well!”” (72)

“After fifteen years of speaking professionally, I find that doing even thirty seconds of visualization makes a substantial difference to my performance. It greatly affects how charismatic I am on stage. In fact, every time I don’t run through a visualization just before stepping on stage, I regret it. Even when I know the speech so well I could say it backward, it’s worth using visualization to ensure that I get into the right charismatic mental state.” (72)

“Before key meetings, she’ll imagine “the smiles on their faces because they liked me and they are confident about the value I’m bringing them. I’ll imagine as much detail as I can, even seeing the wrinkles around their eyes as they’re smiling.” She visualizes the whole interaction, all the way through to the firm handshakes that close the meeting, sealing the deal.” (73)

“A twenty-second hug is enough to send oxytocin coursing through your veins, and that you can achieve the same effect just by imagining the hug. So the next time you’re feeling anxious, you might want to imagine being wrapped up in a great big hug from someone you care about.” (73)

“To boost your charisma, choose figures who represent complete self-confidence, or warmth and caring, or calm and serenity. Or you might even find some figures who embody all the elements at once. Visualize yourself going to these figures for a “pep talk” anytime you feel you need one. Thanks to the brain’s wonderful placebo response, this will produce effects even if it doesn’t feel real.” (74)

“One way to invoke a sense of gratitude is to focus on little things that are physically present.” (76)

“Another good gratitude-enhancing tool is to view your life through a third-person lens, writing a narrative about yourself cast in a positive light.” (76)

“​​When our only aim is to broadcast goodwill, it takes the pressure off.” (80) 

“Goodwill is the simple state of wishing others well.” (80)

“One simple but effective way to start is to try to find three things you like about the person you want to feel goodwill toward… even if these are as small as “their shoes are shined” or “they were on time.”” (80) 

“When you start searching for positive elements, your mental state changes accordingly and then sweeps through your body language.” (80)

“In any interaction, imagine the person you’re speaking to, and all those around you, as having invisible angel wings.” (81)

“Paul Gilbert describes the process of accessing compassion as follows: first comes empathy, the ability to understand what someone is feeling, to detect distress; second, sympathy, being emotionally moved by dis-tress; and third, compassion, which arises with the desire to care for the well-being of the distressed person.” (82)

“You can think your way into compassion even if you don’t naturally feel it.” (82)

“Putting It into Practice: Compassion

Goodwill and compassion give you warmth to balance your power, and can save you from appearing overconfident or, worse, arrogant.

They can also be a stealth tool, a silver bullet that turns around difficult conversations.

Take the three steps below to practice compassion for someone you know:

1. Imagine their past. What if you had been born in their circumstances, with their family and upbringing? What was it like growing up in their family situation with whatever they experienced as a child? It’s often said that everyone you meet has stories to tell, and that everyone has a few that would break your heart. Consider also that if you had experienced everything they have experienced, perhaps you would have turned out just like they have.

2. Imagine their present. Really try to put yourself in their shoes right now. Imagine what it feels like to be them today.

Put yourself in their place, be in their skin, see through their eyes. Imagine what they might be feeling right now-all the emotions they might be holding inside.

3. If you really need compassion dynamite, look at them and ask: What if this were their last day alive? You can even imagine their funeral. You’re at their funeral, and you’re asked to say a few words about them. You can also imagine what you’d say to them after they’d already died.” (83)

“Helen had plenty of self-confidence. So what was she lacking? Warmth. People were impressed by how much she knew, but they didn’t feel cared for. Helen couldn’t emanate warmth because she had a hard time feeling it-whether for others or for herself.“ (84)

“Self-confidence is our belief in our ability to do or to learn how to do something. Self-esteem is how much we approve of or value ourselves. I’s often a comparison-based evaluation (whether measured against other people or against our own internal standards for approval). Self-compassion is how much warmth we can have for ourselves, especially when we are going through a difficult experience.” (84)

“Self-compassion is feeling that what happened to you is unfortunate, whereas self-pity is feeling that what happened to you is unfair.” (85)

“defines self-compassion as a three-step process: First, realizing that we’re experiencing difficulties. Second, responding with kindness and understanding toward ourselves when we are suffering or feel inadequate, rather than being harshly self-critical. Third, realizing that whatever were going through is commonly experienced by all human beings, and remembering that everyone goes through difficult times.” (86)

“Displaying confident body language will actually make you feel more confident; these feelings will in turn affect your body language.” (91)

“For confidence, assertiveness, and to be able to emanate gravitas, imagine playing the role of a military general, take a wide stance, puff up your chest, broaden your shoulders, stand straight, and confidently put your arms behind your back. Feel the effect of this posture internally.

For a boost in both energy and warmth, stand up, stretch your hands as high up as possible, inhale as much as you can imagine your rib cage expanding, doubling in size make the biggest smile you can and look upward, hold for a second, and then relax everything.” (92)

“I decided that I was a movie star incognito.” (93)

“Just as professional athletes and performers do, plan a gradual warm-up to reach your peak charismatic performance. Before important events, avoid experiences that would impair your mental state and plan warmth- and confidence-boosting activities instead.” (97)

“As always, body language trumps all other signs of charisma. Even if all the other signals are present, a body language of insecurity will undermine any possibility of authority charisma.” (105)

“To project power and confidence in your body language, you’ll need to learn how to “take up space” with your posture, reduce nonverbal reassurances (such as excessive nodding), and avoid fidgeting.” (106)

“Clothing, essentially, is modern-day tribal wear.” (118)

“An easy way to start interactions in a way that both communicates warmth and sends the conversation down the right path is to offer a compliment about something the person is wearing.” (123) 

“Continue with an open-ended question, such as “What’s the story behind it?”” (123)

“If they start asking about you and you want to refocus the conversation on them, use the bounce back technique. Answer the question with a fact, add a personal note, and redirect the question to them, as follows:

Other Person: “So where are you moving to?”” (124)

“Remember, it’s all about keeping the spotlight on them for as long as possible.” (124)

“Instead of saying “I read a great article on that subject in the New York Times,” try “You might enjoy the recent New York Times article on the subject.” Or simply insert “You know…” before any sentence to make them instantly perk up and pay attention.” (124)

“We are about to cover three keys to communicating presence: attentive listening, refraining from interrupting, and deliberate pausing.” (129)

“One simple but extraordinarily effective habit that will make people feel truly listened to and understood: they pause before they answer.” (130)

“When someone has spoken, see if you can let your facial expression react first, showing that you’re absorbing what they’ve just said and giving their brilliant statement the consideration it deserves. Only then, after about two seconds, do you answer.” (131)

“First, think about how you would behave if you were indeed speaking to the most important person in the room.” (135)

“imagine that the person you’re speaking with is the main star in a movie you’re watching right now.” (135)

“I tell all my clients: Don’t try to impress people. Let them impress you, and they will love you for it.” (136)

“Studies have consistently shown that audience ratings of a lecture are more strongly influenced by delivery style than by content.” (139)

“Increasing voice fluctuation means making your voice vary in any of the following ways: pitch (high or low), volume (loud or quiet), tone (resonant or hollow), tempo (fast or slow), or rhythm (fluid or staccato).” (140)

“One classic exercise to hone your projection skills is to imagine that your words are arrows. As you speak, aim them at different groups of listeners.” (141)

“Tempo: A slow, measured tempo with frequent pauses conveys confidence.” (141)

“Putting It into Practice: Vocal Power

The guidelines below will help you broadcast power through your voice.

1. Speak slowly. Visualize the contrast between a nervous, squeaky teenager speaking at high speed and the slow, emphatic tone of a judge delivering a verdict.

2. Pause. People who broadcast confidence often pause while speaking. They will pause for a second or two between sentences or even in the middle of a sentence. This conveys the feeling that they’re so confident in their power, they trust that people won’t interrupt.

3. Drop intonation. You know how a voice rises at the end of a question? Just reread the last sentence and hear your voice go up at the end. Now imagine an assertion: a judge saying

“This case is closed.” Feel how the intonation of the word closed drops. Lowering the intonation of your voice at the end of a sentence broadcasts power. When you want to sound superconfident, you can even lower your intonation midsentence.

4. Check your breathing. Make sure you’re breathing deeply into your belly and inhale and exhale through your nose rather than your mouth. Breathing through your mouth can make you sound breathless and anxious.” (141)

“There’s only one thing you need to do in order to project more warmth in your voice: smile. Smiling affects how we speak to such an extent that listeners in one study could identify sixteen different kinds of ~ smiles based on sound alone.’ This is why it’s worth smiling even when on the phone.” (142)

“Often, just thinking about smiling is enough to give your voice more warmth.” (142)

“Imagine that you’re a preacher exhorting your congregation.” (142)

“​​If your body language is anticharismatic, it doesn’t matter how great your message is.” (144)

“As a leader, the emotions conveyed by your body language, even during brief, casual encounters, can have a ripple effect through your team or even your entire company.” (145)

“The first is excessive or rapid nodding. Nodding once for emphasis or to express agreement is fine and can be an effective communication method, but nodding three or four times in rapid succession is not.” (161)

“The second hindrance is excessive verbal reassurance: making a sound, such as “uh-huh,” or a half-sentence, such as “Oh, I agree.” Done once, and consciously, this is fine; multiple times per sentence is not.” (161)

“The third issue is restlessness or fidgeting (tapping your pencil or foot, or rearranging items on the table). Fidgeting decreases presence, thus charisma. Even when you have warmth, confidence, and are mentally present, if you are physically restless, you can’t be charismatic.” (161)

“Aim to bring your chin down a few degrees.” (162)

“Asking for someone’s opinion is a better strategy than asking for their advice, because giving advice feels like more effort, as they have to tailor a recommendation to your situation, whereas with an opinion, they can just spout whatever is on their mind.” (168)

“Imagine that just a few hours ago they saw a beloved parent die.” (171)

“Here’s one specific— and surprisingly effective-recommendation for phone charisma, courtesy of author Leil Lowndes: Do not answer the phone in a warm or friendly manner. Instead, answer crisply and professionally. Then, only after you hear who is calling, let warmth or even enthusiasm pour forth in your voice. This simple technique is an easy and effective way to make people feel special.” (185)

“Write out the e-mail as you normally would, but before you send it, simply cut and paste so that whatever pertains to the other person appears first and most prominently.” (185)

“I often recommend that they go through their marketing materials (you can do the same with your e-mails) using two different-colored highlighters, one for things relating to them and the other for sentences that speak to their potential clients. If the second color doesn’t predominate, they have a problem.”” (185)

“It’s hard to have a question-and-answer period as compelling and energetic as your main speech. Almost inevitably, the Q&A period lowers the energy.” (190)

“Personally, I avoid formal Q&A entirely. Instead, my introducer warns the audience that there will be no Q&A session at the end, so their one and only chance to ask questions is during the speech.” (190)

“• Red conveys energy, passion. Wear red to wake up an audience.

• Black shows you’re serious and that you won’t take no for an answer.

• White exudes honesty and innocence, which is why defendants often choose it in the courtroom.

• Blue emits trust. The darker the shade, the deeper the level of trust it elicits.

• Gray is a good neutral, the quintessential color of business.

• Orange and yellow are not recommended. Because they are the first to attract the human eye, they are also the first to tire it.” (191)

“Express high expectations. Sometimes, simply assigning to people the labels you want them to live up to is enough” (202)

“Express this expectation as if you have full confidence that they can live up to it.” (203)

“Giving people a sense of ownership for your success is a great way to prevent resentment and engender good feelings, such as pride and loyalty, instead.” (208)

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