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Here's a guy [Richard Nixon] who had no gift for small talk, never liked to be around strangers, was physically awkward, and he goes into the one business that calls for ease with strangers and a gift for small talk.

Harry Shearer

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Harry Shearer
Age: 80
Born: 1943
Born: December 23
Actor
Dub Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Journalist
Musician
Radio Personality
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Voice Actor
LA
California
Harry Julius Shearer
Around
Stranger
Never
Liked
Nixon
Gift
Richard
Goes
Strangers
Small
Awkward
Guy
Physically
Talk
Calls
Business
Ease

More quotes by Harry Shearer

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If you're going to do something that lasts 90 minutes, you can't really do it with stick figures.
Harry Shearer
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I wasn't playing Nixon's satirical stick figure. I was playing Nixon the man. As an actor, I felt I had to get to the deeply flawed humanity of the guy.
Harry Shearer
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When it moved to Friday night it disappeared, when they find another show that can do what The Simpsons does, they will be delighted to do cancel The Simpsons.
Harry Shearer
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I think in most cases, if you're with good people, comedy creation happens faster in collaboration. That's how I can tell if it's a good collaboration: If it's faster than me by myself, then it works. If it's slower than me by myself, then I get out of the room.
Harry Shearer
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The act of getting married, stripped of the necessity to have a secure setting to raise children, seems to me no less grim than registering your emotions with the government.
Harry Shearer
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The last president we had was the smartest guy anyone could remember and he did the dumbest thing anyone has ever seen in the White House so go figure.
Harry Shearer
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The hardest work most of us do is maintaining the appearance of normality.
Harry Shearer
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For a guy who is always banging on about the masculine virtues, Nixon had this remarkable proclivity for very dainty gestures.
Harry Shearer
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I didn't have a lot of independent film connections. It really took until the digital film revolution came along that I realized that I could do it myself.
Harry Shearer
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I've got an odd, negative bond with C. Montgomery Burns. He reminds a lot of people of bosses they've worked for. He certainly reminds me of someone I'm working for.
Harry Shearer
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When I was growing up, we learned our history almost as lives of the saints. And it came as a shock, Oh, Jefferson had slaves? It always comes as a shock to us that elevation to the White House didn't somehow cleanse them of all their deep character flaws.
Harry Shearer
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I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines. Nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.
Harry Shearer
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Nixon's genius was that he was able to portray himself as the toughest of the anti-communists, and yet run on a platform that he had a plan to end the Vietnam War. And, of course, his plan was to prolong it until his second election - but he didn't tell us that then.
Harry Shearer
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I think the British learn their history through the prism of this gallery of grotesques known as the royals.
Harry Shearer
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You know, radio was a really easy way to do the shows. You'd come in, do a read-through, there'd be a few rehearsals, then you'd come the night of the show and do it in front of the audience and then go home.
Harry Shearer
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If Nixon were a Republican senator today, he would have been primaried out.
Harry Shearer
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I would come back to public school for usually about half the year. It was actually better for me to be out of school a lot, because I was two years younger than everybody, which is a bad situation, socially.
Harry Shearer
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[The word class has] been excised from the acceptable political vocabulary, except in the limited usage of right-wingers when they accuse liberals of inciting 'class warfare' - a charge that means it's okay for rich people to vote their economic interests but it's not all right to encourage poor people to do so.
Harry Shearer
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You have to do real acting, not just do a voice.
Harry Shearer
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My parents didn't want me to be a regular in a series. I was a working actor from time to time but they thought was a little too much being a star of a series. They wanted me to have a slightly more normal childhood.
Harry Shearer