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The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Al Yankovic Quotes

I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I’ll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I’ll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

– Al Yankovic

What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist’s performance on whether or not they had a good seat?

– Al Yankovic

The irony is of course that my career has lasted a whole lot longer than some of the people I’ve parodied over the years.

– Al Yankovic

I know now that everything I write, I’m going to put out, and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life.

– Al Yankovic

You still have Top 40 radio now, but it’s 40 different stations. There aren’t many hits that everybody knows, and there aren’t many real superstars.

– Al Yankovic

As much as people are griping about the Internet taking sales away from artists, it’s been a huge promotional tool for me.

– Al Yankovic

Probably 90 percent of my albums have polka medleys.

– Al Yankovic

I’m obviously not a rapper, and I don’t have any claims to be one, really.

– Al Yankovic

One of my pet peeves is that sometimes the talents of my band get overlooked because, and it was the same problem that Frank Zappa had, with a lot of groups that use humor, people don’t realize there’s a lot of craft behind the comedy.

– Al Yankovic

It becomes more important to me as time goes on to make every album the best thing I’ve ever done, so it’s a lot of self-imposed pressure that also kind of slows me down a bit.

– Al Yankovic

You fake something until you’re good at it.

– Al Yankovic

My personal taste doesn’t enter into it a lot when I make my decisions as to what to parody.

– Al Yankovic

When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be an architect, because when I was 12 years old I had a guidance counselor that convinced me that that was the best career choice for me.

– Al Yankovic

I’m very analytical, I’m very precise.

– Al Yankovic

I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children’s book was something that I’d been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.

– Al Yankovic

So I’m one of the few celebrities that got to do a repeat performance on ‘The Simpsons,’ which I’m very flattered by.

– Al Yankovic

It’s hard to really articulate what the parameters are that make one song parody-able and another song not, but if I can come up with a good enough idea for it, I go for it, and if not, then I have to move on.

– Al Yankovic

At this point I’ve got a bit of a track record. So people realize that when ‘Weird Al’ wants to go parody, it’s not meant to make them look bad… it’s meant to be a tribute.

– Al Yankovic

Like, I have had moments, which I think most people have, where you’ll be watching TV, and it’ll be interrupted by some tragic event, and you’ll actually find yourself thinking, ‘I don’t want to hear about this train being derailed! What happened to ‘The Flintstones?’

– Al Yankovic

I’m watching the charts every week and hoping something will pop into my head.

– Al Yankovic

As my father used to tell me, the only true sign of success in life is being able to do for a living that which makes you happy.

– Al Yankovic

As a kid, I certainly never thought I would get to spend my life doing something fun.

– Al Yankovic

In the ’80s, I was putting out an album virtually every year, I think mostly based on fear – that if I didn’t, people would soon forget about me.

– Al Yankovic

I mean, I don’t write for kids.

– Al Yankovic

If something is good enough, it can be out there and people will see it.

– Al Yankovic

One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with in my career is keeping my material topical even though I only release albums every three or four years.

– Al Yankovic

I mean, I hate to gloat, but I’m extremely satisfied with my position in life and the way things have worked out for me.

– Al Yankovic

There aren’t that many superstars around anymore.

– Al Yankovic

I’ve learned how to use my spam filter pretty effectively.

– Al Yankovic

I suppose I had my rock star fantasies while I was singing into my hairbrush in the bathroom mirror, but I never really consciously said, ‘OK, this is what I’m going to do for a living and I’m going to be Weird Al.’

– Al Yankovic

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