Ze Frank > Quotes

“Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes, but he's a bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties”
― Ze Frank

“In a perfect world, you and I probably wouldn't exist, so let's not hope for one.”
― Ze Franka

“Life isn't just a sequence of waiting for things to be done.”
― Ze Frank

“There’s no need to sharpen your pencils any more. Even the dull ones can make a mark.”
― Ze Frank

“Isn’t it amazing, amazing, amazing that something so specific can be so resonant? These are the filaments, filaments, filaments from that Walt Whitman poem. It makes me think that the thoughts that I have in my head that make me feel the most lonely because I don’t think anyone else thinks them, are also the thoughts that have the most potential that make me feel connected. I just have to get them out some how gossamer thread.”
― Ze Frank

“and let me remember that my courage is a wild dog; it won’t just come when I call it, I have to chase it down and hold on as tight as I can.”
― Ze Frank

“Having someone do certain things for you is like getting someone to chew your food for you.

It might be easier to swallow but it loses all its flavor...

And you want the flavor!”
― Ze Frank

“Aren't memories just dreams we have when we're awake?”
― Ze Frank

“This is Harry.
As a boy, Harry was very, very shy.

Some people may have even said he was painfully shy. As if his shyness caused them pain and not the other way around.

There are many things that can cause a person to recede. To look away from other people’s eyes or to choose empty hallways over crowded ones. Some shy people try to reach out and try, and nothing seems to come back and then there just comes a point where they stop trying.

In Harry’s case he was slapped in the face and called names designed to isolate him, designed to deliver maximum damage. This because he came from a different country and didn’t know the right words to use or the right way to say them.

And so, Harry learned how to be still, to camouflage, to be the least.

Some people describe this as receding into a shell, where the stillness hardens and protects. But the eyes, even when they look down and away, are still watching, still looking for some way out or in; painfully shy.

Then in middle school, Harry found theater, where he forced himself to speak through other people’s words. And then dance, where he started to speak through the movements of his body. To be so still for so long when you’re young, means a lot of pent up energy and it was released there through work, endless work.

If someone carves into a sapling with a knife, the injury is as wide as the entire trunk. Though that mark will never fully heal, you can grow the tree around it, and as you grow, the scar gets smaller in proportion.

If you, right now, are in a shell, you should know that you’re are not alone and there are many, many people like you and that there is nothing wrong with you. It might even be necessary right now. It might keep you safe for a time. But once the danger is gone, or after it’s exhausted it’s use, you’ll find a way out.

You may need help, you may need to work really hard, you may need to find some ways to laugh at yourself, or find a passion, or a friend, but you will find it.

And, when you do, it will be so good to see you.

This is Harry.

As a boy, Harry was very, very shy.”
― Ze Frank

“In our lives, on average, we will be asleep for a total of 8,477 days. If we're lucky, some of that time will be sleeping next to someone we love.”
― Ze Frank

“Words are the instruments you play to the song of your ideas, you're just playing covers.”
― Ze Frank

“The best science is often a long, slow, passive-aggressive argument.”
― Ze Frank

“Having someone do certain things for you is like getting someone to chew your food for you. It might be easier to swallow but it loses all its flavor and it will be covered in spit. And you want the flavor!”
― Ze Frank

“Remember, we're all just tubes with some fancy bits attached, looking for stuff to put in the front, and finding places to put whatever comes out the other side.”
― Ze Frank

“Making things actually does give me a lot of joy. It is the process of creation that keeps me about a bubble and a half over perpetual anxiety.”
― Ze Frank

“But if the me I was supposed to be being was something else - yes, no shit, I'd love to be that. Do you have the rest of the instructions, jackass? (...) I wasn't being me - but wasn't wasn't being me being me? How else was I wasn't be?”
― Ze Frank