The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy

We get inundated with so many messages about belief, about what is true and what is not, from both our families and our culture, and it’s crucial that every single one of us come to our own well-excavated understanding.

There have been numerous studies suggesting that one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty is through the education of women and girls. It’s one of the best returns on investment in the developing world, but sixty-six million girls worldwide are not enrolled in school. Educated women spread what they’ve learned to their families and villages and children. Educated girls get pregnant later, have fewer children, and have a far lower infant mortality rate. Educated women and girls have greater power to determine their own fate; earn more; live a rich, fulfilled life; and give back to their communities at a greater level.

These days, the teenage years are considered a time for socializing with a focus on dating and popularity. When relieved of the pressures of dating too young, I believe a young person is better able to focus on who they really are and find themselves in that crucial time when your personality is beginning to germinate. It’s all that time reading, dreaming, and goofing off with fellow oddballs where our best selves get to evolve as teenagers.

Teachers can make such a profound impact on our lives and should be honored as heroes, I believe. They’re working for so little money, under such difficult circumstances, usually for the love of the service to the children. Many of us owe who we are to certain teachers who appeared at just the right time, in the right place, and had just the right words to say to propel us on our journey. (ACTIVITY ALERT: Take this opportunity, partway through this ridiculous book, to reach out to a teacher who made an impact on you and THANK THEM. You’ll be so glad you did. And so will they!)

Be not the slave of your moods, but their master. But if you are so angry, so depressed and so sore that your spirit cannot find deliverance and peace even in prayer, then quickly go and give some pleasure to someone lowly or sorrowful, or to a guilty or innocent sufferer! Sacrifice yourself, your talent, your time, your rest to another, to one who has to bear a heavier load than you—and your unhappy mood will dissolve into a blessed, contented submission to God.

What other people think of you is none of your business; what you think of other people is ALL of your business.

My Favorite Kid President Quotes “Create something that will make the world more awesome.” “Treat everybody like it’s their birthday.” “If you can’t think of anything nice to say, you’re not thinking hard enough.” “Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody.” “Give the world a reason to dance!” “Us humans are capable of war and sadness and other terrible stuff. But also CUPCAKES!” “Love changes everything so fill the world with it!” “Grown-ups who dream are the best kinds of grown-ups.” “Don’t be IN a party. BE a party.” And my personal favorite, “Mail someone a corn dog.

The greatest thing ever in the history of the world and of all of human endeavor from time immemorial is stories.

I was terrified, lost. Like most moments of intense personal tragedy, it was both heartbreaking and a little bit ridiculous.

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

...science and religion are like two wings of the bird of humanity that must work in harmony in order for humankind to survive. Science without religion is materialism and religion without science is mere superstition.

Many of us come to a time in our lives when the beliefs we grew up with collide with the reality of the world we find ourselves living in.

Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer to the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. . . . Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be . . . a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.

Every religion is eventually corrupted by its fallible clergy and the slow, inevitable drift toward hollow ritual and empty ceremony… That’s why religion needs refreshing every millennium or so.

Either there is a meaning to the time we spend alive on this physical plane or the only meaning in this universe of stuff and energy is the meaning we create for ourselves.

Why do you keep getting in your own way?

Wanting to hurt, degrade, insult, or discriminate against a person or a group of people because of their sexual orientation is an abomination. I got a firsthand lesson in how deep and grotesque the hate and injustice toward my LGBT comrades run in our culture.

What I learned as a young actor is that no matter how many times you’ve played a role, every single performance is an excavation, a rehearsal in front of an audience, where you play, dig, explore, and unleash your spontaneity to bring a fresh vitality to the character and an unpredictable magic to every moment.

We need to work on making ourselves better human beings, one day at a time...we must…make the world a better, more just and unified place… There are many ways to positively affect the world...Until all seven billion of us individually, collectively, and politically truly know in our hearts that it is through loving harmony and the pursuit of true collaboration that we can heal the problems of the world, nothing will be attained.

We often think that the best way to become happy is to focus more on ourselves, to take better care of ourselves and put our attention on the things that make us happy. While this is important, I’ve found that it often doesn’t work. There’s a strange kind of paradox in happiness. The more we seek it out for ourselves, the harder it often is to find.

I realized that education was everything...If you want to change the world, education is the key...it is only through education that real change can be effected. Also, education isn’t “charity.”...Charity implies giving out something to people who are less fortunate. It implies “we have” and “you don’t have.” There’s a sense of pity attached to doling out to the poor. Education empowers. It uplifts...Charity makes people dependent. Education makes them independent.

...I was raised to believe that all the races were one human race and that the color of our skin made us beautiful and distinct like the flowers of one human garden. We were taught as children that men and women were equal and that fighting for justice in the world was the “best beloved” of all things in God’s eyes.

Humans have been chewing on the big questions of life since we were dancing by firelight in ancient caves and placing our handprints on the walls, drawing the spirits of the animals we hunted, and telling stories of ancient gods and the mysteries of existence. The ancient Greeks were awfully good at discussing and dissecting

When I was in the sixth grade I was a finalist in our school spelling bee. It was me against Raj Patel. I misspelled, in front of the entire school, the word “failure.

For me, that plan led to the defining role of my career, Dwight Kurt Schrute. I was about to receive the worst haircut of my entire life.

Oh, and if you are reading this on a computerized reading machine, F@*& YOU!!!

When you are able to tell your own story, you heal yourself.

(You used to be able to wander the streets of NYC with whatever you wanted to ingest and be pretty much left alone by the cops as long as it was in a brown paper bag. And if you were white. Which I was. Very much so.)

What was next in my artistic and spiritual journey? Depression.