Bill Murray "Grab this day by the neck and kiss it"

We recently clipped a compelling quote we found on Swiss Miss from Esquire’s great interview with Bill Murray. In the Comments section following, we found this amazing story-ette from from “Claire”, who seems to be a make-up artist:

My brother is a huge Bill Murray fan so recently having had the “experience” of working with him I asked him if he wouldn’t mind signing a Birthday card for him. Inside he wrote, “grab this day by the neck and kiss it”…my new mantra for life.

WOW!!!! Yeah. Perfect mantra (whether Bill Murray actually said it or not.)

And now here’s the quote we clipped, Murray talking about his teacher Del Close (more WOW!):

He taught lots and lots of people very effectively. He taught people to commit. Like: “Don’t walk out there with one hand in your pocket unless there’s somethin’ in there you’re going to bring out.” You gotta commit. You’ve gotta go out there and improvise and you’ve gotta be completely unafraid to die. You’ve got to be able to take a chance to die. And you have to die lots. You have to die all the time. You’re goin’ out there with just a whisper of an idea. The fear will make you clench up. That’s the fear of dying. When you start and the first few lines don’t grab and people are going like, “What’s this? I’m not laughing and I’m not interested,” then you just put your arms out like this and open way up and that allows your stuff to go out. Otherwise it’s just stuck inside you.

We love Bill Murray, one unbelievable wise man.

Related posts: x ‘don’t give up what you want most for what you want now’
‘fail better’ (samuel beckett)
‘leap and the net will appear’…
henry miller’s eleven commandments
gandhi: ‘our beliefs become our…destiny
‘what’s not wrong?’ and other ways to start your day

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