16 Quotes by Ken Baumann

Every once in awhile, find a spot of shade, sit down on the grass or dirt, and ask yourself this question: “Do I respect myself?” A corollary to this question: “Do I respect the work I’m doing?” If the answer to the latter question is NO, then the answer to the former question will probably be NO too. If this is the case, wait a few weeks, then ask yourself the same two questions. If the answers are still NO, quit.

I started to write a series of fantasy novels when I was eleven. I have never taken anything artistic as seriously; since then, writing has felt like an attempt to get back there, to my bedroom, my maps, those races and languages and runes.

Mistakes quickly pile up and coalesce into a reputation, and a reputation is hard to shake.

Growing up, my mom would watch ‘Notting Hill’ a lot. She loves Hugh Grant.

I don’t eat fast food often, but I love tacos. I could write prophetically about how perfect the taco is.

It’s harder to make money when you’re not a machine in a massive apparatus designed only to make money, but artists will figure it out.

The Runaway Five’s obvious influence is The Blues Brothers. During localization, their black and white suits were made more colorful to avoid legal action from Universal Pictures or the film’s producers. When I told my wife Aviva about this, she admitted she had never seen The Blues Brothers film. Having grown up on a steady diet of Saturday Night Live-spawned movies, I told her that her innocence here was blasphemous. That night, we marveled together at James Brown’s hair.