How To Act Quotes

I loved my soap days. I really loved them. A Martinez and Marcy Walker taught me how to act, basically. All those people pulled together and helped get me started. Like, showed me how to hit my mark, made me do this, made me do that. That was my first long-running professional gig. And it was like, they were just - great, great with me. ~ Ally Walker

Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes. ~ Condola Rashad

The truth is, she's a weirdo. Just like you were. Are. A glorious, perfectly weird weirdo. Like all kids before they forget how to be exactly how weird they really are. Into whatever they're into, pure. Before knowing. Before they learn from others how to act. Before they learn they are Asian, or Black, or Brown, or White. Before they learn that all the things they are and about all the things they will never be. ~ Charles Yu

She needed a break from worrying about what to say and how to act every second of the day. ~ Cindi Madsen

Most actors nowadays are models turned actors. That's why a lot of young actors are terrible. You have to learn how to act. It is not something that you can just do. ~ Ansel Elgort

It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.

Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?

People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea - we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.

Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders - in that order.

Leading is not the same as being the leader. Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you - not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to.

You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.

Simon Sinek

I want to thank my daughter, who told me, 'If you don't win, Dad, you're still good,' ... who taught me how to act. ~ Jamie Foxx

Feminism will be just as oppressive to women as the media if it compels us to change who we are. The ends will not justify the means. It is like a corset that, although originally intended to make us feel good, about ourselves, has been pulled so tight that we are not left with enough room to breathe. Feminism often seems to be looking down its nose at us these days, as it militantly tells us how to behave- focusing on appearances according to a male dominated society. Have they forgotten that it is the societal viewpoint which needs to be changed? Somewhere along the line this movement got off track.


After all, we are constantly being told how to look, how to age, how to eat, how to act. Can't we at least think what we want? ~ Nancy Madore

My education was doing good plays and also stinkers. When you do a stinker, you learn how to act. I like having to audition. It's nice to do rehearsals. But it's with an audience that you get to love it! ~ Jeffrey Tambor

I love babies - I love being with them. As for acting with them, it's kind of hard because they don't know how to act. ~ Tim Daly

I'm just trying to keep my head above water as I learn how to act. I feel like I have so much to learn, it's insane. The only thing I know is that I don't know or have a grasp on anything other than this one thing that's within me, whatever that is, so I'm just trying to trust that. ~ Emma Stone

A predator is what you are, and nothing you can do will change that. But being a killer is a choice you make. That's the dilemma of free will. You can't change your nature, but you can decide how to act on it. ~ Obie Williams

People say to me, 'Well, how do you direct Meryl Streep?' You're not wandering over to Meryl telling her how to act. She's an extraordinary talent and unbelievably hard working; she works harder than anyone I have ever worked with before. ~ John Wells

When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy.

The way I liked best was letting go a poisonous spider in his bed. It would bite him and he'd be dead and swollen up and I would shudder to find him so. Of course I would call the rescue squad and tell them to come quick something's the matter with my daddy. When they come in the house I'm all in a state of shock and just don't know how to act what with two colored boys heaving my dead daddy onto a roller cot. I just stand in the door and look like I'm shaking all over.

But I did not kill my daddy. He drank his own self to death the year after the County moved me out. I heard how they found him shut up in the house dead and everything. Next thing I know he's in the ground and the house is rented out to a family of four.

All I did was wish him dead real hard every now and then. All I can say for a fact that I am better off now than when he was alive. ~ Kaye Gibbons

There are white people who know how to act politely to blacks, but deep down you know they're uncomfortable. They're worse, more dangerous than those who speak their minds, because they don't know what they're capable of. ~ Cristina Garcia

That's why we discourage parents from forcing kids to express sorrow before they are sincerely sorry. Your child may simply be learning how to act on the outside in order to avoid consequences. Begin as early as you can to foster an authentic faith, which is an "inside out" experience. Do this by encouraging honest expressions of what is really going on in the heart. Desire authenticity over pretense; openness over secrecy; and honest conversation over what you wish to hear. Be a loving, safe person with whom your kids can share what is really going on in their hearts. Sometimes all that is needed for a heart to repent is the opportunity to safely express the truth. ~ Ellen M. Schuknecht

Your stomach isn't the boss of you,' Mel says evenly.
'Oh,' Jared says, realizing. 'Sorry-'
Mel shakes her head, brushing it off. 'Not what I meant. Your heart isn't the boss of you other. Thinks it is. Isn't. You can always choose. Always.'
'You can't choose not to feel,' Henna says.
'But you can choose how to act. ~ Patrick Ness

Invest in your knowledge and future! Especially if you got kids, you don't want them going through life struggling trying to find jobs to survive and dealing with managers that don't know how to act because of their position, you don't want them to go through what you went through ... If you live day by day then you wont have something to look forward to. -Robert Rivera
New King James Version
Proverbs 13:22- A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. ~ Robert Rivera

Maybe I felt something because I'm always looking for feelings. Without them, I don't know how to act. ~ Erin Bowman

I don't know how to act around anybody. ~ Andrea Portes

Elizabeth Taylor is, in my opinion, the greatest actress in film history. She instinctively understands the camera and its nonverbal intimacies. Opening her violet eyes, she takes us into the liquid realm of emotion, which she inhabits by Pisces intuition. Richard Burton said that Taylor showed him how to act for the camera. Economy and understatement are essential. At her best, Elizabeth Taylor simply is. An electric, erotic charge vibrates the space between her face and the lens. It is an extra-sensory, pagan phenomenon. ~ Camille Paglia

It is important that everyone understands how sexism affects women and thereby impacts on all human beings. Women are subject to stricter rules of behaviour: how to act, what to say, what to want. What to wear, what to eat, where to shop, how to behave at work, when not to text him back, when to fuck, how to fuck, what colour to put in your hair when he leaves you. ~ Laurie Penny

If there are to be rules, they must be articulable and defensible, like etiquette. I do not do anything simply because my family did it. I do things because they make sense, and because they are elegant. ~ Kathleen Rooney

One does not act rightly toward one's fellows if one does not know how to act rightly towards the earth. ~ Liberty Hyde Bailey

Modeling

Modeling is the process of watching how others act in certain situations, then copying their behavior. For example, if you are worried about the first impression you make, pay attention to how others present themselves. What traits give a good first impression? What do people say? How do confident people carry themselves? Also examine people who give a bad first impression and try to determine why. Imitate the actions that impressed you. With time, you will feel more comfortable with modeling and begin to own the traits you admire in others.
Modeling works very well when you are in an unfamiliar situation. If you are not sure how to act, watching others will give you clues.

Sam's best friend's father passed away and Sam attended the service. He had never been to a funeral before and felt very uncomfortable. As he stood in the receiving line, he felt anxious about what to say and how to act. He was terrified of saying the wrong thing and hurting his friend's family.
Sam stepped out of line and stood to the side for a moment. He observed what other people did as he breathed deeply and practiced relaxation techniques. After a few minutes, he figured out what to do and returned to the line. When he reached his friend's mother, he gave her a hug and said, "I'm so sorry for your loss." She hugged him back and thanked him for coming. Sam felt confident that he had acted appropriately. ~ Heather Moehn

What [Tulio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know. ~ Maria Callas

I worry about making work more important than what I know to be the truth. Throughout all areas of life, we're told how to look, how to act, what to speak, what to wear, what we should have and other people don't have, and we know none of that means anything. Yet these other messages never stop coming. ~ Craig T. Nelson

Washington had performed his role to perfection. It was no enough that a leader look the part; by Washington's rules, he must know how to act it with self-command and precision. ~ David McCullough

The different faces of all people on earth show that all people on earth have different hearts, mindset and understanding. He who understands people well understands the true meaning of maturity and knows how to act well towards people with a good understanding! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

There's really no way to teach you how to act, but there is a way to teach you how to teach yourself to act. That's kind of what it is; once you learn the little tricks that work for you, pretty soon you find yourself doing that. ~ Clint Eastwood

Until you truly learn how to act well, you shall always act only for your actions to teach you how to act well ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I say to myself, 'I don't know how to act - and why does anybody want to look at me on-screen anymore?' ... Lots of actors feel that way. What gives you strength is also your weakness - your raging insecurity. ~ Meryl Streep

Uh I like it like that
She working that back,
I don't know how to act ~ Juvenile

There would be some times where people wouldn't know how to act around me. Does he drink? Can I cuss? What can I do? And then there was other circumstances where it was, I just don't respect what you're trying to do. ~ LeCrae

From the point of view of a spiritual life, it is not what you do that matters most, but the way in which it is done and the
consciousness you put into it. Remember always the Divine and all you do will be an expression of the Divine Presence.
When all your actions are consecrated to the Divine, there will be no longer activities that are superior and activities that
are inferior; all will have an equal importance - the value given them by the consecration. ~ The Mother

So despite all the advances of neuroscience, all the fancy machines and illuminating insights, we still need our old, wet gray matter - the only place where emotion and reason come together and alchemize into what we call wisdom - to tell us how to act. ~ Sam Kean

If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public. ~ Bryan White

When I look back at experience [with my father], all I can do is feel pity. You know, how torn he was about how to act, what to say. And it seems an important story to me. ~ Paul Auster

Adoration is not some fervent spiritual or poetic exercise reserved for a chosen few. I believe the human race will die out and destroy nature if it does not learn again how to adore God, the God in all of us, God shining and living in nature, and learn again how to act from and in that spirit of adoration. ~ Andrew Harvey

Rule books tell people what to do. Frameworks guide people how to act. Rule books insist on discipline. Frameworks allow for creativity. ~ Simon Sinek

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote - where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference - and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish - where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source - where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials - and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

[Remarks to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, September 12 1960] ~ John F. Kennedy

Every time I do a play, it's as if I've never done one before. I'm always confused. I always am convinced I'm going to be fired. I'm like, 'I don't remember how to act. I don't know how to do this.' And, it's just a very slow process, and then, all of a sudden, it's just there one day. I still don't understand how it happens. ~ Cristin Milioti

Get your hand off me," I exclaimed, voice loud with misplaced anger as I yanked away from his grip. "I'm a professional, not some distraught girlfriend." Well, I was that too, but I knew how to act at a crime scene. ~ Kim Harrison

A purpose statement is, in essence, a written-down reason for being. Jesus' mission helped him decide how to act, what to do, and even what to say when challenging situations arose. Clarity is power: Once you are clear about what you were put here to do then 'jobs' become only a means toward accomplishing your mission, not an end in themselves. ~ Laurie Beth Jones

As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act. ~ Eli Roth

They really do have nothing in common on paper, these people and him. But yet there are so many common reference points; even some unexpected ones ... they all want to be cool. And they're all scared but no good at showing it ... [t]hey all know how to act cool. after all, life's pretty scary most of the time. And the number one skill you need out there is how to show no fear ... Stay calm. Don't let people see that you are shy or nervous. If you watch a horror film, remember to laugh. If someone else seems scared, laugh at them. In the real world, danger is either fantasy, in which case you laugh, or too real, in which case you ignore it. ~ Scarlett Thomas

I learned acting by doing it. And although I had never taken an acting class, it didn't take long to learn how to be on the stage. All you have to do is to be humiliated in front of an audience a few times. If you don't like being humiliated publicly, you learn how to act. ~ Ron Vawter

I was woken early and had breakfast with the guru. We had some spicy Rice Krispies and a spicy biscuit with some really sweet, milky tea. Not the way I normally like it, but I drank it anyway as I didn't want to offend him. I suppose that is my heart telling me how to act instead of my head again. My arse may get involved later though. ~ Karl Pilkington

I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it. ~ Judi Dench

That's how I learned how to act. I learned by doing it. I didn't start acting until I was 37. ~ John Mahoney

You have to learn how to act a pop song. You have to find the balance of the pop from the pop song and the lyrical significance of the scene you are in. ~ Aaron Lazar

I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent; still less how to act with vigor and decision. Who hastens to the end is silent; loudness is impotence. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater

For generations, parents have shaped 'fine' but deeply restless human beings. We may know 'how to act' but we're losing sight of how to love, how to bond, how to have healthy relationships. This is evident in our broken homes, the rise in depression and mental illness, suicide rates, and so forth. ~ Rebecca Eanes

When mystics use the word love, they use it very carefully - in the deeply spiritual sense, where to love is to know; to love is to act. If you really love, from the depths of your Consciousness, that love gives you a native wisdom. You perceive the needs of others intuitively and clearly, with detachment from any personal desires; and you know how to act creatively to meet those needs, dexterously surmounting any obstacle that comes in the way. Such is the immense, driving power of love. ~ Eknath Easwaran

When I was brought up in Sweden, there was a great opportunity for young people to learn how to act in our municipal theaters with their small companies. You would be under contract for eight months and have the summer free to take other opportunities. ~ Max Von Sydow

Just live life. That's the best way to learn how to act. Just live. ~ Rory Culkin

Where do you learn how to act? Not at church. America is a lot more like pagan Rome than we think. We still sacrifice to objects to gain our social goals. ~ Dave Hickey

Mindfulness, by helping us notice our impulses before we act, gives us the opportunity to decide whether to act and how to act ~ Gil Fronsdal

Just getting auditions was rough. But also just learning how to act - when I did my first role, in a film I did which was a favour to a friend, I realised I was really bad at it. ~ Dave Bautista

People take years learning how to act; it's a skill, not just a job. If I tried it out and thought I'd be OK, then perhaps I'd go for it, but it's not the kind of thing you can get into just because of your looks. ~ Travis Fimmel

It's so easy to get used to playing a role. Then all of the sudden when you're tossed out of it, it's almost like you have to remember how to act again! ~ A. J. Cook

I never knew how to act or what to say, and when I did work up the courage to speak, I always seemed to say the wrong thing. ~ Ernest Cline

With acting, there are a lot of subtleties and non-verbals involved. If someone is over there, getting eaten by a shark, there's a non-verbal way of how to act that. There's a certain nuance to acting that does not come intuitively to me. It's something I still have to learn. ~ Mark McGrath

Well, I don't know about you girls," Patti called out, "but I'm starving. You wanna help me throw everything together before I go check on the chicken?"

The twins shared uncertain expressions.

"Sure, we'll help," I answered for them. "What do you need us to do?"

"All right, how about you and Marna make the salad, and Ginger can help me bake this cake."

Their eyes filled with horror.

"You mean like chopping things?" Marna whispered.

"Yeah. It's not hard. We'll do it together." At my prompting they stood but made no move toward the kitchen with me.

"I'm not sure you ought to trust me with a knife," Marna said.

"Or me with baked goods," Ginger added. I'd never seen her so unsure of herself. If it were just me making the request, she'd tell me to go screw myself, but neither girl seemed to know how to act around Patti. They fidgeted and glanced at the kitchen.

Patti came over and took Ginger by the arm.

"You'll both be fine," Patti insisted. "It'll be fun!"

The seriousness of the twins in the kitchen was comical. They took each step of their jobs with slow, attentive detail, checking and double-checking the measurements while Patti ran out to flip the chicken. Somewhere halfway through, the girls loosened up and we started chatting. Patti put Ginger at ease in a way I'd never seen her. At one point we were all laughing and I realized I'd never seen Ginger laugh ~ Wendy Higgins

You're so weird sometimes."
I am. I have no social graces, no idea how to act around a female. Fuck.
Fuck my life. ~ Sara Ney

Human mortality linked to the human ability consciously to choose how to act by exhibiting free will, humility, hard work, kindness, and compassion provide exemplary opportunities to learn and develop self-discipline. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

College was a great time. I partied there, but I also learned how to act. ~ Lusia Strus

People never grow up, they just learn how to act in public. ~ Bryan White

Nowadays, you gots ta walk the street and watch your back,
Cause brothers with the gats don't be knowin' how to act. ~ Shyheim

There's no rule book that tells you how to act in every given situation in life, you know? So what I always say is that it's always better to err on the side of kindness. That's the secret. If you don't know what to do, just be kind. You can't go wrong. ~ R.J. Palacio

I'm a comedian first. I've learned how to act. I just draw on life experiences and that's how I've learned. I didn't take classes or anything. I don't need no classroom. ~ Steve Harvey

A leader is a person who knows how to act when other people don't. ~ Eraldo Banovac

Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one. ~ Charles Bukowski

I wasn't afraid of you!' Ryan protested. 'I was half intimidated, half infatuated, and I didn't know how to act because of it.'
Sin made a face at Ryan and picked up his chips again. 'How could you be infatuated with me when you didn't even know me?'
Ryan scoffed and pointed his cheese-covered fork at Sin. 'You're gorgeous and tragic - gay boys like that kind of thing. ~ Santino Hassell

If you desire to see, learn how to act. ~ Heinz Von Foerster

Alec Guinness classed up that movie [Star Wars]. Nobody else in that movie knew how to act. Nobody else had a clue of what they were doing. The young guy was a complete loss, absolutely couldn't act his way out of a bag, but Alec Guinness carried that movie. He was such a class act that it elevated the film to be a joy to watch. ~ David Crosby

What qualifies me to tell people how to act or what to think? I'm Charley Pride, country singer. Period. ~ Charley Pride

I always knew I wanted to be an actress, and I had the attitude that I would learn more under people like Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne or Mike Myers than from someone who had never starred in a movie. I just didn't think that someone who had never been in a movie could teach me how to act in one. ~ Meagan Good

I've never like had a system or a program, I always think that I don't know how to act. I'll adapt to any director because I don't really have a set way that I do things. If a director hires me and says, "I want you to get started right now and do this research, this research, this research and I want you to have every line memorized before you ever show up for the first day," then that's what I'll do. ~ Jennifer Lawrence

By the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but a few. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The strongest principle of personal development is every person's ability to make conscious decisions how to act and determine what purpose he or she attempts to fulfill. People with a fixed mindset believe that their basic personal qualities such as intelligence, talent, and other skills are traits that are predetermined or fixed and they ignore opportunities for personal development. A person's growth mindset represents a belief that there are certain basic qualities that a person can cultivate through applied effort, if they exhibit a passion for learning, a resolute willingness to stretch their personality, and through fortitude make personal improvement despite experiencing initial hardships. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Success in everything is born out of struggle,
Wear your passion, live your dream
Travel often, make memories
And know how to act
Happiness in life is to love and be loved truly. ~ Jyoti Patel

I can't tell you how terribly glad I am that you're going to be all right," George said, rather thickly. "I...I wouldn't know how to act without a twin. ~ Sarah Brazytis

I hardly knew anything when I first arrived. I had to learn how to act as I went along. After about a year I got a grip on what acting was all about and it started coming straight from my heart; I wasn't just saying the words any longer. ~ Melissa George

People who know how to act are never preachers. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's been so many years since I actually had a date that I've forgotten how to act. You don't mention your ex when you've finished fucking your date; it's poor protocol ~ Scarlet Blackwell

She was always acting cold and distant with boys to cover up the fact that she was shy inside and didn't know quite how to act. ~ Winifred E. Wise

DNA passes the blueprints of life between generations. Ever more complex life forms input information from sensors such as eyes and ears and process the information in brains or other systems to figure out how to act and then act on the world, by outputting information to muscles, for example. As some point during our 13.8 billion years of cosmic history, something beautiful happened. This information processing got so intelligent that life forms became conscious. Our universe has now awoken, becoming aware of itself. I regard it a triumph that we, who are ourselves mere stardust, have come to such a detailed understanding of the universe in which we live. ~ Stephen Hawking

As it has the quality to transmit skills and knowledge, our personal history is a brilliant coach teaching us how to act and play along the meanders of life. While it inhabits our living it comes to be our fellow traveler shielding us from slippery slopes; and sometimes from ourselves. ("Going back to yesterday" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

I don't think you learn how to act. You learn how to use your emotions and feelings. ~ Marion Cotillard

I got this black chick, she don't know how to act
Always talkin' out her neck, makin' her fingers snap
She like, Listen Jigga Man, I don't care if you rap
You better - R-E-S-P-E-C-T me ~ Jay-Z

He did not consider himself wise, but he could not help knowing that he was more intelligent than his wife or Agafya Mikhailovna, and he could not help knowing that when he thought about death, he thought about it with all the forces of his soul. He also knew that many great masculine minds, whose thoughts about it he had read, had pondered death and yet did not know a hundredth part of what his wife and Agafya Mikhailovna knew about it. Different as these two women were...they were perfectly alike in this. Both unquestionably knew what life was and what death was, and though they would have been unable to answer and would not even have understood the questions that presented themselves to Levin, neither had any doubt about the meaning of this phenomenon and looked at it in exactly the same way, not only between themselves, but sharing this view with millions of other people. The proof that they knew firmly what death was lay in their knowing, without a moment's doubt, how to act with dying people and not being afraid of them. While Levin and others, though they could say a lot about death, obviously did not know, because they were afraid of death and certainly had no idea what needed to be done when people were dying. If Levin had been alone now with his brother Nikolai, he would have looked at him with horror, and would have waited with still greater horror, unable to do anything else. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory. ~ Eli Roth

I think the outside world can learn a lot about how to act by watching a major league clubhouse. I don't think you want to do everything the same, but there's a lot of things I think people could learn from. ~ Terry Francona

But a good servant, and I am an excellent one, can completely control his master, tell him what to think, how to act, whom to marry, when to divorce, reduce him to terror as a discipline, or distribute happiness to him, and finally be mentioned in his will. ~ John Steinbeck

We are all human, and our senses are quicker to prompt us than our reason. Every man gives off a scent, and that scent tells you how to act before your head does. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

America has a rap sheet. You can't police the world and tell the world how to act when you're just as bad yourself. ~ Paul Mooney