Rob Thomas Quotations

It's funny: I always, as a high school teacher and particularly as a high school yearbook teacher, because yearbook staffs are 90 percent female, I got to sit in and overhear teenage girl talk for many years. I like teenage girls; I like their drama, their foibles. And I think, 'I'll be good with a teenage daughter!'

I could not finance a movie on my own. Frankly, I could not even afford to take a year off. I, like most people in America, need to keep making money.

On 'Dawson's Creek,' those kids were supposed to be outsider kids - you know, wrong-side-of-the-track kids, weirdo kids. And I just felt like there's no universe out there where Katie Holmes isn't the prom queen, hottest girl in school.

Teenage years are hard. And, having taught high school for a number of years, I think they're particularly hard on teenage girls. The most self-conscious human beings on the planet are teenage girls.

I want to be happy going to work. I want to do a show I'm proud of.

'Freaks and Geeks' was my favorite show when it was on, by a wide measure. And that's the show I wanted to do. I noodled with the idea of doing a show about teenagers that told small stories, small moments of personal growth.

Reading 'Youth in Revolt' might have ruined my career because suddenly I wanted to abandon all the emotional truth of something and just go out far on a literary limb with completely implausible things that relied completely on voice and humor. And what saved me is realizing that I couldn't do that very well.

The brilliance of Adam Scott is that he is so damn funny in a straight man role.

As I start to think about what I want to do next, there are eight or nine networks I would be thrilled to work with. I remember developing at FX and the executives there telling me, 'We don't want to do shows that 20 million people kind of like; we want to do the show that 2 million people really like.' That's such a refreshing thing to hear.

The world domination plan goal is that I would love Veronica Mars to become a brand like Sherlock Holmes is a brand, like Nancy Drew, in a way, is a brand. When people start listing who are the great fictional detectives, I want Veronica Mars to make that list. That would be the dream scenario.

Before Twitter or Facebook, all the fandom that I knew about was anecdotal.

I started my career as a novelist. 'Veronica Mars' was first imagined as a novel.

Having written both comedy and drama, comedy's harder because the fear of failure's so much stronger. When you write a scene and you see it cut together, and it doesn't make you laugh, it hurts in a way that failed drama doesn't. Failed drama, it's all, 'That's not that compelling,' but failed comedy just lays there.

Having gotten TV shows on the air, that's so much less work that trying to get the 'Veronica Mars' movie made.

One reason I relate to 'Veronica Mars' fans is because I can totally geek out about shows. I mean, I write Vince Gilligan fan mail every year.

Ryan Hansen is my favorite person on the planet. He is my discovery. I'm so proud of him.

Your executives liking your show makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between happiness and misery.

I couldn't love a movie much more than 'Dazed and Confused.' I would argue that 'Dazed and Confused: The Series' would have been very much like 'Freaks and Geeks.' And that died a painful death because it was too good.

I like the rhythm of comedy in dramas, if that makes sense. In other words, I don't want to write setup, punch, setup, punch, where the joke dictates the scene; I want to find comedy in which the drama is actually driving the moment in the scene.

I still don't think I've ever read a Nancy Drew book; I probably read three or four 'Hardy Boys' books when I was 10, 11, 12, and I didn't love them at the time. Even then, they felt dated to me, like the word chum - 'my chum and I.' However, the 'Encyclopedia Brown' books, I read all of them.

So much of what I do... is coming up with new characters and trying to invent voices for them, and to have people fully fleshed out in my head and to know who can say what in the scene and who these characters are... I love it.

Before 'Veronica Mars,' I was not, and probably am still not, much of a crime reader. My mom left out a copy of 'Helter Skelter' when I was 10, and I secretly read it, and then I spent all my teenage years afraid of hippies. I kept away from crime books for, like, ten years.

I always just wanted to write and maybe direct. I'm really only interested in that. And yet the business that I'm in has forced me into being a salesman - that's the last thing that 17-year-old me would imagine I'd end up being. I'm uncomfortable trying to sell anything, but that's what you're doing every time you walk into a pitch.

I think its going to be continually tougher on the big networks as more cable channels do really interesting television. The big networks have a choice to make: Do we try to be all things to all people and get the shows that will deliver 20 million viewers a week? Are we the McDonald's of television? Or are we going to try to be more specific?

We're most pleased with it when it's revelatory character stuff, when we're getting her attitude and philosophy out of that voice-over. I'll even have her being deflecting and defensive within first-person narration. She's a prickly girl.

My hope is that I hit it big with something, and then I'll have enough of a cushion to carve out time to write a book. That would be my passion project.

Today I tattoo politicians and doctors. I even tattooed an 84-year-old man with his late wife's name entwined in a rose. I gave him that one for free.

I think there are people, and I do not mean this to be disparaging, there are people like Jay Mohr and Jeremy Piven where they just give you that vibe, 'This guy's going to play someone a little venal.'

I say, if you're going to bash us, just be clever.

Trying to convince Warner Bros. to make a $30 million 'Veronica Mars' movie just wasn't going to happen, for understandable reasons.

You cannot fail without your consent. You cannot succeed without your participation.

I used to do lots of coke. ... You'd be tired and you'd do it just to stay out and go to bars and meet girls and have a good time. ... There's a two-year period at the beginning of this band that I don't even remember. I can't even imagine what the shows were like.

Something that bothered people about 'Dawson's Creek' but as a writer, I kind of dug: writing those kids as though they were college grad students. It was fun and liberating and made for a true sort of writer's show. It was a fun year for me, because I got to get out of debt with my first TV job, and I learned a ton.

And the people weve become, well, theyve never been the people who we are.

The bottom line is these individuals believed him and he was able to portray himself as the type of person who could pull that off.

This has always sounded like a record that was going to be really great live. The show is going to be something of its own animal, and I'm excited about seeing it grow.

About midway through (last) year, we started having to think about the big mystery for season two.

It's a huge challenge. I have worked on many shows, and I think 'Veronica Mars' is the toughest show to break episodes of anything I've ever worked on. Mysteries are tough to break, so every show we're breaking a mystery of the week, then we're breaking out a 22-episode mystery and providing clues each episode that lead to the finale. It kills us.

It's not very often we see a product like this come along. And when it does, it's nearly impossible to keep it on the shelf. It's hard to predict how fast a product will sell; sometimes we have to plan 6 months in advance in order to keep up with the demand.

It sort of started with this idea of doing a teen noir show. The first-person, hard-boiled narrative is inherent in noir. I wanted her to sound like a 17-year-old female Raymond Chandler.

In a weird way, 'Veronica Mars' was my reaction to 'Freaks and Geeks' because 'Freaks and Geeks' was the show I wanted to write, the one I wanted to create, where there was no gimmick; you didn't have to have a teenage private eye. It was just these beautiful small stories about real kids.

I like something with a classic touch. That way, it's easy.

Because we've spent so much time promoting the album, doing radio shows where you play one or two songs, and doing interviews, I'm all about wanting to get on the road and just play.

It's a noir world. Unfair things happen.

Im not crazy, Im just a little unwell.

I swear, you are the only person I know who makes decisions based on what will provide the best material for a diary.

She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway.

Let your clarity define you, in the end, we will only just remember how it feels.

Some things you don't need until they leave you, they're the things that you miss

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell; I know right now you can't tell; But stay a while and maybe then you'll see; A different side of me

I would like it to be certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Music is a big machine that would go on with or without me.

I've had the pleasure of working closely with Marc Von Em as a singer, but when I heard his original stuff, I asked him to open up a 10,000 seat gig. Just him, his guitar, and his songs. He killed it!

Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it's still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. Because after disaster strikes, the important thing is that you move on. But if you're like me, you just keep chasing the storm.

We're all looking for something, something to be.

Let it go. Let it roll right off your shoulder. Don't you know the hardest part is over?

Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to tell stories, but I never had the patience to sit down at a typewriter and write short stories or anything like that. I started writing songs as a way of communicating ideas the best way I could.

Everyone's trusting in their hearts, like their heart don't lie

What we learned here is love tastes bitter when it's gone.

People think that we're crazy because we do six nights a week. I would physically not be able to take it, especially when you see how much he put into every show... He created this larger than life style and he pulled it off.

There weren’t many people in this world who would let you be vulnerable and still believe you were strong.

… Our lives are made in these small hours, these little wonders, these twists & turns of fate. Time falls away, but these small hours, these small hours still remain. All of my regret, will wash away somehow. But i can not forget, the way i feel right now…

It's the heart that really matters in the end.