Beyond ethics, “Everything is copy” implies a stance of heightened attention. If any detail might matter later, you begin to notice the texture of ordinary life: overheard phrases, tiny contradictions, the way a room changes when someone arrives. The world becomes legible, not because it is always dramatic, but because it is always specific.
From there, the quote functions like a training rule. Writers, comedians, and filmmakers often cultivate this alertness deliberately—carrying notebooks, saving fragments, replaying conversations—not to hoard life, but to learn how meaning hides inside the mundane. [...]
