I enjoyed my upbringing, my siblings did, we're polite, we're respectful, but at the end of the day we're young, we like to have fun. But now, more so than ever, the youth has been vilified to the point where it feels like you can't enjoy being young any more, you just have to sit it out and wait until you get old.
I don't care if we're out of it or not, if I've got a chance to pitch, I want to.
I hated it when people tried to force me out when I wasn't ready. It was very painful, and it actually pushed me away from doing so.
When we started out in '64, um, I was playing Number One, which was a woman second in command of a star ship.
I simply told people what I thought about the state of the war in Vietnam, and it was that we better get out of this.
I know what is funny coming out of my mouth and what is not funny coming out of my mouth. You have to figure out, What is the joke that I can do that nobody else can do?
I do like to write about characters who aren't just starting out, who have had adventures before, who have had a past they aren't that happy looking back on.
Harvey Milk was a friend of mine, an important gay leader in San Francisco in the '70s, and he carried a really important message about how important it was to be visible, how important it was to come out, and that was the single most important thing we had to do.
Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work.
Forget all the bars and schmoozing and everybody checking out everybody else. My ideal date would be to park in a dark place, check out the stars, and have a great conversation. When all else fails, you can just make out.
I'd rather be shot than be seen falling out of some trendy club.
I always get offered the pretty, popular girl roles, but I want to do something dark, really challenge myself and get out of my comfort level.
You could walk the streets, no matter how hungry people were, not matter how long they'd been out of jobs, you could walk the streets, you could ride the subways in New York, and you would not get knocked in the head.
Kind of the exhausting thing about doing pure comedy, or something that's broader, is you're kind of a slave to the laugh. If it's not funny, then there's not much point in doing it. The kind of ueber-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, 'Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny.'
When I made my way across childhood to the tinny AM radio, it was dark. Lights out. I listened intently. More intently than I ever had before. Something was speaking to my unformed-ness like a long lost friend. Something that I had never met but forgotten nonetheless. I was 'realizing' that music was 'different' from other things in life.
In the life of a singer, it's not all triumphs and happy memories; there are days you have to go out there when it's the last thing you feel like doing.
Animals come from nature. They were not designed. All my inspiration comes from nature, whether it's an animal or the layout of bark or of a leaf. Sometimes my patterns are very bold, and you can barely see where they come from, but all the textures and all the prints come out of nature.
I've chosen not to live in Hollywood, and instead I live in Brooklyn, New York. It's how I like to live. I'd rather hang out with my kids and family when I'm not working. Going to premieres is not my idea of a fun night out.
The advice would be the same for any kind of fiction. Keep writing, and keep sending things out, not to friends and relatives, but to people who have the power to buy. A lot of additional, useful tips could be added, but this is fundamental.
You're going to find out who your friends are. Anything that happens in your life is one of those challenges. It may not be at the level of celebrity, but everybody's going to travel that road.
Comedians are sociologists. We're pointing out stuff that the general public doesn't even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.
People can't stand it when you deal with issues of race and class, and also sometimes the church, and you give a perspective that flushes out hypocrisy.
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
If you succeed with your first dream, it helps. You know, people trust you, possibly, for the second one. They give you a chance to play out your second one.
And I found out, the other part of it is that I found out and in my desire to life successfully, that baseball fit very well into my life. It's been a great teacher, trainer, mentor and you'll see what I mean in the next few minutes that I have to speak.
I live an hour from NASA's HQ in Washington, D.C., and sitting in a jam stresses me out.
The emerging economies, many of them are concerned. They didn't want the money to slosh in. They are afraid when the money sloshes out, but the tapering has to take place, and we have to be able to manage it.
Before 'Dancing with the Stars,' I'd directed a short called 'Man vs. Monday' that I sent out to all the festivals just to show I can direct and produce. It was also a template to launch a movie or a TV series.
If you're going to be alive and on this planet, you have to, like, suck the marrow out of every day and get the most out of it.
I'm trying to make order out of chaos, trying to find some way of rationalising the horrific things that people do or the way the world is.
Even as a kid, I would always imagine horrible circumstances in which I would find myself in my head, and imagine how I would feel, and act it out a bit for myself, because I was a bit of a freak like that. I love doing things like that, and I get a real buzz from it afterwards.
There is something about my aura or essence, or whatever, that draws the ex-wife characters to me. I don't seek them out, but people tend to think of me for that particular archetype, or whatever you want to call it, and I don't mind it. I think there is a strength to it.
The title of the poems was The Only Bar in Dixon. We sent it out to The New Yorker on a fluke, and they took them and printed all three in the same issue.
My favorite pieces that I've written, either for St. Lucia or for myself, have always had a transporting quality to them, where they take you out of the moment and somewhere positive that feels nostalgic and happy but sad at the same time.
We like our archetypes and heroes to be what they are at face value. And life doesn't work out like that.
My mother took my brother and I to a production of 'The Tempest', and it was in this very small - it could have been the basement of a church or a black box. The space was vast, but there were maybe 15 seats in the middle. Ariel came out wearing a nude sparkly thong and spike heels, and the muses had these gossamer see-through gowns on.
