I'm a huge Gaga fan. I have been since I was a kid. I actually camped out overnight to see Gaga when I was 17 years old in London.
One quality that a director needs to acquire in Hollywood is to understand the system and figure out how to work within the system to express one's own ideas.
Recording - once something's done, it's done, there's not much you can do about it. It's out there and you just have to pray to the gods.
When you gossip, it's self-hexing. Because when you do it, it comes back to you. Everything starts with the word. The word is demonstrating a condition of the mind. If it's in your mind and comes out of your mouth, it will be created.
I figure out who I'm playing opposite, and I really do study them.
I try to figure out how much of the character I can find in myself because you don't want to get outside of your skill-set.
In 1983, the government imposed a ban on the import of gensets. I was out of business overnight. I was in trouble.
I've come off horses and fought in medieval battles using axes, hammers and swords as well as fists. Getting your teeth knocked out is an occupational hazard.
Out of economic hardship can come change - we are suddenly cast onto our wits and our talents and our resources and our strengths, as we lose all the choices we once had.
I'm not sure I'd go back and do anything over in my life. I've definitely had my fair share of failures and moments where I wasted my time or that of other people, but if I did those moments over, I'd have missed out on so many lessons.
Do you want to get rid of the rules of the road? Do you want to let everybody just do whatever they want to do? Or do you want to really look out for the consumer, look out for the American people, and figure out ways to create and foster an environment where companies want to double down on America?
I knew what I wanted to do when I was 13 and I had to go through four years of high school to get out. That's a blessing, because I never had to lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling going, 'What am I going to do with my life?'
As a filmmaker, you put the film out there, and you just want it to be okay. You don't want to let people down; you don't want to embarrass yourself.
Sometimes I can see the whole painting from the outset in my mind's eye. But more often than not, that idea doesn't last the duration of the painting. Sometimes it comes out easy, just as I had envisaged. But that is reasonably rare.
Gold medals are made out of your sweat, blood and tears, and effort in the gym every day, and sacrificing a lot.
I rode all around Hollywood listening to Donna Summer, looking out the window - all by myself - just going, 'I'm number one!' It's a pretty extraordinary feeling.
I've recorded in Portuguese, too. I didn't set out to just sing ballads or romantic songs.
But it took me awhile to figure out Christine at this age, you know.
I think my favorite artists are honest artists, and as a songwriter, that's what you have to do. You have to be willing to put yourself out there in a really vulnerable way.
Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business.
I'm not good at narrative; I'm really a gag writer, and that comes from being in the newspaper comic strip world for a while in college. What I do is I just write tons of jokes, then I sort them out in terms of quality and then pick the best of the jokes and then try to form them into a plot. If I get a good theme going, I feel lucky.
I never believed I could write anything. No way - write a whole story? Figuring out all that plotting and symbolism? How do you foreshadow things?
I will come up with a project that will wipe out poverty in the Philippines in two years. I want to remove the people from economic crisis by using the Marcos wealth. Long after I'm gone, people will remember me for building them homes and roads and hospitals and giving them food.
I have never believed in the fallacy that the federal government can buy its way out of economic troubles through needless spending. For that reason, I am proud to oppose 'stimulus' packages and endless corporate bailouts, which will do little but weaken the long-term integrity of the American economy.
In almost any country, probably in Russia in particular, it's fashionable to criticise people in power. If you come out in support of someone like me, you're going to be accused of trying to ingratiate yourself.
I've been on swims where people have freaked out about sharks. You have to think about something else, otherwise it will absolutely paralyze you. I do math problems, anything.
For years, Ireland used to have a philosophy of 'Get them in here to invest and develop in Ireland, and this will sort out our problems.' It is good in the sense of building a trade surplus, but we also want to develop what it is that we offer ourselves and that Irish companies export abroad.
The ultimate first date? Something that is completely out of the ordinary - go crazy, because first dates are always a little awkward, so do something a little extreme.
In my dreams and visions, I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn't reach them no-how. I always fell before I got to the line.
My favorite spot to hang out is my home.
Well, Marx is having a comeback. I hear him mentioned a lot in terms of the global financial situation and the general sense of injustice out there. A lot of economic experts in America refer to him without actually using the M word, but he's around.
If you get music on a personal level, you are doing something right. It's not just in one ear and out the other.
I found I am not an anarchistic form creator; I'm intuitive, and I'm trying to figure out a way to explore human fragility.
When I have a family someday, I'll probably adopt. Adoption has always been something close to my heart. There are so many kids out there who really need a family.
If we can come up with a way of backing up my brain into another that I have in my back-pack, we'll do it. People talk themselves out of things very easily. Things that they think are a million years away, or never, are actually four years away.
Being creative is my idea of heaven. I'm just incredibly fortunate that I can do it in artwork. Watercolor is what I started out with. What I love about watercolor is that a lot of happy accidents occur.
