That arrogance of youth and that kind of ignorant confidence can get you through a whole lot of things, and then life does its stuff, and you get smashed around and beaten up. You get full of doubts, and you end up making a person out of those bits and pieces.
What I always wanted to do when I was a kid was to speak out and help people which I continue to do afterwards.
You know I've got a chum, a smashing mate, he's got a dog with no legs, and he calls it a cigarette. It's true, yeah, because at nighttime he has to take it out for a drag.
Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.
Bigger stories are made out of longer acquaintance with fact and character, but I also love the tiny stories in which almost everything has to be inferred and imagined.
I will stay in the car until the last minute that I'm going to jump out and do a standup or jump out and do some interviews.
People will say, 'How do I get abs like you?' I don't know. We're all different. If my girlfriend did what I did, hiking and yoga for a workout, it would affect her body in a different way. That's the message that I really want to get out there. I'm trying to counteract that culture.
I'm probably a natural uncle. I can take the kids out and have fun with them and look after them, and I can be Mr. Popular. But actually having to do the grind? That stuff just doesn't appeal at all.
The only time I'm not Hulk Hogan is when I'm behind closed doors because as soon as I walk out the front door, and somebody says hello to me, I can't just say 'hello' like Terry. When they see me, they see the blond hair, the mustache, and the bald head, they instantly think Hulk Hogan.
The Web is the new way to figure out who's hot and what's not. You can't let TV dictate because it's so polished, so political. It is what they want you to know. The Internet is the raw.
Let's say, 100 years ago, I'm not sure how many people had to empty out their relatives' homes; they just stayed in the same house, because they lived there. Nowadays, almost everyone, at least once in their life, somehow, has to deal with this experience.
I'm a very private person. I don't go out much. I'm home with kids. I go to work. I don't really like being the focus of attention, which is why I like being behind the camera more.
When I was a kid, my parents never let me use race as an excuse. They'd say, 'When you walk into a room and it's all white, those kids have to work to stand out, not you.'
When you have a high-volume magazine or an assault weapon, you're not hunting deer or protecting your home; you're out to hunt people.
Once kids begin to realize that they are connected to a greater good and greater whole, then that will lessen the possibility that they will act out violently because it creates empathy.
I should get a few ribs taken out, because I'll be in a corset for the rest of my life.
What you don't do, if you're an adult, is decide that you're going to budget things through a sequester. What does that word have to do with budgeting? It's like if you have a family budget and go, 'We really don't know what to take out economically from the budget, so we're going to whack out protein for this week.'
Seeing what you want from life from the inside out, rather than from the outside in, is the most important thing.
Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Find out what you're capable of.
I don't have secrets in my life. Everything is out there.
If you don't already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.
The thing I like about singing duets is that I get things out of my voice I never get singing by myself.
If a cow walked into this room, I'd probably walk out. I could milk it, but my dad never forced me to do a lot of chores like that, mostly because he loved doing it himself.
I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else.
This is the time for me to step out and show that I don't just want to play the nice guy roles, and I think I'll find out what my limits are.
I am a human being. I started out with virtually nothing. I worked my way up like so many businesspeople have and made ourselves great in this country. And that is what we have to make sure we preserve for our grandchildren and future generations all the way through.
If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing.
I used to watch the old 'Flash Gordon' series on TV, and it was thrilling to rocket to the planet Mongo every week. But after a while, I figured out that although Flash got the girl and all the accolades, it was really Dr. Zarkov who made the series work. Without Dr. Zarkov, there could be no Flash Gordon.
If your character is just out there acting a fool, viewers are gonna say, 'Why am I watching this?' But if he's whispering, 'I don't really want to die,' there's a level of vulnerability cemented in these bad characters.
Probably more than anybody else, I loved Nat 'King' Cole as a performer - not only his singing but his piano playing. Whenever he had a new record come out, I'd get it and try to learn how he was playing. And he was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.
I feel confident writing on my feet with improv, but it's different when you're sitting down and writing it out.
The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What's happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It's going to make the situation worse.
If you want an alternative currency, check out gold. It has stood the test of thousands of years as a store of value and medium of exchange.
It was probably my parents who inspired me most. My father was a scientist and answered my scientific questions, while my mother took me on walks and showed me birds and plants. She also took me out at night and showed me the constellations and the aurora.
When 'Catch Me If You Can' was published back in 1980, I never dreamed that it would become a bestseller, much less a major motion picture and now a big Broadway musical. What's amazing about the book is that it has never gone out of print.
The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, 'I'm not interested,' or you're unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don't understand that, and I think it's rude. You're at Grandma's house, you eat what Grandma serves you.
