Once you know the fundamentals of cooking, then you don't need to follow a recipe - you just know what herbs go well or what meats, or what combination of what goes together, and then you can just branch out from there. But if there's something specific that I want to make, I work on the recipe and tweak it to my own.
It's a powerful thing to know that you are empowering someone to lift themselves out of poverty.
There is kind of a typical experience as a premier. You go in, you win a couple, you get out. Go serve on boards, take your head out of the political ringer and take on a much more private life.
I never sought out a record deal. It caught me with my pants down. I was just a musician doing my thing, I didn't even send my records out.
My cash cows, the slick magazines, were put out of business by TV.
I used to give out Mickey Mouse awards to people. I like Mickey Mouse because he represented certain values. He invested in people, was good to his friends and hard on his enemies. Once a year, I would have our management team from each division come to an offsite, and I would talk about Mickey Mouse.
When I was 14 years old, I had the opportunity to meet Buddy Holly. I asked him how he got that big, powerful sound out of his guitar amp. He said, 'I blew a speaker and decided not to get it fixed.'
I want to be ripped apart by music. I want it to be something that feeds and replenishes, or that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed against the rocks.
There's nothing I like better than going to my apartment, closing the door, cooking my little dinner for one and just tuning out. My apartment really is my haven. It's a nest where I go to heal.
There's no idea or concept in comedy you could do that hasn't been attacked from some angle. But if you start leaving punchlines out so you'll look cool, I don't get that. But I don't watch standup anyway, so I don't know what they're doing.
Each author has his or her own voice. I read each book slowly so I can see the patterns they use to spread out the garden of earthly delights.
My songs are self-explanatory... somebody pointed out to me that... my songs pretty much speak for themselves.
Hip-hop is really standoffish. It's really competitive and it's really about who's number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.
Twitter does have an effect on everything - things you put out there, they are out there for good.
With all of you men out there who think that having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life I've found out that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying.
Art shows and the institutions end up being the couriers for culture for the next generation and are an important component as well. It may seem ironic from one perspective, but I think if you look at my overall strategy, it's actually not out of step.
I think Ed Koch is the person most responsible for allowing AIDS to get out of control. It happened here first, on his watch. If he had done what any moral human being should have done in the beginning, and put out alarms, then a lot fewer people would have gotten sick.
Like a lot of business owners out there, I don't desire to face the continual flogging from government regulators who push burdensome and confusing state tax and employment laws on the business. It creates an unnecessary risk when, as an owner, I can just take it offshore.
I've been amazed to learn all of the links between microbial health and our general health. This all started by trying to understand fermentation. The fermentation outside your body, and its relation to the fermentation inside your body. The key to health is fermentation, it turns out.
I stepped out on faith to follow my lifelong dream of being an author. I made real sacrifices and took big risks. But living, it seems to me, is largely about risk.
Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had nothing to set alongside the resounding 'In the beginning' in the book of Genesis, where one eternal God creates the universe out of nothing.
I'm totally normal. I love watching movies and hanging out with my friends at my house. I still go to the mall; I love to text and go on my computer. I'm totally normal - sounds kind of boring, right?
Most of the time, when I make a big move, people say I am out of my mind. But I don't think about how I can add to what I have today.
It don't matter if you put 'The Dance' out, or any old George Strait song. Someone is going to think that it's awful. You gotta be able to just sit back and kind of laugh it off and know you're doing exactly what you wanna do, and if people don't like it, then it's not really my place to tell them they have to like it.
It's so hard coming out of drama school to claim your right to be taken seriously and even get auditions.
My respect for artists is very high. I think to get the most out of them, you have to liberate them. I think part of liberating them is saying, 'Come up with something brilliant, new, and fresh. Stop thinking based on what has been beat into you by executives or publishers in terms of what's going to work and what's not. Don't react, just act.'
Overall, we think religion is a good thing. I mean, if we were godless society, we would have many other problems; the communists found that out.
I've never really sought out publicity.
If you don't find time to meditate and get all that negative out, and if you don't have the right people being positive around you, this is a very scary job to have if you don't learn how to control your fear.
Playing a show before thousands of people is a highly unnatural state and when I get on the mat to do an hour of yoga before the show, I come out physically relaxed.
When women are starting out in their careers, they tend to be confident and look to aspire to leadership role and really want those positions. But then over time, as they advance, they become less confident and don't think they can attain those roles.
The war broke out, and I wanted to do something to aid my country in a time of crisis. I was too tall for the WACs and WAVES, but eventually joined the OSS and set out into the world looking for adventure.
And the two planes that were taking the band and crew that we had taken out to San Diego were flying out after the show. And so I was never supposed to be on that plane.
With a young-adult series, you need to get a lot of books out on the market quickly. Teenagers aren't going to wait years and years for the next book.
When I was younger, I did my first audition at 'Eurovision.' I was about 17. After my first audition, I blacked out; I was just like, 'I can't do this.' I'm not knocking it or anything - it's been around for years. I'm just very, very happy I made that decision myself. I think that's one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I'm not really out in the world all that much. I mean, I live with no phone signal, in the hills surrounded by trees, and I have, like, a mom and two baby deer that come by all the time, and my dogs and the squirrels are in a full-on feud every morning.
