I've worked with the old dames and knights - Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson - they're the most incredibly humble, kindly people because they are so big that they don't need to be unpleasant.
To be a great artist, you need to know yourself as best as you possibly can. I live my life and delve into my own psyche. It's more about exploring how I feel rather than making pale imitations of something that came before. We are unique beings, and the way we look at things is our own.
There's a need to keep the history of an artform going, parallel with the new work that's being done.
Movies are getting more and more expensive to distribute. You need a lot of money to get people into theaters.
I think that training is important. I think you need to learn as much as you can learn. I would say that it's important and probably crucial, but I wouldn't say that everyone has to have it.
Listen, I'm 41 years old. I've got two kids. I've got a career. The last thing I need to be doing is having a beef with A Tribe Called Quest. It's silly and it was unnecessary. It ain't the first time that a director hasn't seen eye to eye with a subject and it ain't going to be the last time.
Cannes is a circus, so you have to have fun with it. Everything suddenly becomes funny. And the promotion of a movie - that's where you really need to be a good actor. You need to make journalists believe that what you're saying is just for them and you've never said it before, even when you're talking about the same film over and over again.
The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country.
We need to respond to the mood of the people - that we must take the lives of the other side as well.
If you are messing around all day and then scream for certainty, you're not going to get it. If you spend energy and do the work and develop that certainty, you'll get to where you need to be, even if you don't know exactly where that is.
New Orleans has to learn to live with water rather than in fear of water, and we need a master plan that shows us how to do this. It's so critical that we send a signal to everyone in the country that we're serious about rebuilding New Orleans.
The government can help, but we need to make this transition now to a recovery led by private investment, private.
I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are the lot of every writer, no matter where we are in our careers.
I never grew up thinking the goal in life was to be a millionaire. All the way through college, I had a part-time job. I worked hard to get the things that you need at that age.
Our teachers are responsible for our children's welfare for the six or eight hours they are at school and we need to know without question that their safety will be paramount on the minds of teachers, faculty and volunteers.
The 1 to 2 billion poorest in the world, who don't have food for the day, suffer from the worst disease: globalization deficiency. The way globalization is occurring could be much better, but the worst thing is not being part of it. For those people, we need to support good civil societies and governments.
Just because you have kids doesn't mean to say you need time off. I have a lot of time off anyway. If I'm promoting my book, like, for the next two weeks, I'm flat out. But then I'm off again. And when you've got the next product, it's the same; you just condense it into a couple of weeks.
You need a good gardener and a good fisherman. The cook is not required.
In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.
It became clear to me that simply caring is not enough. To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws. You need both understanding and action.
There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.
We need to get our sons and daughters home and their responsibility for the security of Iraq needs to be assumed by Iraqis who will stand up and toe the line for their countries.
The only way to ensure that our promise to provide every opportunity for students with disabilities, and help them achieve their full potential, is to give our schools the dollars they need.
While Obama, the olive-branch poseur, has called for a restoration of 'civility' in Washington and liberal elites whine and whinny about the need for 'no labels,' class-warfare demagoguery has metastasized unchecked.
Women can't do everything at the same time, we need to understand milestones in our lives comes in segments.
I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.
I didn't need to write historical epics, no, or science fiction, though I read a lot of science fiction as a kid and rather liked it. But I didn't have the mentality.
I believe that anyone can cook a great meal. Basically all you need to do is get your hands on some fresh ingredients and not be afraid to make a mess in the kitchen.
It's ridiculous that time and time again we need a radioactive cloud coming out of a nuclear power-station to remind us that atomic energy is extraordinarily dangerous.
There's vultures out here. You need to listen and learn.
I think it's a myth that American public or any other public is so stupid that they need to be constantly pricked.
We need to address the systemic structural issues within the VA - the misallocation of resources, the interminably long waiting lists, the bureaucratic inefficiencies - to ensure that our American heroes are properly protected the second they return home from war.
It's the truth and people need to hear the truth.
Corporate America limits the world to consumerism. Science can limit it to the material world. Even religion limits it to a lot of theories that can explain everything. I think we need cinema to break that apart and remind us that we're not in control, and we don't understand as much as we think do.
But I think we need the international market.
I am very proud to be British. I'm very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well.
