I wrote all the lyrics on 'Good Vibrations' and most of them in 'Kokomo.' 'Kokomo' was extremely popular and fun to sing - it's probably one of the bigger sing-along songs in our show. But then 'Help Me Rhonda,' 'Surfin' USA' and 'California Girls' and 'I Get Around' and 'Fun, Fun, Fun' are great songs as well.
My father was an American who could cuss in Italian and make an aria out of it. It was wonderful to watch. But then again, he was a Gemini. I believe in that stuff.
My parents got me in trouble when I was in school because someone was getting bullied, and I didn't do anything about it. I just watched it happen and then came to the school, and I got cussed out for not helping and not being a part of it.
I'm relatively physically adept and I like throwing myself around. Once, twice, but then you get to nine, ten, eleven and to try and make it look realistic all the time, that's not very pleasant.
Toting around a full orchestra on tour is very ambitious. I would consider doing a show now and then, like do a show at Radio City or Carnegie Hall with a full orchestra.
If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade - animals skinned alive - then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.
A need for enforcement implies the possibility of behavior that violates the rules of the game. The point is that if there were no possibility of violation, then you wouldn't need enforcement.
The things I talk about and explain couldn't happen - yet, they don't seem impossible - you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane - and it's trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
You have to give guys tools to win with, and if they have success with them then they believe in you. If you don't have anything in your bag to work with, then they won't believe.
I've been writing on my own. It's like Roger Miller used to say, every now and then, like a dog having puppies, you have to crawl under the house and do it yourself.
When you're a stay-at-home mother you have to pretend it's really boring, but it's not. It's enriching and fulfilling, and an amazing experience. And then when you're a working mother you have to pretend that you feel guilty all day long.
For years that may mean imitation. Then, one day, it is like a door opening, and a new thought comes in. Why not try this instead. Suddenly he is doing something original, almost in spite of himself.
Innovations in science and technology are the engines of the 21st-century economy; if you care about the wealth and health of your nation tomorrow, then you'd better rethink how you allocate taxes to fund science. The federal budget needs to recognize this.
So I remember both medicine, because I frequently sick, particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then, and in religion I had a strong sense of there being a patriarchy.
I turned popular music on the radio, and I never listened to it again after that, in about 1985. That's when I switched over to classical music, and I pretty much stayed with that since then.
I don't understand if it was, like, Palestinians were here, then it was called Israel, and that's the problem, or they never had their land. Everyone just goes back and forth. So it seems like everyone can just have a piece... call the whole thing something else.
And then what makes the work interesting is if you choose the right questions.
If your strategy calls for you to be in America, then you will go into America. If your strategy calls for you to be in M&A, then you'll do an acquisition. You usually acquire a company to acquire technology, geographic advantage, etc. Similarly, geographic expansion is very much like M&A. It's done to advance a strategy.
If Senator Obama becomes pro-life then I'll consider giving him my vote.
I routinely oscillate between exultation and despair. Maybe at the end of the day I feel pretty good about what I've written, but the next morning I see that it's crap. Then I start again - make a new outline, do some more research, try to rethink the whole question.
New York - I'm connected. This is my core. I feel like if I'm not connected to New York, then I don't even know what to do with myself.
I'm reading a lot of different books, but I always think I have to switch it up a little bit. It's like food - everything in moderation, same with my books, same with my reading. You read books that are good for you and you learn a lot of stuff, then you read 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' which is like candy.
I never know what I'm going to write next. If I'm still writing the book but I'm very near the end, and I begin to think of what I'd like to do next, then I'll know that what I'm writing is in hand. I'll think of an ending and it will be fine.
When Steve Jobs toured Xerox PARC and saw computers running the first operating system that used Windows and a mouse, he assumed he was looking at a new way to work a personal computer. He brought the concept back to Cupertino and created the Mac, then Bill Gates followed suit, and the rest is history.
I guess my tendency is to think essentially that the new wrinkles won't do the job if the old major idea didn't, and so you have to try something different. Then maybe they can all be combined in some coherent piece.
Only do what you feel called in your heart to do, and then give all of yourself to the task.
Consumer society tantalises us. We then try within ourselves to control the needs that are being constantly stimulated.
You know, as a young child, I lay in my bedroom and I swore to myself then: 'I'm not going to smoke and I'm not going to drink.' And I said I'm not going to just say that when I'm a kid. I'm going to stick to that as an adult. I kept that in mind my whole life.
You're not allowed to write about me if you haven't seen 'The Shawshank Redemption.' See it and then get back to me.
The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.
Being on Oprah? You realize that there are a couple of types of audience members. There are like the cult people in the audience who are just crying before she gets on. And then there are the people who are playing it cool. I definitely was somewhere in the middle.
If I have to get into a bikini, then I eat carrot sticks for three days.
As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays.
I wrote 'Mr. In-Between' very quickly when I was about 23. I wrote the penultimate chapter, then realised I'd done something which was written to the best of my abilities. I panicked. I hesitated to finish the final chapter and went into withdrawal for three years. I decided to pick it up again after I went drinking with author Tim Binding.
My mantra is: put your brain into gear and if you can add to what's on the screen then do it, otherwise shut up.
