I always think that I'm not going to be right for a movie or that there's someone else who can do it better.
Through language, we can tell the truth and hear the truth spoken, just as we can be deceived. Sometimes it's a painful realization: we can be lied to. As I write, I think of myself as putting my eye under oath, so that what I write is the truth about my characters.
I think Al Gore has done a great service in making global warming cool. He's basically taken it from a nerdy, almost ignored issue to making it what it is - namely, a problem.
There are things I'd wish weren't part of ageing. But what you gain is much more than you're giving up. I don't think you come into your own until you're 35 or so.
When I was trying to come up with a stage name, I thought 'Lord' was super rad, but really masculine - ever since I was a little kid, I have been really into royals and aristocracy. So to make Lord more feminine, I just put an 'e' on the end! Some people think it's religious, but it's not.
I think, over the years, I've earned the respect of my teammates as someone who first got on the scene and wasn't internationally ready and has just continued to put in the work.
I think Australia is pretty much living the last day on Earth in a lot of ways.
In terms of the brain, you can in a crude way think of the human brain as a computer.
I often think of setting as an important character in my story. 'Dark Powers' takes place in Doncaster, a Maryland Eastern Shore community rich with watermen and historic atmosphere. I modeled it after a stunning little town called St. Michaels, but since a lot of bad things happen in Doncaster, I changed the name.
I'd been writing poems for many years, but most of them I didn't like. Then, when I was 23, I wrote one I did like, sent it to 'The Paris Review' - the highest publication I could think of - and they accepted it. No other moment in my literary life has quite come close to that.
Comedy is my favorite genre. I think it often doesn't get the respect it deserves, and I think one of the reasons is there was a tradition in the past of comedy looking kind of brightly lit and like a sitcom.
The only thing I think that is wrong with modern gaming now is the free-to-play stuff on mobile phones. I think it's very cynical and cold and weird.
If you've been driving for a little while and nothing's happened to you yet - and you've been texting and driving - you think, 'Oh nothing's going to happen.' But all it takes is an accident happening with one of your friends or God forbid, something happening to you, to really give you a wake-up call.
I think my parents had in mind that I would settle down at quite a young age, but I decided that being a housewife in a big country house wasn't for me. I wanted to leave the country, head for London and see what the world had to offer.
I think once a year it's good to look back at the history of Oscar and to embrace the great work that everybody's done this year and set it in place to the great work that's gone on before us.
Certainly I support the Constitution, and I respect people's privacy, but I also think we need to err on the side of protecting us.
People are used to dealing with risk. You are told if you smoke, you are at higher risk of lung cancer. And I think people are able to also understand, when they are told they are a carrier for a genetic disease, that is not a risk to them personally but something that they could pass on to children.
I don't really get shaken very much. People could heckle me, a spotlight could go out, I could forget a lyric... I'm not operating on somebody's brain, you know what I mean? So I just think it's all funny.
I think things can surprise you. I mean, I loved Instagram from the minute it started, but I think it surprised a lot of people how quickly it got huge.
I was born in Coney Island. I like to think I fell out of the womb onto the fun park's giant Parachute Jump while eating a Nathan's hot dog.
I think that you don't really want to write a book that doesn't really move people and doesn't get them to think.
If there was a distraction I'd get up and jump out the window. I was quite out of hand. In schools like that I don't think they expect that girls are going to behave in such an outrageous fashion.
I met Kim Kardashian the other week, and she knew who I was! I walked in the room, and she was like, 'I should text Kanye saying you're here; he showed me your music.' It's really hard to digest. Also, I don't think you should digest stuff like that.
I think I have always been a hard worker in school and in sports and everything. Growing up, my parents encouraged me to do that from day one.
I think we all miss our childhood.
Here's a thought: what if we ban the word 'healthy food' from our culinary vocabulary? I'm not talking about banning foods that are considered healthy. I'm talking about changing the way we think about food overall.
I think it's a mistake to treat different realms of knowledge as if they are some how fundamentally the same.
Many hated 'Selma.' Just because my voice and the voice of the people I come from is antithetical to so much of what Hollywood produces. I don't think what I'm saying is in particular radical or anything; it's just different from what they want to sell.
The first thing I do each morning is get out of bed and give my dog, Audrey, a hug. She's a Jack Russell. I think having an animal is a wonderful thing, particularly dogs. They are great levelers, there's no nonsense with them, and they just want simple affection.
I think comedy does have that powerful thing that doesn't seem too preachy because you're also making people laugh, so it's really kind of a good tool for messaging.
Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.
You think of George Washington, this man who was larger than life, and in some ways he was. But at the same time, he's just a person.
I just love ballads. I am obsessed with them, so I've written a lot of those. They just kind of touch on all the different types of emotions. Though, I think poppy, feel - good songs are underrated and not seen as artistic enough.
I really think that people's right to happiness shouldn't be dictated by some policymaker in Washington, D.C. I've come to know a lot of people that - sexual orientation is such where they're in love with people from the same sex, and I just don't think it's our role in the government to say, 'No you can't be married.'
What's interesting about playing Maura is that I get to use more of Jeffrey that I've ever used in any role, and I think that's the remarkable part about it and truly the most surprising part about doing this role.
I definitely think it opened doors for me and what was so fantastic about 'Downton' being showed over in the States, was that it helped get me noticed.
