The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.
St. Louis is the best thing that ever happened to me. I needed that peace in my life. And I've always been a semi-country boy.
I have a stationary bike that I do twice a week, but I'm not really serious about it. I just do it until I get tired. And then I have a step thing that I really hate. It's hard on your knees. I have a treadmill that keeps getting stuck. It's nice to have equipment around, though, because you can sit on it anytime.
I find that the most special thing to me is if you've connected to people in some way: If someone comes up to you on the street and says something to you, and you know it's meant something to them, and it's connected to some project. That, I find, is amazing.
I loved to watch cartoons and even made little stop-motion films in the backyard. At the time, I never really thought that it was something you could do for a living; it never actually hit me that people do that sort of thing or I would be capable of it.
I went through a phase where I thought nostalgia was a bad thing.
The pushy showbiz kid thing was always the performance, not the person. I'm very solitary. I don't like socialising.
I try to understand place on a deeper level than just the physical or environmental aspects. It includes cultural and intellectual forces, too. It's an inclusive approach that brings in many disciplines and sees place as a dynamic thing.
I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn't nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked.
To work on the actual location I think is great. This thing of going to Canada and pretending you're in New York, it's terrible.
I've read every Madonna biography. I've also looked up every pop star to see how they first made it. The biggest thing I learnt was that you have to be pro-active. You can't be scared.
For me personally, I think I just enjoy movies about werewolves or vampires because it's not like an everyday thing. It's something you can really escape into.
There's this whole thing of being two people. You are the person you want to be - the writer - and then there's this weird other life of going on tour and talking about the writing. And that really is weird.
My father loved poetry and music. But deep in himself he thought teaching the finest thing a person could do.
Having a child is the best thing that could happen.
I really didn't want to have my name on the center, because it just seemed like it was too much of a personal thing.
The last thing we want to see, given the success of the peace process, is the return of installations along the Irish border.
There is progress whether ye are going forward or backward! The thing is to move!
The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.
A skill required to be president is to explain to the American people any given thing they do.
There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day.
I got into this thing called the National Youth Theatre, and to me, that was all about the status quo. It seemed to me like 'Downton Abbey' - all the working-class and black people were playing servants, or the gravedigger in 'Hamlet,' and the boys from Eton and posh private schools got Hamlet, all the big roles.
I don't think there's any such thing as teaching people photography, other than influencing them a little. People have to be their own learners. They have to have a certain talent.
One thing I have learned in my painful career as a gambler is that bragging when you get lucky and win a few games will plunge you into gloom and unacceptable beatings very soon. It happens every time.
Music is my love and to me acting is more mercenary. I don't pound the pavements for roles: if it happens, it happens. I hate that auditioning thing.
It's a profound thing to watch another human being come out of your body.
I have gone on the air and announced my telephone number at the Washington Post. I go into the night, talking to people, looking for things. The great dreaded thing every reporter lives with is what you don't know. The source you didn't go to. The phone call you didn't return.
It's sort of a meat market, the whole awards thing, and I don't think you can predict it anymore - who's going to like what you've done, if it's worthy or not. And hopefully, that's not why you make a film, because if you're distracted by that, or only striving for that, you don't do it justice.
One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.
It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.
I see only defects because I'm not following the scene as it were. I'm not following the other person. It's like the best thing to clarify this is the theater.
A really big thing I've learned - and I think it's so liberating - is when you realize no one knows what they're doing.
If you are going to do something truly innovative, you have to be someone who does not value social approval. You can't need social approval to go forward. Otherwise, how would you ever do the thing that you are doing?
Rehab is one thing, but it takes years to get that attitude adjustment.
As an individual, and I have to say as a person of color, the thing about being an 'other' in America is I really feel like you're bilingual. I'm from a small town in Wisconsin, but even when I'm in New York and I'm working for MSNBC or CNN, you're used to being the only black person in the room.
We can afford to pay workers fairly, and it is the right thing to do. We also need equal pay for equal work.
