The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.
And I love Mel Brooks. My Dad loved his movies, too, they're awesome, the kind of thing that if you're in for ten minutes, you're in for two hours.
I think Chicagoans have a great set of values. You know what I mean? Kindness. Morals. Ethics. People in Chicago do the right thing. If somebody falls on the street, someone will actually stop and help them up. That doesn't happen in certain other cities.
I quite clearly remember driving home at 9 a.m., after shooting all day, in a bathrobe, with bodypaint all over my face, and going through McDonald's drive-thru. I ordered a coffee to make sure I didn't crash on the way home. And the girl working there, she didn't even bat an eyelid. I guess it's a regular thing down in Hastings McDonald's.
I think suspense is a big thing.
Not eating breakfast is the worst thing you can do, that's really the take-home message for teenage girls.
We have mountain of debt that isn't going away and all the problems are here to stay, and anybody who tells you that is a good thing ought to get out of the business of helping the government down the road.
And I had an old-fashioned idea that dividends were a good thing.
The one thing I would like more credit for is being part of a movement which involves recognising the importance of plot and asserting that books of literary worth could be written that had plots.
I had a really successful 2013, '14, '15. Touring, just doing my thing. Super - I mean, can't complain about nothing. And my road manager got killed. And it ruined everything. Now, I tell people - I don't know if this is a word. But I tell people that that re-sensitized me.
News is so often a report of conflict, an account of problems, a thing of the day and even of the minute, that sometimes I think we make the background darker and the shadows deeper than they actually are.
The first thing I see is the obligation to serve peace.
Until I separated from Parker, I had never been without them-and it's the hardest thing to share them. But we're trying to give the children the semblance of having whole lives.
I don't think anyone can say I have said one thing in public and done another in private.
When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that's when you know you're way too close to something that you don't want to be near.
I don't believe there is such a thing as a moderate Islamist party. The challenge with Islamists is that they seek to impose what they call Sharia on everybody, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
What is the cruelest thing you can do to someone who is trying to concentrate? Call their name.
Internationally, President Obama has adopted an appeasement strategy. He believes America's role as leader in the world is a thing of the past. I believe a strong America must - and will - lead the future.
I mean, the competition is really created by the buzz around the Emmys. It's a totally subjective thing.
This whole 'Mondo' thing started when I saw Jack White perform at Coachella a couple of years ago. It was like a religious set, man.
It's such an amazing thing to be loved for who you are.
You want to stick with one sport and master one thing and be good, yeah, you might be able to go to more combines, but the life experiences and athleticism you get from playing three sports or whatever will stick with you and help you progress.
Rather than have it the principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament.
Retirement's the most wonderful thing. I get to enjoy all the things I never stopped to notice on the way up. After an extraordinary life, it's time to enjoy my retirement.
Mistakes can be good things, because it is an unexpected thing.
If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.
I had seen 'Avenue Q' off-Broadway back in 2003 and fell in love with it. I just thought it was the smartest, funniest thing I'd seen in a long time.
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
Jim Bakker. He's lost everything, he's ruined. And the worst thing of all he still has to wake up to her!
I've been very lucky with prizes. But the thing about prizes is that, when you talk about a prize-winning author, you can be talking about one that is well-regarded but doesn't sell any books.
Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.
I mean, first, almost all writers these days teach because they don't make enough money publishing to live on, to support themselves - people like Tobias Wolff, Anne Beattie, Amy Hempel, Stuart Dybek; a lot of short story writers, for one thing.
I've always thought Anne-Marie Slaughter would make a fantastic United States Senator or something. She's a real intellectual, but she's got enormous communicative skills and she's got government experience. The thing that drives me slightly crazy is the way we think about intellectuals as wooly, hopeless, arrogant, self-deceived, incapable.
I do believe the most important thing I can do now is to help young people understand the past and prepare for the future.
The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to thing when you have outlived the first interest and not yet the second which comes with a sort of mastery.
Philosophy is an odd thing. When we use the word in everyday speech, you know, you sometimes hear it hilariously.
