I have a lot of influences. I like to sit down with the cinematographer a month before, and we'll watch pieces of 20 or 30 movies. You're basically the sum of all the experiences you've ever had, and they're sort of shaken up in you and reproduced in the things you create, and that includes seeing movies.
I wish I could help everyone to understand this one simple fact: we believe in God because of things we know with our heart and mind, not because of things we do not know. Our spiritual experiences are sometimes too sacred to explain in worldly terms, but that doesn't mean they are not real.
My father was a misanthrope who slept all day and stayed up all night so that he wouldn't have to see people. He ran a business with a large staff but would go there at night and leave things for them to do during the day when he wasn't there.
If you like 'The Nature of Things,' or if you like 'Quirks and Quarks' you'll certainly like Lee Smolin's writing, and 'Time Reborn' is his latest nonfiction book, and it's an absolutely compelling read. It's worth the time.
Humor is to get us over terrible things.
One of my personality defects, perhaps, is that I'm rather ADD, and I work on a bunch of things at once.
One of the things that a president needs in the face of genocide is resolve.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
Twitter can be incredibly valuable as an open communications mechanism, but if you close too many things down too quickly, if you think about it too short-sightedly, you could easily do a lot of damage to that ecosystem.
The whole idea of television news or any kind of news is to inform people about things they need to know about.
Of course, mankind would not have landed on the Moon in 1969, were it not for two things: conquered Nazi rocket technology and post-war anti-Communist paranoia in the United States.
As I get older, it's getting more frustrating because I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do after cycling, and I may be pushed to study alongside riding in order to prepare for retirement - all those things the professional blokes don't really have to think about.
I've always wanted to do a lot of things.
For me, meditation's hard because I feel like I have developed 'cultural attention-deficit disorder,' where, because we have so much stimulation, I feel like I have trouble focusing on things for very long. So when I try to meditate, my brain gets so scattered.
Science has not been successful by making up explanations of things that fit with the current social fabric.
I like to dress in edgy black leather and denim, but I like a wide range of things.
I admire fashion and I respect it greatly, but I don't necessarily follow trends. I never really have. I just wear what I like to wear. I really like colors, and there are some things I wear and don't care what anybody says about it being in style or not. I wear it anyway.
There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.
Learning about issues such as sustainability and locavorism are things that you need to have as part of you as a chef because it will make you cook more delicious food.
I don't think all comedy should be mindless. Have something that's thoughtful. Maybe some things are tongue-in-cheek; maybe some things are very direct. I like that people have to think about things. That excites me. Because if you say certain things, it starts a dialogue. Even if you disagree, it's still a dialogue.
My mom has this thing where if I'm doing anything doing dirty or crazy, she sniffs it out and yells at me. But the good thing is my mom doesn't have cable, and so much of the stuff I've done was on cable, so many times she'll miss it. I tend to gloss over the crazier things I shoot.
I don't see making films to entertain and making films to inform as separate things.
I tend to over-analyse things. I'm not the type of person to flip a coin and let things happen.
There's so many things that can go wrong in the execution of a project like a television show or a movie, so many little elements, any number of things, all the way to marketing - like they could market it poorly and nobody finds it and down it goes.
I go to the theater because I need help dealing with my life; I want to see the greatest questions addressed. I need to see actors grappling with things that matter.
I've always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute. It scares you a bit, but that's the way things are.
I like to give pennies to children, but unfortunately, a man cannot do these things if he lives in a small village or town where his face is known and seen every day. For children take advantage, as I know to my cost, and would gather round him like hens around a farmer when he scatters grain.
Reporting provides reminders that things are always more complicated than you think.
I think some things are just meant to happen; you can't change your fate. Maybe we have a small amount of control.
Ever since the kids were babies, we have treated them with respect. We are the mom and dad for sure, but we look for opportunities for us to sit down and say, 'How are things going for you? Is there anything that we can do as parents to help you? Let's all come up with a solution together.' We work better as a team.
There's nothing wrong with having a desire to want nice things. It's when we place that as a measure of the value of ourselves that it goes askew.
Altruism is one of the most fundamentally social impulses, and doing things for others without expecting anything in return is core to what makes us human. This is why, from the day Facebook Platform launched in 2007, Causes has been honored to be one of the most popular applications, with over 140 million users.
It is very annoying - things have been written by people who didn't know me at all or Princess Diana. They were written by people who never knew me or met me. It did make me angry. I just stopped reading the papers.
We only live once, and how would you want to be remembered? I have kids. I have, due to my job, a probably higher responsibility to do good things in my life. But also, since I was a kid, I love doing things out of context, helping friends, being different, being a special kind of man is important for me.
Reagan gave essentially the same speech from the beginning to the end of his political career, which was always, 'The American people are great, the government always screws things up, let's get the government out of the way.' On the foreign policy side it was, 'Communism is bad, and we're going to defeat it.'
For most people, it's easy to be passionate about things that are working out, and that distorts our impression of the importance of passion. I've been involved in several dozen business ventures over the course of my life, and each one made me excited at the start. You might even call it passion.
