I always gravitate towards the independent side of things, just because those are the stories I always fall in love with, but you don't really get paid, and living in Los Angeles is expensive, and I have a mortgage to pay. So it's good to jump onto a studio film and then in all my other time do small passion projects.
Coming from a big family, I learned a lot. Things don't have to be perfect. You can do okay with 'almost.'
I've always been comfortable thinking things through and doing it, more or less, my way. You can be as creative as you want, but if you're... unwilling to work on the details, to see those put into action, then creativity is just dreams, or worse, hallucinations.
The biggest lesson from Africa was that life's joys come mostly from relationships and friendships, not from material things. I saw time and again how much fun Africans had with their families and friends and on the sports fields; they laughed all the time.
When you write something you know, you're making a story that will work, whether or not there's bits taken. It's always funny to me when people say, 'Well, it's clearly autobiographical,' and I say, 'Well, how do you know my autobiography?' Certainly, there are things that are connected, but I just think it's a very interesting assumption.
No one raps about food like I do. I rap about fine dishes - like, all kinds of things that only real chefs and real foodies are going to know about.
I think if you study people in the street today, you do sometimes feel that they have taken their behavior and their language from things that they have seen rather than read - from soap operas and movies and so on.
My closest friend, who died not long ago, is buried near Marx's grave in Highgate cemetery, so I see the gaggle of admirers laying roses at the foot of his tombstone regularly. I have never been tempted to leave flowers there myself. Great theories, shame about the practice. Marx did many things. But inventing class was not one of them.
You can find things about me you don't like. And frankly, I don't want to hear it.
In my eyes, I will never be up there with the Sir Steve Redgraves and the Sir Chris Hoys of this world. It's not something that drives me; I just enjoy going to the Olympic Games. Just to be mentioned in the same breath as those people is an honour for me. I don't ever think about those kind of things.
I want to thank God, obviously for the health, for the talent He's given me, for my family who supports me, for the things that basketball's taught me on and off the court. For the people that I've been able to meet through the game of basketball.
The wind can be quite extreme in England. We are not familiar with that in Germany, and you have to keep things simple.
When I need things to happen, I need them to happen now, you know. I don't want to be having a meeting about a meeting about a meeting, which is what can happen in Britain.
I'm just a really normal, sensitive kind of go-about-my business everyday kinda guy. People see the tattoos, and they either read things or they see things and they don't really know that I'm just this guy that gets up and makes coffee in the morning and hangs out with his friends and walks his dog and reads his Bible and goes about his day.
I guess that's one of the things about growing up in the fifties - it never occurred to me that you wouldn't be at least as successful as your parents.
The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has worked life out and is handing things out to the poor people who might not have life worked out.
I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the only way to fill two hours, or to phrase things, or to order thoughts, or order ideas.
I often will state things strongly if I think that it's important.
We must protect the very things that make America so special - most certainly including our civil liberties. But we cannot do so without strong national security and a thoughtful and informed discourse.
The only thing that I can do - and the only thing that I've always done - is to ride my bike fast and get my head down and control the things I can control.
If you're going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.
Having girlfriends is... I can't do it. It doesn't mean I don't hang out with girls. It just means that I don't like being in a relationship, because it makes things very complicated. The one piece of advice that I listen to adults on - because I don't listen to adults when it comes to most things - is that I'm too young to have a girlfriend.
The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
When Marvel approached me about possibly bringing back a She-Hulk solo series, a few touchstones for a take immediately popped into my head - make her an attorney. Make her charming and fun, not weighed down by the various things life will throw at her. Give her a vibrant social life.
I actually had someone say to me, 'Lynn, you're going to have very good days, and you're going to have very bad days. But It's rare that things are as good as they look, and it's rare that things are as bad as they seem.' So having perspective, and challenging perspective, is important to making good decisions.
One of the few things I like about Bill Clinton is that he has very good manners. If his momma were still alive, I would congratulate her.
Scientists say, 'There is no such thing as time; gravity is a dust from another universe, and outside our own universe are many, many universes in all directions.' They speculate that attached to these universes are probably 6,000 planets identical to Earth. So are there things living out there? Animals, people, anything?
I do have a Twitter account, and there's a woman at my agency who got that all set up for me. I don't know how many followers I have. It's not one of those things I check on a regular basis.
I don't like things I work on to have political didacticism - there are questions, but not messages.
I definitely look up to Rihanna. She doesn't care what anyone thinks of her, and she's not afraid of taking risks and trying different things, whether it's fashion or music. She's all about what makes her comfortable.
Treasure the things about you that make you different and unique.
Political leaders still think things can be done through force, but that cannot solve terrorism. Backwardness is the breeding ground of terror, and that is what we have to fight.
Stop saying these negative things about yourself. Look in the mirror and find something about yourself that's positive and celebrate that!
Organizations like the ACLU fought and won the good fight back in the 1960's, but it's clear that nowadays they've run out of useful things to do since they now spend most of their time defending the scum of the Earth from getting what they rightly deserve.
Paul's the writer. Yeah, I wrote a little of that stuff, but that's just technically true. In spirit, and in essence of the truth, it doesn't matter. So I don't know, maybe I'm being foolish for not being technical. Yeah, I wrote a certain portion of the things.
Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It's transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's strengthening.
