I always thought that people who live in the desert are a little crazy. It could be that the desert attracts that kind of person, or that after living there, you become that. It doesn't make much difference. But now I've done my 40 years in the desert.
I try to think of the social function of fiction as drawing the individual toward larger social and political questions. But I'm also very comfortable in saying that my novel - any novel - doesn't matter as much as larger questions of how we can see justice done.
Once you learn to look at architecture not merely as an art more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant.
I think a lot of scapegoating has been done on NAFTA. The reality is, a lot of the jobs have been lost mostly to technology. And that is something that happens well beyond the reach of NAFTA or any other trade agreement.
My belief is that if I can achieve that level of entertainment by making the audience happy or sad or angry, then I have succeeded as an actor and have done my job. The profits and the fame as an actor will eventually surface, but first and foremost comes the work as an actor.
I never want to let a day go by without having done something to get a little better.
What great writers have done to cities is not to tell us what happens in them, but to remember what they think happened or, indeed, might have happened. And so Dickens reinvented London, Joyce, Dublin, and so on.
My mind is always going. I'm always thinking what I need to do, what I haven't done, what I did do, what I didn't do as well as I could - I'm relentless that way with myself.
Every record I have done was because I was a person's friend. The only time we did not continue to be friends was if the record did not become a hit. If it did, we became great friends.
I haven't done a lot of studio movies, but studio movies and independent films are always just as fun as each other.
The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia.
I try to look on all the great things God's done, and not focus on the negative. It's a perspective.
If you're a good Amish girl, you're courting, you have three or four different beaus, and you go out and stay out all night. That's just their tradition. They date under the covering of night. No one knows who they're dating or seeing until two weeks before they're going to be married. It's how they've done it for 300 years.
My mom had done some TV and commercials before I was born, and so when I was born, she knew I had a really big interest in acting because I was always acting in plays with my dolls, and they were sort of boring, because I've seen them on tape; they always involved a lot of singing and dragging them around by their hair.
I do have at home the most ridiculous number of awards for what I have done, which is nice in terms of being patted on the back, yet it does cure you of caring about what other people say about you. Ultimately, you must have your own standard of what is good enough.
I've done things that weren't good, you know, but I made up for my mistakes.
I get noticed for different things I've done in different areas of town. If I'm in a rock club, it'll be Skid Row, if I'm in a mall it's the 'Gilmore Girls.'
The U.S. immigration laws are bad - really, really bad. I'd say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government's name.
Something happened when I was in elementary school. A Disney artist named Bruce McIntyre retired, and he had done drawings for 'Pinocchio' and 'Snow White' that was just classic stuff. He moved to the town I grew up in, Carlsbad, and he became a part-time art teacher at our elementary school.
I have done many movies that people hadn't seen. 'The Fountain,' I spent a year on that. 'The Prestige' with Chris Nolan, and 'Australia.' From my perspective it's very satisfying. Some movies people see and other movies they don't. 'Wolverine,' 'X Men,' I know that in some level people know me just for that and it's fine for me.
There are right and wrong reasons for doing solo projects, and this album was done for the right reasons. At the time there was no Judas Priest and I certainly wasn't going to hang my hat up on my musical career.
The projects I have done on television, they're sitcoms, situational comedies. The problem is, maybe because they go on every day, Monday through Friday, one-hour format, maybe that's why they're labeled as a telenovela. But technically speaking, they're sitcoms because they're situational comedies.
'Spamalot' was a blip! I've never done anything else like that, and yet it's the only time I've ever been nominated for an Olivier award!
Kudos to you for generating enough sweat that it actually drips off of your body - and all over the machine you are using at the time. If you sweat a lot, that's fine, but wipe down the damn machine when you're done... or I will confront you, and it will not be pretty.
I do think I have a lesser ability to remember facts and names than I have done previously, because you never have to store them; you just look them up again. I could make the same recipe 15 times, but I'll never, ever remember how to make it because I'll just look it up.
We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the '60s. But I found it impossible to hold a dialogue with 500,000 people. In a certain sense, it was numbing.
The first series I wrote, 'L.A. Candy,' was always meant to be a three-book series, so when I started out it was all outlined that way and by the time I was done with the third book, I had become so involved and the process and the stories, I was a little bit sad to be done.
Landscape architecture is basically geodesign; it's designing geography. And yet geodesign is not only done by landscape architects, it's done by some of the world's largest corporations.
Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives.
There's a lot of work to be done in the polling world, and a need to continue to rethink how we do what we do. We also need to be more open to the idea that any one input - in this case, polls - may not be the only way to hear what people are saying.
I have done theatre, and I enjoy the process of smaller films a lot more. When I do such films, there are certain things which I get to do which are untapped. The scenes give me the liberty to play and mould the character in accordance to the director's mindset.
We do things on an exchange basis in the music business - it keeps the wheels turning. That's how I can get people like Slash, Flea and Kris Kristofferson on my album. Collaboration should be done through trades rather than charging each other a fortune.
Listen, talk, be respectful of people - and make sure that you have openness to where people are coming from. And you don't do anything that is unnecessarily antagonistic, that is only going to make you feel good because you've done it.
I've worked with a lot of gay and lesbian organizations. I sit on the board of the Empire State Pride Agenda. I've also done a lot of work for Broadway Care/Equity Fights AIDS. I think it's important because, when we can be of service to others, it only enhances our lives. I've been helped a lot in my life.
I'm not a fan of any genre but am a fan of movies that are intelligent and/or funny. That goes across all genres: a horror movie, a zombie movie, alien invaders, chick flick, or raunchy comedy. If it's well done, I'm a fan.
I so rarely turned down a role, that I can't say I have any regrets in that regard. There were many roles that I would rather not have done, but having a home and family requires that we sometimes do things we would rather not.
