I love the idea of a website/blog being a catalyst for propelling people out into the world, and I enjoy it most when people write me to say that their world looked or smelled or felt a little different because of something that I wrote.
I just felt like I'd rather listen to even the worst metal song more than most current pop music.
I'm a little bit superstitious, and I think that just comes from playing hockey. I won't avoid the number thirteen. A big one for me, though, is walking under a ladder. I've always felt like that's tempting fate. That's just throwing it right in their face. Check me out. I just walked under a ladder. What are you going to do about it?
One of the most startling events in my life was when my older son was about 16, and he blamed me for all the troubles of the world. So I, I felt like telling him, 'Oh no, I was just like you when I was your age; I wanted to change the world, too.'
Playing music has always felt very natural. You know, you do try to do other things, and you do learn lessons that way, but, eventually - well... if your dad is a plumber, you become a plumber. It's the family business, and I felt like I was taking over the family business.
Right before I got 'Sons of Anarchy,' I actually quit acting for 18 months and didn't read a single script, and I wrote a film. I felt like I needed to do something that I had control over, as an artist, and also just do something where I felt like I had some control over my life, as just a human, out in the world.
I have felt many times trapped by 'Star Trek.' It cost me dearly. It won't anymore, because I've come to grips with what it is and where it fits in my life.
When I started making my tracks in the style that people call tropical house, I didn't do it on purpose to make it sound tropical. I made whatever I felt sounded good. I just wanted to make my own thing, and then suddenly people started calling it tropical ... I'm like, 'Yeah, that's probably a good name for it.'
I felt I would have the most creative freedom making experimental films and teaching, as I had many good examples of people around me who did just that.
I feed on other people's creativity, photographers, artists of every kind. Sometimes a feeling that you get listening to a song can be so powerful. I've wanted to write whole scripts around what I felt just listening to a piece of music. I think music is important, and surrounding your visual field with stimulating things.
When I was a young boy, I preferred cats to dogs. From the age of seven or eight onwards I just felt more comfortable with cats. And I felt more comfortable with girls, I didn't really like hanging out with guys. When I was about ten or eleven, I was friendlier with the girls in my school than with the guys.
First let me report that the art in the Barnes Collection has never looked better. My trips to the old Barnes were always amazing, but except on the sunniest days, you could barely see the art. The building always felt pushed beyond its capacity.
A lot of people I went to college with felt like they wanted to pursue theater exclusively, so I don't think that I really was in competition with people that I went to school with.
I'm happy that I have my family, and I'm happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing's changed, really.
Throughout my life, I always remember that consideration of people who were less fortunate than we. We lived in an atmosphere of awareness, and we certainly did not live a life whereby we ignored, or felt that we could ignore, that which was in evidence around us.
That's why I felt so at home when I went to Africa. It didn't matter that I was halfway around the world in a foreign country, because all those elements are universal. And I think that's one thing about my work: It's universal.
When I am on my deathbed, I don't think I will be thinking about a nice pair of shoes I had or my beautiful house. I am going to be thinking about an evening I spent with somebody when I was twenty where I felt that I was just absolutely connected to them.
There are times when it's absolutely appropriate to march up to someone, stick out your hand and introduce yourself, and times when it's best to let your male cameraman or producer do the talking and hang back until you've felt out the situation.
I think we all have our demons and our various shortcomings, and it would be nice if people felt more gently about other people, but also about themselves.
Although I started off as a child artist, I left acting in between, as I felt that I was missing the fun of school days. But a little later, I became keen on acting again and started going for auditions.
For a long time, I was almost ashamed of being an actress. I felt like it was a shallow occupation. People would be watching my every move.
Here's the thing: I left Ion Storm and Eidos in the spring of 2004 frankly because I felt out of place at that company.
I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn't have the recognition that I have now.
September is my favourite month, particularly in Cornwall. I felt, even as a child, that if you get a wonderful day in September, you think: 'This could be one of the last, the summer is nearly over.' If you get a wonderful day in May, you think: 'So what, there's more coming.'
When I decided to become a Christian and decided to change my life and just totally quit screwing up, it was like, 'Wow, why didn't I do this before?' No hiding anything. I just felt so much better, not only about myself, but my future, my family. It was awesome, and it didn't take me long to realize that.
It's always felt natural, because I'm generally very comfortable with people.
For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.
I never thought I'd be doing TV. I've always loved it, but I felt like I was just going to do Broadway because that was what I wanted to do the most.
I'd love to become like Bill Murray, who was so funny on 'Saturday Night Live' and has gone on to do some of the landmark comedies people like. And then to add this whole other phase to his career with 'Lost in Translation' and 'Rushmore.' I always felt to be able to have something similar to that would be great.
Having been an actor in Hollywood for a certain amount of time, I always felt a pressure to be sort of a neutral person. 'Don't do anything to your hair. Don't tell them your age. Don't tell them you're gay. Don't tell them anything that could limit you, specify you as a person.' I always hated that, actually moved out of L.A. because of that.
The first time I voted, I voted for Eugene McCarthy and I knew he wouldn't win, but it felt so great to vote for him, to vote for the right guy - the one who wanted peace.
In the past, I've been a bit diffident about my own albums, almost excusing them for some reason, even though deep down I felt strongly about them.
Everyone's talking about how no one is buying records any more, but to me it's quite logical. In the 1990s, music was so hardcore-marketed to a certain group of people that I think a lot of kids felt taken advantage of.
By the time I turned 18, I moved into a little chalet of my own and felt very grown-up.
Newspapers are busily experimenting with different models. Traditionally, and I suspect in hindsight very mistakenly, online news was free. And once given free access readers felt it was their entitlement.
I went through all these different phases. But it always felt like I was impersonating something, so I went back to some of the music I grew up with, like music from South Africa and the '80s stuff. I stopped suppressing it, and I stopped trying to be cool.
