'A People's History of the United States' was actually a very big book for me. I read it in high school, and I felt like my mind was really blown by it. I think the truth is I read it because it's referenced in 'Good Will Hunting.'
As far as the creative process goes, I always make sure that anything that gets discussed or talked about in the record is true to form. I make it a point not to sing anything that I haven't felt or gone through.
The first think I did when I found out I was a finalist, was, I don't remember, because it felt like it was an out of body experience.
I felt like I was cheated out of my career in the UFC. In my mind and in my heart, I never lost to a foe. I never lost to an opponent. I lost to diverticulitis. That was my opponent that beat me. A lot of other people might have other thoughts about that.
I can only write a book like 'The Tin Drum' or 'From the Diary of a Snail' at a special period of my life. The books came about because of how I felt and thought at the time.
Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better.
When you're on this major English estate, breathing in the English air, and it's untouched, you can feel its presence. It's a whole different feel. It really felt like we were there living it. It didn't feel modern, ever.
I had very few friends. We always ate dinner with our parents. We didn't want to go out. American adolescence was a lot wilder than I would have felt comfortable with.
I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled, and thanks to money and fame, I didn't have to go far to find them.
Remember, I'm the kind of kid who used to get stuffed into a locker by school bullies. I've never felt like I'm a big star at any level of my life.
It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.
When we were doing a scene, lots of times we would collapse giggling, because it seemed so silly because it felt like we were doing a home movie at times.
I came from a family where I felt great pressure to be financially successful, and I felt that staying in Chicago and doing theater, I was, in all likelihood, not going to find financial success.
I felt vulnerable and very much between friends. I remember walking down the hallway and thinking I had no way of knowing what was coming, literally. This wasn't because I had some horrific bullying story, but because of a steady drip of negativity.
I'd rather play a tune on a horn, but I've always felt that I didn't want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you've got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it's better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.
I'd always felt very strongly in the power of vocation.
I didn't want to do the whole, get the hottest person thing. I wanted to make sure every record felt right.
When I was in third grade I taught myself ventriloquism... What's hard is to learn to be an entertainer and make people laugh. I was a few years out of college before I felt I had enough material. Then in 1988 I moved to L.A. and started to do some shows at comedy clubs.
For a sensation to be felt as pain is for it to be pain.
During the whole 'Jeopardy' experience, I felt like I was living a bit of a double life, I would be secretly flying out to L.A. to tape new shows, hoping that none of my coworkers would notice the absence and figure out what was going on. 'Jeopardy' tries very hard to keep their secrets.
I remember traveling around in Arkansas with Senator Robinson, and I told him what this little trick was. He felt very much part of it and had me take pictures of people unbeknownst to them.
It felt as if things were literally slipping through my fingers. Things were just streaming away from me. I lost my sense of humor. I'm still looking for that.
We didn't rehearse or play the songs to death before we recorded them, and that let us catch a freshness and energy level we've never really felt while making records.
Haven't you felt a peculiar sort of worry about the chair in your living room that no one sits in?
I just think people should find the music that helps them through the day and enjoy that. I've never felt like, if somebody does or doesn't like what I'm doing, it's a morality issue.
I chose not to go home and struggle with the New York scene. My size sort of locked me out. I was too short for the stage. I would have been doing character roles, so I went to Los Angeles. There is a lot more happening out there. I also felt it was important to break away from my family.
It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.
I've traveled to many countries in Africa, and to me, Benin felt the most hopeful.
I still have the desire to succeed, and I've always felt success is measured by what you've done in the win column, not top 10s.
I never felt that I belonged. When I was at school... First I went to a Jewish school, when I was very little. But when I was 12, they put me in a school with a lot of traditions, and they were educated people and they were talking about Greece and the Parthenon and I don't know what.
No, I always felt that amongst my core fans- because there was a level of popularity that I had in the mid '80s that was sort of a bump on the scale- they fundamentally understood the values that are at work in my work.
I'd go to swim practice, put my face in the water, and I didn't have to talk to anybody. Swimming was like my escape, but it was also like this huge prison because I felt like I had to swim up to people's standards.
What I find most interesting is how people really have taken Linux and used it in ways and attributes and motivations that I never felt.
Whatever character you play, it gives you the chance to expose another side of yourself that maybe you've never felt comfortable with, or never knew about.
We played some gigs in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I really felt the group was really a band in the sense of something I could write for.
I thought it was all a flash in the pan. It wasn't until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it.
