The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.
I was born abroad, but my parents were both English. Still, those few years of separation, and then coming back to England as an outsider, did give me an ability to see the country in a slightly detached way. I suppose I was made aware of what Englishness actually is because I only became immersed in it later in life.
Disco deserved a better name, a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form. It made the consumer beautiful. The consumer was the star.
My philosophy was, if I just do good work, someone will like it enough to employ me. It never made me famous. And I'm way, way too old now, mate. That boat's sailed.
I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
There is no country that has made as many concessions as Israel. Since 1967, we gave up territory that is three times the size of Israel. We showed willingness.
The first movie I literally ever made in my life was about two guys playing Stratego with each other. I had all my friends dressing up like the military characters in the game. So 'Battleship' is really my second board game turned movie!
The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.
I was made to be a perfectionist at everything I did. Everything was more important than what I wanted.
When I started with the national team, it was made very clear I was going to be the backup to Christie Rampone and Rachel Buehler. So for the first few years, it was just me training my heart out and pushing those centerbacks to be the best they could be.
They were taking pictures and everything. When we got down off the plane, the minute Elvis made his appearance at the door of the plane, the screaming got even worse.
The midpoint of the NBA season comes a little after the turn of the calendar year. As we settle into the new promises we've made to ourselves, basketball teams are busy evaluating how the promises they made to themselves over the summer are going.
And to any new fans we made along the way, I say... welcome to our party. It's just starting to get going.
In America there's no rights for the artist, so whatever films I've made kind of belong to the studio.
I had left school at 16, gone to stage school - and, until I was 22, I hadn't really played anyone but myself. Then in 1979, I made a film with Mike Leigh called 'Grownups,' which went out on the BBC, and overnight this new career opened up.
Look at the United States today. We have made mistakes in the past. We have had shortcomings. We shall make mistakes in the future and fall short of our own best hopes.
In 1975, no State or Church guidelines existed in the Republic of Ireland to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor. No training was given to priests, teachers, police officers or others who worked regularly with children about how to respond appropriately should such allegations be made.
My parents made us do everything, try everything.
Why haven't I made more movies? Nobody asked me.
I made the first Moebius strip without knowing what it was.
I have made 'start, grow and stay' a big part of my administration.
No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.
We might imagine that Jesus had many human faults. He failed most humanly, in my reckoning, when he killed the fig tree just because it didn't bear any figs for his breakfast; that was a disgraceful, bad-tempered thing to do, and to try and make a virtue of it by saying it was a demonstration of faith only made things worse.
People like Jeff Buckley, the Mars Volta and Bjork made me listen to music differently. You learn the voice is an instrument you can do crazy things with.
It is of great importance to note these meteors, even the small ones, as very little is yet known of them; and every observation, if carefully made, will some day help to show what they are.
I started in the era when Hollywood reveled in being the most cost-inefficient industry on the planet. They used to commission a hundred scripts for every one they made.
The original 'RoboCop' was X-rated, and then they had to cut it down so it became R-rated, and Verhoeven claimed that actually made the movie more violent, because it's what you don't see that actually scares you.
I made a supreme effort not to do that thing that parents do, which is to bore people without children to death by going on and on about how funny their children are, so there's none of that hopefully.
A quarrel between friends, when made up, adds a new tie to friendship.
One of the key problems is that the Germans know what they do because everywhere they go there's a 'made in Germany' label on it - they can feel proud of Volkswagens and Audis and Mercedes.
'Blue Velvet' changed my life forever. It was like I'd always read Chaucer and suddenly discovered Charles Bukowski. It made me understand that there is poetry of sublime ecstasy and dark terror, and it spoke to a side of me that hadn't been reached before.
All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.
I've been slightly obsessed with paper and notebooks. Among my most precious possessions is a small light-blue, breviary-sized volume - four-and-a-half inches wide, seven inches tall - made by a company called Denbigh.
As president of Common Cause, I joined a coalition of groups ranging from the Christian Coalition to Consumers Union, and we went to Congress with over a million signatures asking that Net Neutrality be made law.
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
This occasional sports columnist, who has been to his share of Super Bowls, had been glad to be home on Super Bowl Sunday, but the scary commercials made me want to be in the melee of the arena, where you are not aware of commercials.
