If I'd been living in Berlin in 1933-34, could I possibly have foreseen the Holocaust and all the corollary horrors of World War II? And if I had, would I have done anything about it? I also started to wonder: how does a culture slip its moorings?
Obviously, there's the seedy side of the strip club world and pole dancing. But, pole dancing, as an art form, is really beautiful. It's been hyper-sexualized because it's associated with strippers, but if you think about it, just in terms of other kinds of dancing, they're using an instrument to create these amazing dance forms.
Well, in brief, I was discovered by a lady called Beth Boldt. She had also been a model. She used to take pictures of the girls she found, and she took a picture of me one day in my school uniform, and it all kind of started from there.
I have always been interested in pushing magic forward.
I have a nice boat that I got a couple of years ago that's a Skeeter brand that's 20-foot, center-console. I have it set up for saltwater and for fresh water, so it's been a nice boat.
It's been a good thing for me to try and understand America.
I like to cast actors I admire, one's that are talented. Each one will bring something new to the part. This play has been done thousands of times and now certain characters are too familiar.
When I was 14, I was the oldest I ever was. I've been getting younger ever since.
The resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder is met with both pride and disappointment by the Civil Rights community. We are proud that he has been the best Attorney General on Civil Rights in U.S. history and disappointed because he leaves at a critical time when we need his continued diligence most.
I'm a maverick. I've always been a maverick.
Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves.
I've always been intrigued by why people believe one thing over another.
I've grown up by the beach all my life, and I almost get anxiety if I haven't been swimming for a couple weeks or a month. It kind of builds up, so I try and get out as much as possible.
Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.
I think on balance, Don King has been bad for boxing. I think he's done some very good things and I think he did a heck of a job of promoting Ali but I think I could have promoted Ali.
I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world, which has never been done before.
The juke joint, the honky tonk, and the ballroom also represent one more thing, anthropologically speaking: a ceremonial context for the male-with-female-duet dance flirtation and embrace, upon which the zoological survival of the human species has always been predicated.
Marty Robbins once sang you give me a mountain, I've been given a few mountains in my life.
The book tour has been really interesting and very gratifying. I have not book toured before. I've never had quite as much pleasure, as much satisfaction.
I've been able to see some very impressive people that are in politics, and I've been able to see a lot more people that are much less impressive that I don't know if I'd want to spend my life working with. When I see sort of how the sausage is made, it's not very pretty.
I was the first Navy, Marine or Air Force person who had been an astronaut to return back to the Air Force. I had certain expectations about what would be a reasonable and desirable position to be assigned to after my years of service.
I've been lucky in life, that's for sure, but it all started with being born in the greatest country in the world - New Zealand.
I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.
It has been pointed out to me, more than once, that for someone who chose a profession steeped in procedure and protocol, I had little use for either.
For my books of nonfiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. I've been a Yankees and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades, so I wrote 'Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man.' It's more the story of his great courage than of his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges, and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig.
It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.
I've been through a couple of mergers - they're not that fun. And it's easy to lose your focus on this grandiose mission you established for yourself as an independent company.
Neoconservatism had the philosophy that you go in with a supply-led approach to impose democratic values from the top down. Whereas Islamists and far-right organizations, for decades, have been building demand for their ideology on the grassroots.
Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.
I had always been feeling uncomfortable in my mind about giving advice to others and not acting upon it myself.
Panic! for me has been an outlet for nonchalant chaos. It gives me full ride to fulfill this dream that anything is possible because of this band.
While I have always had a good relationship with my father, much of the time it has been a very limited relationship until I was older. So you can't really give him credit or blame for how I turned out.
I've been to Australia several times, and I just like the earthiness; it's part of the culture. That's a really good vibe to be around.
I had been playing single note instruments and I wanted to hear a guitar played as a piano.
Rasputin's daughter understands the revolution. She would have been an outsider, a spectator in the royal family and to the revolution.
