I've been working through Maurice Druon's 'Accursed Kings' series. They come highly recommended from George R. R. Martin, and for good reason.
There have been a lot of challenges over the years that I have overcome.
Everyone wants to be an arena act, and it's making country music evolve. People are cutting things more for that arena environment. But who's to say that that is a sign of any more of a successful career than what James Taylor has been able to do, when he still comes and plays the Ryman every two years?
How many of us have been attracted to reason; first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism.
'The Lion' all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, 'Let's try to make a story about it.'
I think I've been incredibly raw my whole career. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to look cool and spend time being guarded and putting up walls. I just never had the time. It seems more honest to say, 'Hey, this is who I am.'
If I was designing a web site for elementary school children, I might have a much higher percentage of older computers with outdated browsers since keeping up with browser and hardware technology has not traditionally been a strong point of most elementary schools.
I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World,' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story.
I paint. I have been painting since I was kid. If I hadn't gone into radio when I did, I probably would have come out of the Army, gone into the art business, and probably would have flopped because I'm not that great.
I've often felt that the Indian tiger has not been unleashed.
I'd say my focus is on the season, my focus is on making the Colts the best team in the NFL. I'm completely engaged and have always been engaged, even when I was in rehab.
American secretaries of state have typically been more buttoned up than bon vivant, but John Quincy Adams's diplomatic successes - bigger than anything presidential or legislative that he achieved - still surprise a student of his personality.
It could be - and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don't like it - that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.
When someone says that I'm angry it's actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships, which is part of why I'd write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman.
In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.
I've been in a very male-dominated business for decades. I found, particularly early on, that there's plenty of room for passion, but there's very little room for emotion.
There has been only one manager, and his name is John McGraw.
I first got interested in DJing when I was a little kid. I just love music... Music's my passion; it's always been my whole life.
Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I'm very grateful for the support and kindness that we've gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband's policies or what have you, they care about children and that's been good to see.
I've been acting since I was six. I actually played a boy when I was six in 'Tommy.' I played Tommy and they put a wig on me. They put up my hair and put this little boy wig on me and that was my first acting experience. Then I did some other professional theater. I did Shakespeare when I was older.
YouTube has become more mature, both as a platform and as a community. So much content has been added in almost every conceivable category that there are no more free passes on just getting there first. I think there are greater expectations for audience participation, the kind of participation that makes a real impact in a show's community.
Like everyone else, I've had moments when I've felt that I've been losing my grip.
I've been blessed to be somebody that's been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it's all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I'm saying, and it feels good 'cause it's good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.
We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
I think that one of my favorite movie roles has been a film that I did with Jason Statham that was out last year called 'Safe.' I played the main bad guy in that.
It definitely puts a strain on family life - I miss them like mad. Being a working mother I've been juggling house and career from day one. I want to hold out for telly for the second half of the year.
I think in certain areas the demand is greater than it has ever been, and my business is better than it's been in 30 years. The music business is so precarious, as you know-you've got to make it while you can make it, and that's exactly what we're doing.
The American people have been kicked in the teeth by unfair trade for decades.
They have been talking about a dictatorship and they were right because there's a dictatorship and there's a government that has been fighting that dictatorship, the dictatorship of the media.
From first to last the civilization of America has been bound up with its physical environment.
I've been trying to make a difference as an actor. I want to play characters that move people, have them look at their lives differently, or give them an escape.
I think women do have that fatal streak to them that's partly because it's been romanticized, the martyr complex - 'Look what you did to me!'
Since childhood I've always had a tendency to lean towards melancholy. My sisters suffer from it too, so maybe it's a genetic thing. But none of us has ever been on medication.
The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated.
I had some great mentors as I was coming up and starting to sing so early - I've been singing since I was four. I had people telling me how to preserve myself.
Music had always been the handmaid of the Roman liturgy.
