It is Proust's implacable honesty, his reluctance to cut corners or to articulate what might have been good enough or credible enough in any other writer that make him the introspective genius he is.
Social media has allowed me to communicate with girls all over the world. It's always been really important to me that they know I experience the same things that they do and face the same insecurities.
I've learned during my life that if I am in hell, I make my own glory. I've also been in glory, and perhaps I've made my own hell, but I certainly don't take anyone down with me.
Staying in China provided me with the opportunity to adjust to life outside of North Korea and to gain a sense of perspective, most importantly, by learning that so much of what I had been taught about my country was a lie.
Two people have been really liberating in my mind; one is Wittgenstein and the other is Burke. I read Burke before he was a secular saint, before everyone was reading him.
It's sad to see such institutions as 'All My Children' and some of the others, like 'Guiding Light,' which have been on the air for, like, 40 or 50 years. It's almost unfathomable to see that they actually aren't going to be on the air anymore. It's really sad.
I've been lucky to be at companies that have been at interesting intersections at the time I've been able to run them and lead them.
As a writer, I can't be a heroic sword fighter like General Dumas, but I can rescue someone who's been taken out of history by using my writing to bring them back.
My father has been a major force in the popular culture for a long, long time. He's a fascinating person.
The U.S. presence and American missteps made ethnic violence in Iraq far worse than it would have been otherwise after Saddam Saddam Hussein's fall.
In the past, biology has been a backwater type of activity - a bunch of nerds in a lab. Now the sheer potential of biology to re-program our physical world is a new reality for everyone.
I'm honest and tell it like it is. I've been around the horn a few times and learned valuable lessons from screwing up a bit. So, if I can pass off advice or make someone smile on the way to work, I'm for it.
Head Start has been a key component of health, nutrition and early learning opportunities since the 1960s.
Analysis of soil, grave goods and skeletons has been key to our understanding of archaeology and the migration of peoples, as well as their daily lives. But in mainstream history, we tend to stick to documents.
All my life, I've been sort of a professional optimist, full of good cheer about matters political and journalistic. I always thought I'd get older and become an unnaturally cheerful old fart. But it's not happening.
I like to come up with lots of different sounds. So the final version of a song might have been 10 completely different songs before we finally got it right.
My mother was an English teacher who decided to become a math teacher, and she used me as a guinea pig at home. My father had been a math teacher and then went to work at a steel mill because, frankly, he could make more money doing that.
I've been pretty lucky with neighbors. But back in 1998, I lived, like, literally next door to Wrigley Field in Chicago. And I had, like, 50,000 bad neighbors spread out over the course of one summer. I'm a diehard Cubs fan, but living right next to the ballpark, it's just - as you're trying to go to sleep, you can just, like, hear urination.
I can't understand it when people are closed-minded. I mean, boy, have I made mistakes and been very wrong. I can't tell you the amounts of times I've been let down, but I still try to see the best in people.
I've never acted, but I'm an entertainer. So I kind of used what I know from being onstage. I've done a thousand and two interviews, and I've been on camera a million times, so I'm not uncomfortable on camera, but it was interesting for me to be someone else.
Unbeknown to me, my manager, under my very nose (in a crouching position) has all these years been secretly compiling a book from my correspondence. I often wondered what she was doing in my office. She never did a stroke of work for me. All the time, I have been working for her.
It's the ultimate pinnacle of stand-up to have an hour on HBO, but way more people see Comedy Central, and they've been good to me.
In contrast to our sinking taste, there has been a revival of interest in verse drama in England, Scotland, and elsewhere. The movement has been slow but sure and, above all, modest in its demands.
I was studying International Relations at Columbia when 9/11 happened, and it made me want understand the security dynamics of the world. I had been more focused on soft power issues - understanding different cultures and such - but once 9/11 happened, I felt like I didn't know anything about security problems.
It's hard to be judgmental once you've been around the world... it's pretty hard to be anything but understanding, and I think it's good for everybody to get out and see someplace other than where you grew up.
I've been very lucky.
In 'The Future and Its Enemies,' I argue that individual creativity and enterprise are not only personally satisfying but socially good, producing progress and happiness. For celebrating creativity and happiness, I have been called a fascist by critics on both coasts.
I don't know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I'm a great gift to the world. I've been very fortunate.
I'm a jeans and t-shirts kind of guy, but there have definitely been moments where I'm like, 'You know what? I need to upgrade a little bit.' I've tried to snazz things up as much as I can, with me being as lazy as I am.
I think all writers are different. I've been with a few writers; they're all different.
I've been pretty focused my entire life, and now that I have a family, I'm just going to keep that focus, but it's going to be a family focus.
I guess I'm lucky that I've been able to play a wide range of parts and a wide range of types of productions - I haven't felt much typecasting.
Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.
I have been to a few A-list parties, but not massively. It's not my life, but it's fun dipping into it.
I've always been a fan of science fiction. My family, we all used to watch 'Star Trek' together, which is kind of a nerdy family activity.
Traditionally, people have been adapting novels and short stories forever. Now, they're doing it simultaneously, with an eye towards writing the movie before the novel has even come out or been finished. It's a function of this hyper-accelerated society we live in, where everyone is trying to short circuit the process.
