As a director, I've been able to combine with what I've learned as an actor and as a producer: it melds quite nicely into what I feel like I should have been doing all along.
Our objective should be to firmly deal with terrorism and its sponsors, financiers, and arms suppliers. At the same time, our doors should always be open for processes which would restore peace, development, and progress to societies which have been devastated by terrorism over many generations.
I should have been a Trappist monk.
I've been wrestling with Kafka since I was an adolescent. I think he's a great aphorist, a great letter writer, a great diarist, a great short story writer, and a great novelist - I'd put novelist last.
I've never really understood attachment to a place for reasons of birth. That my mother happened to give birth to me in a certain place doesn't, to my mind, justify any thankfulness towards that place. It could have been anywhere.
When I was working on the unauthorized biography 'Stan Musial: An American Life,' which came out in 2011, old opponents recalled how Musial knew their names after they had been in the majors only a few days.
I really want women to know their power, to value their experience. To understand that nothing has been more wholesome in the political process than the increased involvement of women.
I came to America, and I made good. It's an old story, but it hasn't been told in a long time. Usually, it's, 'I'm an immigrant, I came here and got persecuted.' My story is I came here, I worked hard, and it worked out all right. So it's still available.
I am 73 years old. I've seen everything. I've met the kings, the queens, the presidents, I've been around the world. I have one thing that I would like to do: to try to reach peace.
Some people will talk about how Afghanistan has improved, but they're really just talking about the cities. In the countryside where the war has been fought, it's really not that much better than it was in 2001.
When I was young and the empire was beginning to disintegrate, the idea was absolutely unbelievable, particularly to children who'd been taught that the sun never set... that's what all my books are about, the end of empire.
The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.
I've always been fascinated by the Chinese. This goes a long way back to my childhood. The Chinese invented money, movable type, clocks, and built the largest ships in the history of the world.
I've personally been involved in movies where people on set were talking about awards for the movie, and I bought into the hype. And then the movie would come out, and not only was it not good, it was horrible.
Emotional grandeur, rendered in the vernacular, has been Mona Simpson's forte. In her novels, 'Anywhere but Here,' 'The Lost Father' and 'A Regular Guy,' Simpson wrote wide and long and high about the most profound human bonds: parents and children lost each other, found each other, lost each other again, but differently.
America's space program has been the envy and inspiration of the world. It has made landmark scientific discoveries that are a lasting legacy of this nation's greatness. It has studied Earth in ways no other nation can match.
In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch.
Theater will cast in a more open way; Denzel Washington might play Richard III. Television and film don't really cast openly like that. The theater world has always been a leader in diversity.
My influences in this world have always been Crazy Horse and Malcolm X, my overall influences. But I was influenced by rock n' roll, blues, and country music. I was influenced by singers.
I lust after iPods or Mini Coopers not because they're unique, but because they've been so artfully made that I couldn't imagine doing it better myself.
When I got with Nina Greenberg, I had been running for a few months already without a trainer. But then she gave me a program and guided me through my runs, showing me how to take care of myself and letting me know I should ice my legs and stretch - stuff I hadn't been doing.
It's always a good situation to have the target be on you because that means you have been playing well.
Both my husband and I wanted a boy. I wasn't sure what I'd do with a daughter. What if she asked for a Barbie? I would have been like, 'Honey, we don't support Barbie because she isn't an accurate depiction of a woman's body.'
As a parent with a child with autism, it's been really tough to experience your child having autism.
Obama hasn't been divisive just because his policies are so unpopular, though that's a large part of it.
My own path towards wellness has been a long and dynamic one. It's taught me that healing from the inside out takes time and there can be great value in various sources of guidance.
Gay TV has been immensely important in transforming American culture in a more gay-positive direction.
I'm getting more and more comfortable out on the golf course with the changes I've been making. It's really just a confidence thing in that I love being in contention.
The V&A is an amazing museum, and the collections have always been a great inspiration to me.
The decision to retire was quite an easy one for me because by that stage my knees were so badly gone. If I had been like Martina Navratilova and my body had let me I would have carried on playing a lot longer.
Two of my grandfathers had been artists, lifelong oil painters, so I was exposed to art very young. I've always been interested in it, although I never pursued it as a career or even as an avocation.
I've had some wins. And been knocked down with defeats. Glimpsed views from the top of the mountain. And walked through the darkest of valleys. But through this entire ride called 'a life' - I've refused to give up.
If I have been fortunate enough to have risen to a level in this business where people would actually listen to me, then I think I have a duty to convey all truths that I encounter.
I always wanted to be good at something, to be somebody. The minute I got into my first play, which was called 'Excuse My Dust' - I was 17 at the time - I knew that this was what I'd been looking for.
I've been arrested several times. I've been known to dress in ludicrous fashions. I've also built a career out of negative reviews.
The study of history reveals that human progress has not been continuous and regular, but intermittent and spasmodic, often depending upon apparently accidental causes. It is difficult to get a cross-section view of society at any given stage.
