When 'Twin Peaks' happened the first time, I was a stage actor in Seattle. I was called in for an audition for this pilot, and at that time, it was called 'Northwest Passage,' and nobody knew anything. I thought, 'Oh, okay, Lewis and Clark.' And from that moment, I fell down the rabbit hole.
I had no interest at all in opera or singing. I saw my fellow students struggling with their scores, laboring to memorize operatic roles, and I thought, 'That's not for me!'
During the New Deal, people thought to be liberal was to reject socialism on one extreme and fascism on the other, and to preserve capitalism through regulation and a social safety net.
I got a bike when I was little, a BMX. I called it 'Fido Dido' after the tough little cartoon guy with spiked hair. I thought he was the coolest thing ever.
I watched the moon landing as a boy, and I thought that was the most exciting thing ever, going into space, orbiting Earth and exploring other planets. That looked fantastic.
I finally said, 'I don't care if you're the first person in your family to be a lawyer.' Everybody thought what I was doing was really exciting, but it was not moving me one bit. And that's when I decided to join city government in Chicago, and that changed my life.
With 'The Last Picture Show,' Peter Bogdanovich brought the script to the company that made it. They liked it, and they gave him the money he needed to make the film. He cast it with the actors that he thought were right for the parts. Now, it's the reverse.
As soon as I was introduced to ice speed skating, I was instantly hooked. I never thought about pursuing skating professionally; I just enjoyed doing it.
I went to school for engineering, I studied jazz. So I always had this kind of creative side and technical side, and I thought architecture might be the way to combine them, so I went to architecture school in New York.
I wasn't that great in sports. I started doing children's theater and loved it. I thought I had a great thing going with musicals. I thought, 'I can do this. It's fun.' I wanted to go for it, and I thought I'd like to make a living doing this.
I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
I always loved to gamble. I never got close to a horse. Fate dealt me a terrible blow when it gave me a good horse the first time out. I thought how easy this is. Now I love being around them.
Everyone has an 'I thought Elliott was crazy' story.
One of the things I liked about playing Tony Gates in 'Line of Duty' was that I don't think he gave much thought to justifying his actions until he was under investigation.
I've forgotten what it's like to remember. I've lost the mindless confidence that a moment, an idea, a thought will be there for me later, the bravado of breezing through experience in the certainty that it will become part of my self, part of my story.
I did a song in eight minutes. I thought everybody could write songs that fast. But working with a lot of them, they don't.
Most of the musicians that I know almost to the man everybody uses Apple computers. They've thought of the steps that you're going to think of when you're trying to create your thing. And that's where the tools get invented to make better art.
People want to be thought of as something other than a source of money. They want to be thought of as creative, thinking people.
I grew up in the era of Britney Spears, where artists had songs written for them, and you got up and sang them. That's how I always thought it was.
I sometimes buy albums that I don't like now, but that I know I will like. Coming out was the same thing. In high school, I thought, 'I know I'm going to have to deal with this, but I'm not confident enough now.' But when I finally did, my whole life changed.
I'm not sure whether I've been happy. After my last book tour, I sat on my balcony with a cup of tea. I thought: 'You can't rewind the movie. I've spent more than half my life in the Middle East. There have been great moments of horror and depression and loneliness.'
I never really thought about the fact that there weren't female role models, because I had them in my life. The women I knew in my life were so strong.
Intuition enlightens and so links up with pure thought. They together become an intelligence which is not simply of the brain, which does not calculate, but feels and thinks.
I guess what all artists want is for their work to touch someone or for it to be thought provoking.
I get a lot of responses to my movies. Some people say, 'Oh, I thought it was really funny - I hope that's okay!' And my answer always is 'Yes. It's totally okay.'
At first, I did have that thought, like, 'Oh crap, what are we going to do after?' Then I realized 'Girl in a Country Song' was an honest, truthful song, and we were telling our truth, and that's all we have to do - write songs that are true and tell our stories.
I think that the practice of writing every day was what made me remember that writing doesn't have anything to do with publishing books. It can be totally separate and private - a comforting thought.
I loved being a redhead! I always wanted to try it. I was obsessed with Lucille Ball growing up. I really wanted to try it but I always thought that doing it would ruin my hair.
Bret and I were friends, but we were young, and we made bad decisions. We couldn't see outside the wrestling business. It was the end-all, be-all. You were in that box constantly, so that's all you thought about. It affects your decision-making.
Buffalo Springfield had three guitar players, and we thought they were so cool. So we started doing the three-guitar thing, and people started calling us the 'guitar army' and all this stuff.
I was 38 years old when we started trying to have a baby. I thought it would be no problem, but the 3 years it took us was the most difficult period of my life.
I thought, I need to be more cautious about my choices - it reflects on who I am.
I observed a man sourcing candle wax from South America and selling it to Japan. I thought: 'That's unbelievable. Talking on the phone in his office, that man made money moving candle wax from one country to another.' It really interested me.
I think it'd be cool to be in film and television, but I never thought that would happen.
I would remake 'Club Paradise.' I thought the story was cool, the setting was great. Everything lined up, except I wrote it for Bill Murray and John Cleese.
Since Freud, the center of man is not where we thought it was; one has to go on from there.
