I always thought, 'I could go the route of saying some controversial things and have it explode, just do it like that. But I don't do that.' But of course, it wasn't really up to me.
I always thought of myself as a very, very obscure artist.
Many people in this world are still so identified with every thought that arises in their head. There is not the slightest space of awareness there.
One of the things that I thought really worked was that you have 'Smallville' on television and 'Superman Returns' come out in the theater, and it was fine. Nobody freaked out; nobody thought they were competing.
The whole world depends on America ultimately, particularly Britain. And also, I love America - a marvelous country. But in a sense I don't worry about America because I think America has such huge strengths - particularly its freedom of thought and expression - that it's going to survive as a top nation for the foreseeable future.
I've had moments in my life when I've thought if I wasn't acting, if I wasn't doing what I do and I had a career in the private sector and I didn't have a family, that I do have some tendencies where I could really kind of have a monastic existence and be okay with it.
It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972, the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama, who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters.
My dad is Dominican, my mother's Puerto Rican, and I got into bachata at the age of 10 or 11. When I started listening, it had a reputation for being music for hick people. I thought that had to be changed. I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I knew you make something cool if you're cool.
It used to hurt me that people thought I didn't have the technique and the temperament to play Test cricket.
The subject must be thought of in terms of the 20th century, of houses he lives in and places he works, in terms of the kind of light the windows in these places let through and by which we see him every day.
I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.
Screenwriting is always about what people say or do, whereas good writing is about a thought process or an abstract image or an internal monologue, none of which works on screen.
If I thought of gymnastics as a job, it would put too much stress on me.
I think gymnastics was associated with the 10. I thought that belonged to the sport, and somehow we gave it way.
When I first started modelling, as I was walking down the catwalk I just thought, 'Please don't fall over, please don't fall over, please don't fall over!'
I started writing juvenile novels around 1985. I never really thought of it as a career, but more as a way to make a living.
People have no idea how hard football is, absolutely no idea. It's all about pace. You can say, 'Yeah, you've got speed of thought' - but you've got to have a little bit of a zip.
I've always thought that design can have equal importance to the idea of internal architecture. Professionally, things can be very dogmatic - you do the architecture, someone else does the interiors, someone else does the furniture, the fabric, etc. But I think design is all-encompassing.
I'm from the disco era where everybody thought they were John Travolta... What song is going to get me on the dance floor? Anything from 'Saturday Night Fever,' and you're up there like a demon.
You have a responsibility to make inclusion a daily thought, so we can get rid of the word 'inclusion.'
I've always thought that I'd make a pretty good police officer, except maybe for the danger part. I have a rare medical condition that makes it difficult for me to risk getting shot, so probably I'd have to be one of those officers who work in 'do not shoot' areas.
At 11, 12, I thought I was clumsy, ugly, a mess, an unappealing person, but I did have the gift of the gab. I had the school record at Haberdashers for consecutive detentions for simply speaking out of turn.
They thought that athletes that worked out with my system wouldn't be able to throw a ball because they'd be too muscle bound. Those are the misconceptions I had to go through for about 40 years.
The writers of the French enlightenment had deliberately used blasphemy as a weapon, refusing to accept the power of the Church to set limiting points on thought.
Sometimes I'm really mean to someone who just hugged me. I never thought that I would be like that.
Growing up, I thought I was going to be Madonna. I wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to dance and sing.
I foolishly thought that if I just 'made it' then everything would be okay. And everything wasn't okay.
I always knew when I graduated from high school, I'd go to college. I never thought about what I was walking away from... I just wanted to study literature and writing.
Never be afraid to ask when you don't understand. It sounds like a little thing, but awful things have happened, international incidents have flared, and markets have collapsed just because people couldn't make sense of what was being said. They didn't ask 'why?' because they thought it would make them look stupid.
My plan was to go to New York and do some theatre, and then I got the script for 'Psych.' I was like, 'Ahh - just as I thought I was out, you pulled me back in!' I had a great meeting with the show creator and we laid out the parameters to make the show work: what I would do, what he would let me do.
I had a 23 per cent blockage in my micro-arteries. At first the doctors thought I needed a heart transplant, then they said I have microvascular angina, which means I will be on medication for the rest of my life.
I think it's hilarious that you would give an endorsement deal to someone who you've heard their lyrics a million times and you thought it was cool. And then they said something a little messed up and you take the endorsement deal away.
It may seem strange, but the most grateful I've ever felt was when I was held up at gunpoint. After I handed over my wallet and the mugger ran off into the woods, I thought, 'Thank you for not shooting me.' I was overwhelmingly glad to be alive and unharmed.
I succeeded at venture capital because, for years, I rarely thought about or spent time on anything else. Anything less than that unmitigated full commitment leaves me feeling frustrated and ineffective.
I did have some secret abortions myself, which I repented from when I was born again in 1983. I drank the abortion Kool-Aid temporarily because I thought it was the answer.
I thought that, post-apartheid, there would be absolutely no interest in South Africa. That has been both true and untrue. The major writers like Gordimer and Coetzee have produced major books. But some of the more minor writers have drifted away.