My very first records, I was very interested in how you get the particular quality you want out of it, and I began to learn about the engineering and aspects of production and things very early on. I got hands-on with the process and taught myself how to engineer, as opposed to just being a producer who asked the engineer to make it sound nice.
I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.
The real Mary Poppins got lost when Hollywood turned her into a cream puff.
Since I got a really bad review when I was, like, 28 in 'The New York Times,' I don't read reviews anymore.
There was a modeling agency in my little town where I got my start, but the opportunity came to work in Japan when I was fourteen. My mom went with me until I was seventeen. Her only stipulation was that I had to keep my schoolwork up. My mom was great. She is still my best friend.
Sailing is a completely new sport for me and I wasn't sure what to expect but I've definitely got the bug.
It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq.
Once I got married and had kids, I moved away from romantic roles, because it seemed wrong to have my three-year-old wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else.
In retrospect, I can see I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!
Men are boys for such a long time and really don't start getting the great roles until they're in their mid-thirties. But then they've got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it's all about playing younger and younger and younger.
That's really what was wonderful for me growing up, since I got to know so many of the songwriters who liked me and thought I had talent. They would then tell me how to read a lyric and sing a song, and challenge me to try and find a different end to a song.
I grew up in a working-class Catholic family in south Louisiana. I went to a state university. I taught literature, wrote a novel that was the novel I wanted to write, and got a couple of good reviews but no real traction. I had no idea how to get a job in TV.
People make the mistake of thinking they've got to perform just because someone has said something about their potential.
Churchill knew the importance of peace, and he also knew the price of it. Churchill finally got his voice, of course. He stressed strategy, but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral concepts of honor and duty, justice and mercy.
When I got back into the film business after college, I started out as a production assistant.
Judy Garland's father was gay. That seems to be the consensus. They left Minnesota and went to California because he got caught with some boy backstage.
No one in my family is in entertainment. They thought acting was a fun hobby, and when I got a degree, I'd settle down.
The ball touched the paint a lot of times. When we talk about touching the paint, the ball touches the key for making a layup or making a play for a teammate. We've got to use our length and our speed. Defensively, getting deflections. Give up one shot and rebound.
I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.
Through that, I got to know Jerry's work, and I am definitely his number-one fan right now, which is interesting because it usually works the other way around: you usually create a project based on your hero.
I did a lot of little girl groups here and there just to get more comfortable on stage. When you're in girl groups, it's a lot different because if you mess up, there's someone on stage to back you up, and finally I got to a point where I knew I could do it on my own.
When I started work at Simon & Schuster in 1958, each of us got a bronze paperweight on which was written, in raised type, 'Give the reader a break,' Richard E. Simon.
There's a vulnerability in music but you've also got to protect your sacred place and have a place you can still retire to that no one else knows about. So that's a thing I just try to balance.
You fool around with different pitches playing catch, but it's not the same when you've got to face some guy with a bat in his hand.
People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I've got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There's no future in it.
Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious - it's like it's got a mind of its own.
'A Different World' didn't have the blazing success that 'Cosby' had, but it was on for seven seasons, and we got a lot of awards, and a lot of faces came out of that show and have had great careers.
I have three daughters who grew up while I was working on the special editions and the prequels. They got to be big 'Star Wars' fans. And, you know, I would see them identifying with a lot of the male characters, and I just thought, 'Star Wars' could use more good strong female leads.'
You got to take a deep breath and give up. The system is rigged against you.
You've got to change with the public's taste.
When I got married in Bucharest, there were 10,000 people on the street. People didn't go to work that day. It was emotional to see how people care about you. I didn't expect that.
I sang for my family. And I think probably the first time I sang and got paid for it, I was about 6 or 7.
In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.
We've got to trust the politicians with these decisions.
We've got people that are paying premiums of $1,000 a month out there, and then they've got a deductible of $1,000. If you're making $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 out there and you've got an Obamacare plan, by and large you've got an insurance card, but you don't have any care because you can't afford the deductible.
I kept thinking, 'Somebody has to make a food show that is actually educational and entertaining at the same time... a show that got down to the 'why things happen.' Plus, I hated my job - I didn't think it was very worthwhile.
