My mother was in vaudeville, but after she had her children, she quit working.
When I'm on my deathbed, I'll hopefully be able to count more friends than parts that I had.
To put me through school my morn had to work, so I was a latchkey kid.
If everybody had 100% record of hits and flops, there would have been no surprises. There's not one director with 100% success rate.
I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.
He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
Impossible to spend sleepless nights and accomplish anything: if, in my youth, my parents had not financed my insomnias, I should surely have killed myself.
Ukraine had quite serious impact on the many Russians. They could see that ordinary people in Ukraine which is a bordering state, very close to Russia, the people of this state are, they didn't want to tolerate anymore the power abuse by Ukrainian officials.
I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.
New Year's Eve, we're going to be doing a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Symphony Hall. It makes me feel good, because of all the people they could have had, they wanted me! We do have to do a little work with the rhythm section.
The hiatus you spoke about happened in 1998. I was somewhat numb from being out on the road every night. I had to stop because I was emotionally and physically drained.
Fame... it's been a challenge, let's put it that way. It's a privilege and a responsibility, and I'm not sure I carried the responsibility well at times, which is embarrassing. And I've had to look and be disappointed in myself occasionally for how I behaved in some circumstances.
Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone.
I've never been speed dating! I sort of wish I had, just for the experience of it.
Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.
Everyone in the United States asks me about being a woman CEO. To be honest, it has had no impact on my career. While I was at BCG, it didn't matter whether you were a man or a woman. The only thing that mattered was that you were good at your job.
Finland had a civil war less than 100 years ago, just like in Ireland. If you look at the history of newly independent nations, civil war is almost every time present, even in the United States.
As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved.
I think film had a terrible effect on horror fiction particularly in the 80s, with certain writers turning out stuff as slick and cliched as Hollywood movies.
It was strange at times. We had to make out so much that we kind of got over it. It was really awkward.
I'm not a bad driver. And I never will be because I took lessons when I was quite a boy. I never had to pass a test because there wasn't such a thing when I first started driving a motor car. So I didn't have to pass one.
As a kid, I had to be funny.
I grew up in a house with no running water, 16 miles from the closest place that had a post office. I had a very parochial view of the world.
When I was younger, I had big visions of changing the world.
Americans have always had an ambivalent attitude toward intelligence. When they feel threatened, they want a lot of it, and when they don't, they regard the whole thing as somewhat immoral.
I had the great good fortune to interview Peggy Lee. Her memories of working with Walt Disney and his team were warm and upbeat.
I was depressed about the roles that were on offer, so I had to make my own stories.
The one I remember is going into London, as it was for us in Essex, on New Year's Eve in 1981. There were four of us and we'd had a few lagers on the way. One of my mates threw up in the Tube and then stood up and fell over in it. We thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen.
How many times have you been on the freeway and had someone fly by you at 100 mph then end up two cars ahead of you at the off ramp? What's the point?
Never had any mathematical conversations with anybody, because there was nobody else in my field.
America? They had a good girl singer, Janis Joplin.
If I had to name one book that has had the most lasting influence on my work, I would pick 'The Big Sea' by Langston Hughes.
He testified that when you looked at it through the eyes of 'let's do it', the costs were very small. They were less than they'd had to spend to host a convention of transportation executives. The cost was not that great.
That was' one time when my technique absolutely deserted me, I must admit. There was a wax face that he had created himself to cover his own ugliness. I was in his clutches and I had to hit him in the face.
I have friends who've tried suicide many times and haven't succeeded. I myself made an attempt, so I had a connection with that sort of group of people who have tried suicide at one time in their lives.
I've stayed in hotels where you were scared to even put your feet on the floor, or had to sleep in a chair.
