'The New Yorker's' drama critics have always had a comparable authority because, for the most part, the magazine made it a practice to employ critics who moonlighted in the arts. They worked both sides of the street, so to speak.
From 1994 to 1997, I did nothing. I slept and slept and slept. If I was awake, I had to deal with things, I had to do things. In order to avoid that, I would just stay in bed.
Listen, I had two kids - one when I was 40, one when I was 45. I breastfed for one year, which means I was breastfeeding four years ago. I'm going to move from giving birth to menopause without really realising.
Alfred Hitchcock had to find ways to create tension without showing it, but now with computer-generated effects you can show anything.
I've never done stand-up; I came via small-scale touring theatre, through the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, then I got employed on that as an actor who had a humorous sensibility.
On top of my to-do list in preparing for Beijing is 'On China' by Henry Kissinger, who has had firsthand experience with every top Chinese leader since Mao, so his insights are valuable and his access is perhaps unrivaled.
I've always had an interest in design, and I have always loved creating things.
I've had a private pilot's license for years and flown all round the U.K. and over to France.
I realized I had it made because you don't have to destroy anything to get honey. You can just use the same things over and over again, put it in a quart canning jar, and you've got $12.
We are committed to raising our children as Jews. I knew that it had to start with me at a greater level, at a deeper level, if it was going to be a meaningful example to them.
We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.
If I don't get a TV show next year because someone looks up my Wikipedia and it says 'openly gay,' then it's worth the risk because I've had so many years being openly gay and proud of myself as a role model.
The first music-learning thing that I took seriously was piano lessons when I was a kid. I guess that was probably the only time that I was forced to perform music, because I had piano recitals, and my school also had mandatory music classes that had some performing required.
I'm hoping that, over the years, people will come back to 'MADtv' and think it isn't that bad. We had some really talented people on there.
If I have to pick one story that most influenced 'The Hunger Games,' it would be the Greek myth of Theseus, which I read when I was about 8 years old. In punishment for past deeds, Athens periodically had to send seven youths and seven maidens to a labyrinth. In the maze was this Minotaur, and it would eat them.
I had a small investment in Twofold, following guidance from my professional advisers. I had, however, claimed no tax relief of any amount in regard to this investment. Given the concerns raised about it, I have now instructed my advisors to withdraw me from the scheme with immediate effect.
In ages past, there was less of a dichotomy between good literature and fun reads. In the twentieth century, I think, it split apart, so that you had serious fiction and genre fiction.
We had an opportunity to clinch a playoff berth and I think if that's not enough motivation I don't think you should be playing this game.
One minute, it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle; the next - no one wanted me.
If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
I think he came to the front door and rang the bell, and Maggie let him in, and he said he had forgotten his key; so I think she must have been down stairs.
In the governments, as we've witnessed in the past, they had to hide. Because there's a lot of concentration on the friends-and-family club... We're not about that. That's not the government of the future of the State of New York. What's gonna pull this state out of the doldrums that it's in right now is an honest and open government.
I had this project called 'Ruin' in my head for six years or so. This really big, really ambitious sci-fi thing. It's kind of my 'Star Wars'. I'm trying to achieve what 'Star Wars' did for me as a kid.
Scientists, especially physicists, we're presumptuous and think we can do everything better than everybody else. And one thing that I realized early is, I had some talent managing and organizing things - you know, some people are better organizers than others - but why should I reinvent the wheel?
For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.
Gene Kelly was hard on me, but I think he had to be.
In high school, I had two friends that were suffering from cancer. I would go and sing for them while they were in hospital, and I sang at their services after they passed.
My mother had lived in London since I was little, so she never got to see my school plays and stuff.
At my job, my manager had a massive heart attack; we had layoffs. It made me realize that nothing is certain, nothing is for sure, and if I'm going to make a move, I gotta make a move now.
Journalism wishes to tell what it is that has happened everywhere as though the same things had happened for every man. Poetry wishes to say what it is like for any man to be himself in the presence of a particular occurrence as though only he were alone there.
I can't say it was challenging for me to shake the image of Frasier. I've been fortunate to have had a very interesting career since the series ended. I think the turning point for me was the show, 'Boss.'
Knowing that the time to sleep has come, the Lord sleeps, and does well in sleeping. Often, when we have been fretting and worrying, we should have glorified God far more had we literally gone to sleep.
What I love about doing live theater and the same material night after night is... you can live inside the same words. There comes a great joy in that, in making it so clear because you've had the time to define it.
I remember when I watched 'Hellraiser' with my mother. She cried when she saw my name in the opening credits, and I had to tell her that that was the happiest she was going to be for the next two hours.
I can't imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn't that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct 'Better Things'? I wonder what that would be like?
At one point, I was greenlighting films and scripts that shouldn't have been made based on the fact that they had that stamp of approval of an Academy Award winner. And the good news is I got to learn the real process of filmmaking - directing, storyboarding, writing.
