The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the ability to make a new future with your own bare hands.
The idea that humanity is divided into these separate and distinct and disparate groups with clear boundaries has been disproven by science a long time ago, decades ago. Humanity really is more of a continuum, and that people belong on the same continuum and there are no clear breaks between these so-called races.
I absolutely reject that idea that the press is liberal and what it does is liberal. In my view, it's like accusing a doctor of malpractice or a lawyer of malfeasance.
At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!
'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' is an epistolary novel - one told in letters. I had no idea how much fun it would be, puzzling together the plot with letters and documents.
If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.
I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad said: 'I can't read that.' He was reading James Bond and John le Carre. That was part of what attracted me to crime - the idea of getting a wide audience.
An idea isn't worth much until a man is found who has the energy and ability to make it work.
Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.
Every one says: 'Listen, I'd love to reinvest. I'd love to hire people. But I have no idea what this healthcare bill is going to do to my bottom line. I have no idea what this financial reform bill is going to do... I'm not going to step out a limb and do any of those until I know what this government is going to do to me.'
It's such a risk to write a novel that it's easy to become conservative - you're spending what would be, for me, a couple of years of my life on a single idea. Which is maybe one of the reasons I write stories - if it doesn't work, you've only lost a month.
Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea.
I didn't have any idea of what I was getting into by going away to college. And I was scared. I was scared of failing. I was scared of it not being for me because I was going to be one of the first people in my family to go off to college.
My vision for a better Rhode Island starts with a simple idea - we are all in this together.
Wherever you go in the world, Batman is known. Everyone has an idea of what he should be like.
You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.
I love the idea of bringing my work to the general public, not just people who go to gallery openings.
The basic idea was that if a country would put its economy as an integrated piece of the world system, that it would benefit from that with economic growth. I concur with that basic view.
I love the look of planes and the idea of how a plane flies. The more I learn about it the better I feel; while I still may not like it, I have a sense of what is really happening.
I'm still awaiting the idea of drawing comics for a living being a reality. I feel like I've been dodging work for 20 years, and at some point, I'll have to get a real job.
I've no idea if I want to do this for the rest of my life, so I want to try and work with the best people I can.
Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space.
George Clooney is actually a huge prankster. That's sort of his jam. I had no idea.
I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that.
Even if you don't believe in God, exploring fully the idea of a god or gods should pose no threat to you.
I had an idea of what I thought was funny. It's kind of based on how I am.
This idea of holding the Defense Department hostage to the tax debate makes me sick to my stomach. Knock it off.
I don't ascribe to the idea of the ivory tower composer who sits alone in a room composing his masterpieces and then comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets. It doesn't work like that. The job of a composer is putting something down on a piece of paper that will inspire the person who's playing.
We talked about Tootsie, the idea in Tootsie is that a man becomes a better man for having been a woman.
Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.
If there are going to be people out there making war on other people, don't you think it's a good idea for some of those people to at least follow a code of ethics? Not 'honor' but something you can pin down and be sure of, something with the same rules for everybody.
If I have a bunch of computer lingo that I have no idea what I'm speaking about, I really need to know what I'm talking about.
Why do we even need WikiLeaks? They're not the only organization that publishes leaks. And they don't have some special technology that allows them to post on the Internet with mirrored sites. The idea of WikiLeaks lives on, but as an organization, it's become increasingly irrelevant.
Because the GIs were sent massively to South Vietnam, maybe it's a good idea to have a broadcast for them.
Standing out as a writer today requires more than a bright idea and limpid prose. Authors need to become businesspeople as well.
The idea that there is a family somewhere who functions is an odd concept.
