Being at the top of your game intellectually, philosophically, politically, is not a forever thing.
Refinancing doesn't reduce your debt, it just restructures it, so be clear about what you want to achieve with a refi.
Those who purify your water, inspect your meat, and test your kids' toys, as well as a huge number of nurses, teachers, and our soldiers, are public employees. The firefighters who don't hesitate to rush toward danger while you run away from it - they are all public employees.
You play your character and it isn't right to step out of it. You have to stay in that character.
It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.
Those youngsters go out there and set a record and clinch the pole position. But what do you do if you wreck your car. That record doesn't spend too well.
'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
One thing that happens when you're pregnant is that as your stomach starts to stretch. It itches! So I have to keep my belly really lubricated. Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower. It's really like basting a turkey with body butter.
Once you're in the game and it's a part of your life, you never want to leave it. But you have to be committed to be able to travel and do the things you need to do to be successful in whatever role you're doing.
You can meditate on almost anything: a prayer, song, image or word. Close your eyes; sit in a comfortable position. Take a breath, and say the word out loud, emphasizing the humming sound at the end. When you come to the end of the breath, take another one and say the word again. And so on.
I'd like for the young people, and older ones, too, who don't count themselves as readers, to know the joy of reading and what it does to enrich your life in so many ways.
There are so many things to take into account - your ambition, your ego, the press, the consumers. You can never be sure that you'll be on top of the pile again.
You don't quit after you get beat. You pick yourself up, and you start rebuilding to accomplish your goals.
When they talk about music getting in your blood, I understand exactly what they're talking about, because that is me.
Acting isn't that hard, really. I mean, I think that people make a big deal about it, but you just kind of try to say your lines naturally.
I would like to say to people, open your eyes and find beauty where you normally don't expect it.
And it's not that going out for a hack is wrong or bad, I certainly don't view it as that; it's just that there's something about the dressage, being put through your paces, that makes you better.
Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
Beware of advice about successful people and their methods. For starters, no two situations are alike. Your dreams of creating a dry-cleaning empire won't be helped by knowing that Thomas Edison liked to take naps.
When exercising, be sure to focus your attention on what you are doing.
Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.
As performers grow older, I reckon there are two ways they can go. They can either be up there, playing more deeply from their guts than ever, or they can be phoning it in so crassly that it leaves a lump in your throat as you leave the venue at the end of the show.
When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely - the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears - when you give your whole attention to it.
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
'm not saying I would never do acting again, because I love it, but there really is nothing compared to getting up in front of people and singing your music.
You go to a Japanese restaurant and have a wonderful dish, and the thing to do is take a picture with your phone, put it on Facebook, and see how many likes you get. If you don't share your experiences, they don't become part of the data processing system, and they have no meaning.
If you feel driven and compelled to make your work and to be fiercely original and have something unique to say, in a compelling way, then chances are the helpers will be there for you the doors will open some, the ice will crack.
I've been in a position before where a president has turned to me in the Oval Office in a difficult moment, without any pleasantries, and said, 'I'm asking you as your president and Commander in Chief to take command of the international security force in Afghanistan.' The only response can be, 'Yes, Mr. President.'
The hardest job an actor can do is all this pretend, all this screaming and being scared for your life.
Going into my second film as a director, it's night and day of what it was like going into my first film. It doesn't matter what you know in your head and what you've been taught until you're there and doing it; it's a whole new ball game.
From the Olympian heights of an executive suite, in an atmosphere where your success is judged by the extent to which you can maximise profits, the overwhelming tendency must be to see people as units of production, as indices in your accountants' books.
If you're doing something like scheduling utility payments to come through your debit card or out of your personal checking account, that's perfectly fine. But there are much safer ways to handle situations with debt collectors. You can send a money order overnight, or wire the cash to them.
Your past is not your potential. In any hour you can choose to liberate the future.
More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.
When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.
I think that old school style of 'I'm your parent and I'm greater than you' doesn't work. What I establish with my children is a partnership.
