We're trying to infuse a little good into the American culture. Love God, love your neighbor, hunt ducks. Raise your kids, make them behave, love them. I don't see the down side to that.
You can't take our people from Africa and put us in a diaspora and spread us all over the world. And we survived slavery - and we can't pass a test? ... And you're gonna tell me we can't learn how to write? Have you lost your mind? We are survivors. That's all we do is survive.
Fear can be good when you're walking past an alley at night or when you need to check the locks on your doors before you go to bed, but it's not good when you have a goal and you're fearful of obstacles. We often get trapped by our fears, but anyone who has had success has failed before.
I love a lot of high speed turns, turns where you have to push yourself, force yourself to go fast. Then there's something telling your foot to lift off, because it's so fast, and it's impressive when you get that feeling and just drive on.
Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.
When you're a little kid, you just like music that makes you happy and is fun. As you get older, you reach college or your 20s and you decide that music should be challenging and all art should be smart. So you start to think it makes you like high art more to put down things you consider low art. I don't even think things are low art.
My smile has been my ticket to the world. Smiling releases the same feel-good hormones you get jogging. Caring for your lips and gums is important. I brush my teeth morning and night, alternating toothpaste brands. In addition to flossing, I use a Water Pik to massage my gums and remove food particles.
Put yourself in the position of an up-and-coming artist living in early-sixteenth-century Italy. Now imagine trying to distinguish yourself from the other artists living in your town: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, or Titian. Is it any wonder that the Italian High Renaissance lasted only 30 years?
To be an artist, you need to play inside your work.
'Vice News' is cool because they'll just send your local barista to go talk to the head of ISIS.
Being at the mercy of the acting profession, in the early days of one's career, is really brutal and feels like you have no control over your life, at all.
We are often told we can't have brains and beauty, and I really hope that my message is that you can put on that red lip and curl your hair and put on that power dress - you don't have to sacrifice one for the other.
Nutrition is important, training is important - but so are rest and recovery, massages, acupuncture. Your body is your temple, and you've got to take care of it.
Hollywood wouldn't suit me. In L.A. it's all about work - studio people have their five minutes with you and they go, 'Oh mah Gahd, I love your movie.' You just feel very self-conscious there.
Very early on, you figure out that you put your self-esteem in the hands of strangers. There's a different commodity. There's the Helena Bonham Carter that everyone thinks they know, who really has nothing to do with me. But you just have to let that go.
I think the most significant change in my life is the decision to do a series. An hourlong dramatic television series on a broadcast network swallows you and chews you up and refuses to spit you out. You're making a decision that's going to be a profound and significant impact on the practical aspects of your life.
I think the most attractive people are the confident ones, regardless of their literal appearance, so I strive for that. Basically, I think you'll always be the size your body needs to be if you only eat if you are hungry. If you never eat for any other reason, you'll be just the right size for your body.
I always wish the hotels were like they are in movies and TV shows, where if you're in Paris, right outside your window is the Eiffel Tower. In Egypt, the pyramids are right there. In the movies, every hotel has a monument right outside your window. My hotel rooms overlook the garbage dumpster in the back alley.
I love the percussion. It's a right brain, left brain thing. There are different beats, but cooperating together. It's your whole body doing it, you're doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You're this whole motion machine.
In an age of never-ending health fads, it's comforting to learn that one of the healthiest activities you can do has existed for millennia. It's called reading. Yes, books are not just entertaining or educational: they can also improve your mental health.
Who are you writing this for? For a commercial reason, or because you want to make great art and give it to your fans?
If you destroy the credibility of those people or institutions that could undermine your own, you create an opportunity for your voice, however irresponsible or misleading it may be, to gain traction.
We think of divinity as something infinitely big, but it is also infinitely small - the condensation of your breath on your palms, the ridges in your fingertips, the warm space between your shoulder and the shoulder next to you.
The ESPYS are about appreciating moments in sports and not looking down on it because it's maybe not your favorite athlete or your favorite team.
The physical demands of cycling is that it actually lowers your immune system, and you expose yourself to a tremendous amount of elements - so certain people might get a chronic overload and develop, say, bad asthma.
Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don't rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That's your job.
It is one thing to tell the citizens of some faraway country to go to hell, but it is another to do the same to your own citizens, who are supposedly your ultimate sovereigns.
In a creative business, if you're happy, it will come out in your work. I don't see how you can be happy if you don't like the people you're working with and if they aren't a joy to have fun with.
That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for my education.
So much of listening to lyrically driven music is projecting your own feelings and experiences into the music.
There are times where people ask for a lock of your hair, but the truth is I have a lot of gratitude for my fans.
The heart of a human being is no different from the soul of heaven and earth. In your practice always keep in your thoughts the interaction of heaven and earth, water and fire, yin and yang.
If you're a content brand, you have to be in every place your audience is. Sometimes your audience is on the couch and wants to watch a 30-minute show, and sometimes they're checking their Facebook feed and want to see something that's only a minute long.
You went to your first Broadway play or musical at some point, right? Come to opera.
If you are a singer and you lose your voice, you realize that you have other skill sets when that is taken out of the equation.
Remember: You are the common denominator in all your relationship problems. Wherever you go, your pesky repeated issues go - until you shed a blazing light of insight upon them.
