I care less if I can't be part of your scene because I am the scene. I am everything that is.
I think being a mother helps keep your feet on the ground. There's very little dignity in parenthood. It's a great leveller.
Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
In Manhattan, and its true on some level till this day; its a whole different mentality from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, which I didn't know at the time - because you basically just know your neighborhood.
I was very much on the mathematical side, where you probably do your best work before you're forty-five. Having passed that significant date, I thought I would do something else.
People can hate on you for doing what it is that makes you happy, but ultimately, it has to belong to you. It shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks. Life is not easy. The road to happiness is not a path well trotted. You have to find your own path to enlightenment.
When you're interviewing someone, even your mother - you have to sort of deal with you have to get some objective space from yourself and the person but you also have to find what's the best way to get the information from that person.
You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.
With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work.
It is great seeing the fruits of your labor. The joy I have in watching my daughters with their kids is great, because they're doing a wonderful job, and the kids are fantastic.
I have to be happy in the here and now because every time you start focusing on your legacy you're really setting yourself up for disappointment.
Never worry about bad press: All that matters is if they spell your name right.
It's not the act of arrogance to draw, it's humbling - you must use your God-given talent. And of all the people I sketch, in most cases I feel I have to measure up to the subject.
Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.
When you start fooling around with drugs, you're hurting your creativity, you're hurting your health. Drugs are death, in one form or another. If they don't kill you, they kill your soul. And if your soul's dead, you've got nothing to offer, anyway.
You don't have to be fearless to do anything; you can be scared out of your mind. I fear that I won't get better and that I won't have time to practice. To be called a 'jazz musician' - it's a big responsibility.
I mean it's the most objective industry in the world. If your numbers stink, you're out. If your numbers are good, you get more money. It's the most Darwinian, it's beautiful, it's brutal, it works.
A song has a life of its own. It's an autonomous thing, separate from your own experience, almost. And the mere repetition of it means it's subject to change; it means approaching it differently, expressing different emotional aspects of it. It doesn't feel like wallowing.
I have scars from every film I have made. There is nothing to protect actors. They treat you worse than a dog. You work like a slave, and you know, I like it. That is the way it should be. Every film should be like your last.
The fact is that at different stages of your life, and under the influence of different inspirations, you write different things. The point is not necessarily to find your voice, which grinds out the same sort of thing again and again, but to find a vehicle for people who are far more important than the author: the characters.
I've always been fascinated with adrenaline; it's saved my life more than once, and it's caused me to need it to save my life more than once. One of the most fascinating responses in human evolution, adrenaline sharpens your brain; it sharpens your responses.
If you can not master your language you must be it's slave.
Positive feelings come from being honest about yourself and accepting your personality, and physical characteristics, warts and all; and, from belonging to a family that accepts you without question.
Companies from which I have purchased items are more than welcome to call me with a sale or discount. If I request information on your Web site, please call me. If I don't want your wares, calling me 15 times in a week will not change that.
Some day the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit!
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
You don't hear things that are bad about your company unless you ask. It is easy to hear good tidings, but you have to scratch to get the bad news.
You know, as attorney general, there's no issue more important than making sure you are safe, that your families are safe.
Everyone wants to be a stylist. If you know that's your calling, then you need to intern as much a humanly possible. You need to go to fashion school if you can.
When your name is out there like that, guys are going to want to see what you're about.
It's not easy to slather your face with oil. It requires a little bit of work to smooth it on and rub it in. You become more familiar with the feel of your own skin and face.
A completely disrespectful photographer was asked to stop taking photographs, and then said, 'I've got what I want. What are you going to do about it?' How would you feel if somebody walked up and started taking your photograph? I don't think you'd be very happy.
If you're missing three or four limbs, you have special challenges going forward. And the last thing you want is to not be independent in your home.
I went to work. That was a turning point. When you have to do eight shows a week and your name is on the marquee, no matter what is going on at home or what's on the cover of the newspapers, you've got to do your job.
My poems are political in the deeper sense of the word. Political means to live in your time, to be a man of your time.
I rewrote it and I took all your notes. Read it again, that kind of persistence paid off.
