Amy Winehouse was not a person I ever met, and I can't say that I am overly conversant in all of her music. I do have her albums, and years ago, when I first heard her sing, I thought she was extraordinary. The tone of her voice, her phrasing, her raw appearance - these qualities were extremely captivating to me.
I do think my old fella wasn't much of a... I don't remember him ever being a 'dad' dad. He was too busy working. It was a hard life, man.
I don't think anyone ever gets over the surprise of how differently one audience's reaction is from another.
All the bad things that have ever happened to me have always happened in Rome.
The only thing I know is that no one ever sat in a therapist's or a psychiatrist's room saying, 'My parents just loved me too much.' The only thing you can do is love them and be around. Kids don't really care what your car is like or how big their house is. All they really care about is that you are around.
When the first album came out and I heard 'Do It Again' on the radio, that was the greatest thing that had ever happened. After that, it was all downhill.
Dean Acheson was one of the very best and brightest of the men who ever came to Washington.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
No one ever taught me how to shave; no one ever sat down to watch a Braves game with me. I paid for Yale myself, I lived by myself, I taught myself how to play the guitar. I did this all on my own.
Without education, we are weaker economically. Without economic power, we are weaker in terms of national security. No great military power has ever remained so without great economic power.
Every time I want to impress someone about samples and hip-hop, I play 'Portrait of Tracy.' It's one of the greatest bass players ever doing a whole composition with only the two harmonics of electric bass; then a three-second loop in it became every great R&B song in five-year intervals.
'Dispatches' is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century and the most brilliant treatment of war and men I have ever read.
I have never seen Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff, or Reed Hastings complain about being public. Nor have they ever argued that being public prevented them from doing things with a long-term focus.
I always feel in improv that nothing is ever as good once it's repeated.
Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel.
We're all just a bundle of habits shaped by our memories. And to the extent that we control our lives, we do so by gradually altering those habits, which is to say the networks of our memory. No lasting joke, or invention, or insight, or work of art was ever produced by an external memory. Not yet, at least.
When you work in television, it's an isolating experience. You rarely ever get to watch it with an audience.
The Olympics is nothing I ever dreamed about. I dreamed about playing for Coach Knight and Indiana.
The first book I bought with my own money as a teenager was Martin Amis's 'Money.' You know that thing when you read a book and you think, 'I'm going to have to read every word ever written by this man.'
I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.'
Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.
My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later.
When I exercise, I like to take lots of different classes because I want to really apply myself and feel like I'm learning a new skill. Not that I ever want to have to demonstrate any of those skills!
Ever since I took to the streets when I was 17 to protest at great personal risk against the communist dictatorship, I have been a passionate democrat.
I never missed a birthday. I never missed a school play. We carpooled. And the greatest compliment I can ever get is not about my career or performance or anything; it's when people say, 'You know, your girls are great.' That's the real thing for me.
As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been a nonstop torrent of TV specials. So if you're one of the many who believe the aliens are here, you really do have to admit this: They're the best houseguests ever.
Why can't I ever play a nice, normal, salt-of-the-earth type? Is there something I should know? It's fun to play villains and character roles, of course - but I'm sure it's also fun to be a really big star and play the lead in everything, where all you have to do is show up and not blink.
I like to say, 'Chop suey's the biggest culinary joke that one culture has ever played on another,' because chop suey, if you translate into Chinese, means 'tsap sui,' which, if you translate back, means 'odds and ends.'
Companies that receive government information demands have to obey the law, but they often have room for maneuver. They scarcely ever use it.
All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder - and ultimately impossible to solve - with ever more people.
The thing to do with mutual funds is to buy a couple of decent ones, set up an investment plan and then never, ever think about them again, except maybe once a quarter or so when you take a peek at your statements to make sure that you have not accidentally been buying the Fidelity Peace-in-the-Middle-East fund.
Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody... as a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.
Meisner technique was different than anything I'd ever experienced. It's a really great way to be accountable to your craft and to yourself, but also it takes that kind of focus and dedication to learn anything.
We got a copy of the 'New Statesman' at my grammar school in Wigton, Cumbria, in the 1950s. It sat mint fresh every week on the library table, with two or three other bargain-offer magazines. The 'Statesman' came out of the unimaginable Great World. I started to read it then and have pegged along ever since.
Let me tell you, if you're ever making a decision and the principle reason you'll do it is because of money, then it is absolutely the incorrect decision.
I do think that there is a profound reservoir of creativity and imagination in everyone I've ever met, and sometimes if someone is persistent and perversely obstinate enough to persevere, then they want to be helped. There is a way to help them.
