My background is standard American blue collar of the itchy-footed variety. We're new-world mongrels. The women in the family read horoscopes, tea leaves, coffee bubbles, Tarot cards and palms.
The one thing I don't consume during 'Today' - which surprises many people - is coffee. I find that a lot of water helps wake me up, without the buzz. I love coffee, but usually reserve a double espresso as an afternoon pick-me-up before settling in to do the weekend 'Nightly News.'
I have a group of cafes and coffee shops that I go to regularly. They usually have an area where I can plug in my computer and have a corner seat where I can do a couple hours of writing or whatever, even the noise of the surrounding people walking by. Those things are the things that stimulate me into writing.
I think one day I can make a book about coffee shops in Hong Kong. I spent almost most of my time in coffee shops, in different coffee shops.
I quite clearly remember driving home at 9 a.m., after shooting all day, in a bathrobe, with bodypaint all over my face, and going through McDonald's drive-thru. I ordered a coffee to make sure I didn't crash on the way home. And the girl working there, she didn't even bat an eyelid. I guess it's a regular thing down in Hastings McDonald's.
One of my problems is I am getting so mature that I have to pick up a TV and toss it through the coffee table just to remind people of who I am. I want to go ranting and screaming into the grave.
Sometimes you see a movie and you can really feel that it's an actor putting in a performance. Someone said 'cut' and they're back in their trailer having a coffee or getting their hair done.
The idea of having a house, a kid, a husband, and a dog... I love that. I also really want to open a coffee and flower shop one day, probably in Italy.
We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.
My living room has an oak-wood floor, Persian carpets, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a large ficus and large fern, a fireplace with a group of photographs and drawings over it, a glass-top coffee table with a bowl of dried pomegranates on it, and sofas and chairs covered in off-white linen.
I developed my taste for coffee at five, staying with my grandmother in Connecticut.
I always write back to people who are kind enough to write to me. Actually, I don't write - I recline on my red velvet sofa with my feet on the coffee table and dictate the letters to my eldest son.
I had a 2-week courtship with a fellow student in the fiction workshop in Iowa and a 5-minute wedding in a lawyer's office above the coffee shop where we'd been having lunch that day. And so I sent a cable to my father saying, 'By the time you get this, Daddy, I'll already be Mrs. Blaise!'
I'm actually like a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop kind of guy. So I love the local shops that are kind of like one-off chains in Los Angeles, and I usually get a soy flat white.
Late-night shows are 'Chopped.' Who are your guests tonight? Your guests tonight are veal tongue, coffee grounds and gummy bears. There, make a show ... Make an appetizer that appeals to millions of people. That's what I like. How could you possibly do it? Oh, you bring in your own flavors. Your own house band is another flavor.
I love coming home to Melbourne. The first thing I do is have a coffee. It's just so much better here than anywhere else. It's better than in Italy and I travel a lot. I crave it.
Coffee makes me go crazy.
If you're a new artist, practice your art and share it. Set up shop somewhere, whether it's a street corner or a coffee shop. I got my start in a coffee shop that didn't even have live music. I wanted to play in coffee shops that did have live music, but I didn't have an audience.
I love coffee, but I have to make sure I don't have more than one cup a day because I'm already a little hyper.
In the seventies when I was struggling, I ate the same thing every day at Big Nick's Burger Joint on Broadway and 77th Street. A cottage-cheese omelette with tomatoes, French fries, rye toast, orange juice, and coffee. It was consistently the most satisfying meal I could possibly imagine.
I wish I was a cool guy and could drink coffee black, but I put almond milk and raw cane sugar in it.
When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America - a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.
After college, rather than pursue real work, I joined a folk group and sang in coffee houses and nightclubs, an occupation that does little for the intellect and even less for the complexion.
Three hundred years ago, during the Age of Enlightenment, the coffee house became the center of innovation.
I think that if you grind your spices and keep them in small batches, you can use them in endless ways. The key thing is to have a spice mill or a coffee grinder, and to keep your spices cold and in tightly lidded boxes.
The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write.
I was broke for more than 10 years. I remember staying up all night one night at my first company and looking in couch cushions the next morning for some change to buy coffee.
Espresso, made by steam expressing finely ground coffee, is rich in flavor and aroma and chlorogenic acids, but not very concentrated at all in caffeine.
We all have hierarchies at work - even on set, the runner would never walk up to the director and ask for a cup of coffee.
One of the best places for a shy person to meet people is in a coffee shop. If you are a reader, bring a book and read it there - that gives a guy something to ask you about. Same goes for sketching, writing, or any hobby you can take with you.
I love coffee, but I don't photograph it. That's not who I am. I'm a social creature, so my subject should not be the coffee. It's about being together with friends.
Most people view coffee and lunch as personal time, not deal-making time. Unless the person you're meeting understands that this is a working lunch, then they may not even think that this is a serious business conversation.
I love going to coffee shops and just sitting and listening.
Meetings with no goal, also known as 'coffee shop' meetings, can be huge time wasters if you're not efficient with them. 'Always know why you're meeting, and make sure it's important - try to keep them to 30 minutes, max.
I don't size up their grades or their board scores. Because in America today, that's just an advantage certain people have. I size up the give and take, the speed of thinking, what I perceive as ambition. I say, 'Tell me about your high school jobs.' And I love people who worked in coffee shops who were waiters and waitresses.
I drink coffee in the morning and a few cups throughout the day. Among coffee's health benefits are lower risk of Parkinson's, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and dementia.
