I was a brand new senator in 2013. And the idiocy of Congress was to shut the government down for two weeks in October. And coming out of that, the pressure was put on the budget chair, Paul Ryan's shoulders and Patty Murray. Conservative Wisconsin Republican, progressive Washington Democrat, come up with a budget deal.
I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.
A lot of people say that I took the first shot for Bitcoin. The first person to walk through the door always gets shot, and then everyone else can come through.
As a kid, I'd buy novels with these magnificent Chris Fosse covers which showed an enormous contraption hovering over a planet, and you'd always think 'Where's that going to come in?' And it never did! It was always slightly disappointing when the contents of a book never lived up to the cover.
Sometimes, you have to make the choice to forgive 10 times a day when you have these pockets of anger come up. That's a lot of work, but to me it's worthwhile.
We haven't had a slew of artists, but the artists we do come out with have always had the same momentum.
Those critics awards come and go every year, but the finished movie is your work.
Common would come to my house and give me a freestyle verse. I'd make a new beat for it and put it with something else. That's how I met Eminem - he came to my house back when he first started. He gave me a bunch of freestyles, and that's how we built a relationship. Everyone came to my house.
Creatively, most of my influences come from the literary world: Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara. Writers are my heroes.
I always knew that good stuff would come along when I was older. So when I was 18, I longed to be 30; when I was 30, I longed to be 50. I've always looked forward to my next birthday.
Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.
My son has been known to throw a book at the television set when he called for me to come play and I was obviously busy in the box. But I'm told that children of television performers grow up thinking that all mommies or daddies work on TV and that it's no big deal.
Having said that, I'm a huge Jack Nicholson fan because he just goes nuts in everything he does. Having Jack in his heyday would also be a dream come true.
Probably more than anybody else, I loved Nat 'King' Cole as a performer - not only his singing but his piano playing. Whenever he had a new record come out, I'd get it and try to learn how he was playing. And he was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.
The chief thing is to make children feel good about themselves. They want to step into the shoes of a hero who is bigger and stronger, to face tremendous dangers and come home safely for tea.
My dad's in banking, my mum manages the American branch of a Swiss vitamin company; they're really busy, but they still come to all my premieres.
I didn't come from a lot. I had a lot of love and support from my family, but as far as money and that type of thing, I didn't really have any of that. All I did was follow my dreams. If my fans take anything from me, I hope it would be that.
I think the whole business of people emigrating was that no one ever told them, although everyone knew, especially if it was to the United States, that it was forever, and the party before you left was called an 'American wake,' in the sense that they knew you wouldn't come back.
Receiving the Newcombe Medal for a third year in a row is an amazing honour. The Newcombe Medal is a great occasion for the Australian tennis community to come together and celebrate our sport, recognise people's achievements and contributions to Australian tennis.
It's good to go with your gut instincts in life. You just should. Even if it doesn't work out, something good will come out of it.
I have come across both inspiring teachers of history and deplorable ones over the years, so one cannot generalise, except perhaps to observe that the profession seems to encourage anti-militarist sentiments.
I feel like whatever you've done in your career, good or bad, it's nothing but preparation for the big events to come.
Actually, because I'm so small, when I strike an open A chord I get physically thrown to the left, and when I play an open G chord I go right. That's how hard I play, and that's how a lot of my stage act has come about. I just go where the guitar takes me.
I come from an acting family, my father was an actor, and I had to fight my way and just create my own identity.
I don't love it when people come in and say, 'We need a woman on our board,' or 'Can you invest in this new shopping app because you like to shop?' But whatever gets me in the deal.
In my situation, every time I write a sentence, I'm thinking not only of the people I ended up in college with but my siblings, my family, my school friends, the people from my neighborhood. I've come to realize that this is an advantage, really: it keeps you on your toes.
You may have done 20 great shows in a row and come to one, and it doesn't work. You never presume anything.
The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.
You've come to know the fortunate and the inauspicious stars, but you don't know whether you yourself are fortunate or lucky.
One of the things I think a lot about, I am perhaps a great example of the enlightened immigration policy of this country where I was able to come here to study and then stay back and work and build a life.
I've always loved to combine different scents to come up with my own unique thing.
When people don't want to come, nothing will stop them.
Ours is a life of constant reruns. We're always circling back to where we'd we started, then starting all over again. Even if we don't run extra laps that day, we surely will come back for more of the same another day soon.
When I'm doing interviews, I'm doing interviews, and when I am writing, I'm writing. I sit there with a musician and I write. It's the same process since I started writing in my twenties. I like to come in and leave with a finished song.
I don't ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder.
To be honest with you, the dramatic side is more fun to play because I don't get to do it as often as I get to do the comedy stuff. Most of my work in this business has been comedy, and that's sort of the way the cookie crumbles. I had not sought out to just be a comedic actor, but I think that's my default because I come from a funny family.
