I'd been writing poems for many years, but most of them I didn't like. Then, when I was 23, I wrote one I did like, sent it to 'The Paris Review' - the highest publication I could think of - and they accepted it. No other moment in my literary life has quite come close to that.
If we go out there, and we play well and win football games, all the good stuff will come with it. It's not my job to worry about something I can't control.
I come from a working-class background in Queens, New York.
Many hated 'Selma.' Just because my voice and the voice of the people I come from is antithetical to so much of what Hollywood produces. I don't think what I'm saying is in particular radical or anything; it's just different from what they want to sell.
With 'Outlander,' definitely the book fans were at the door, ready to go, as soon as we started. But it felt like it kind of crossed over into more of a general audience rapidly. That did surprise me - I thought it would take longer for general audiences to come around.
I really think that people's right to happiness shouldn't be dictated by some policymaker in Washington, D.C. I've come to know a lot of people that - sexual orientation is such where they're in love with people from the same sex, and I just don't think it's our role in the government to say, 'No you can't be married.'
It used to annoy and frustrate me to have to come in and audition. I would say to my agents, 'Haven't they seen this film and this film and this film? They know what I look like... They must.' Until I directed an episode of 'Roswell.' And all of a sudden, I realized why that was such an important thing.
We all want somebody to come in and save the day and change our lives for the better.
I've been in crisis situations, I've been down, I've been hurt, I've been behind on the scorecards, and I've had to pull that shot out to knock somebody out. I've been in all kinds of situations and still come out on top.
I just like my independence and freedom to come and go and not have an entourage.
You can do fascinating things with the tricks memory can play and tell. People can come to believe things which didn't happen at all if they're told them enough times.
Things come in waves, and I'm always more interested in places like, for instance, Chicago, where people don't follow fashion. They're not galloping past your window on the way to the latest anything. They're living their lives. You do a play, they come and see it and say, 'That's nice', and then they go home.
If you maintain a healthy diet, or at least are smart about your food choices, you'll still see the pounds come off.
To have a song work for the movie, it can't just be written apart and shoved in. It's got to come out of the action. It's got to talk about the characters, not the story: it has to augment that action.
When times are bad, the gloves come off and employers are less nice. People become disposable.
Arizonans want us to come together, put aside politics, and solve problems. You want us to do our jobs in way that reflects the best of our state. You want us to stop and listen - something that doesn't always come naturally to people in politics.
It's much better to wreak havoc on a show and be a maniac than promote myself. Plugs and anecdotes aren't really in line with my beliefs. Besides, if someone sees me on a morning show and thinks, 'That's not funny; this guy is crazy,' then I don't want them to come to the show anyway.
Every mistake you make allows you to be honest because what's in the dark will come to light, so it's better to be truthful about it.
When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject.
There will always be a part of me that wants to do a movie musical. I feel like you're doing yourself a disservice when you say something like that, because you never know if that thing is gonna come along and be right, but I'd be lying if I said that that wasn't true.
Sometimes you have to censor books. When I read 'Peter Rabbit,' I skip the part about Peter's father ending up in one of Mrs. McGregor's pies. I also hid the book of 'Grimm Fairy Tales.' They're just too grim for my grandkids. Reality will come soon enough.
I'll tell ya this: I come from an educated family. My father was an attorney representing blue collar workers, and my uncle was a chemical engineer... on my mom's side, all my uncles were engineers - all ten of them.
Words are powerful. When I make mistakes I just try to come back and clarify what I meant.
A key to everything is surrender - to really come before the Lord and say, 'I will literally stay here as long as you want me to stay' or 'God, I will really go anywhere on the earth.'
'The Good Wife' was definitely the biggest surprise and gift that I've had in a long time, and that did come out of some other work that I had done. That whole adage of 'work begets work' actually worked in that case - it was at the very end of their first season that my character was first introduced.
But, I do think, on a very simplistic level, that we can project onto dogs because they are so innocent. They don't come with a lot of baggage.
Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.
For many people, when they come to Twitter, the language is opaque. We need to push the scaffolding to the background and bring the content forward. The media, the photos, the videos.
Basically, if you go looking for trouble, it'll come find you.
What people don't realize is that the initial sales of an album isn't where the bulk of your returns come from. It happens over time, sitting in the catalog, picking up commercials, getting included on packages here and there - there's years and years of pipeline money that goes on. That's where real money comes from - building that body of work.
When you don't come from struggle, gaining appreciation is a quality that's difficult to come by.
The good thing about 'Have I Got News For You' is it's a compact show but it still gives everyone space to breathe, and everyone always gets a chance to say something if they want to. It's a very difficult show to dominate, and guests who come on and dominate always fall foul.
As a former NFL player, I am one American who will have nothing to do with any NFL Team that cannot find the corporate courage to stand for the millions of courageous past great Americans whose sacrifice gave meaning to our flag and national anthem and to the millions upon millions who still dream to come to its free shores.
I like to be on set and see what the camera guys are up to. I like to see all the jobs that come together to make the thing you are also making.
A lot of directors in television have come up through the technical ranks. They have all the technical skills in the world. They're not all that familiar with actors.
I just would never go audition, and yet I was in very visible places where people would come looking for actors. I say I'm lazy, though I'm sure if I were in therapy for a lot of years, it would turn out to be a lot more than laziness. After awhile, it was, like, too embarrassing for me not to go on auditions. I had to be humiliated into it.
