My grandparents - both of my mother's parents - were actors, and they ran the Reading Repertory Theatre Company, through the town of Reading, where I come from.
I have a really supportive, great group of friends, and we all push each other. They come to my shows, I go to their premieres; it's wonderful.
I was elected to come to an incredibly dysfunctional capital and make the government work better, and that's what I'm doing.
As long as I have my faith in God, I'm good. I know everything else is going to come.
When you are an athlete, it's difficult to take time off and say you want to come back without everyone judging you and attacking you.
When I write a song, the music comes from my spirit, which is very playful and optimistic, but then the lyrics come from my head, which is in a different space.
You have seen on TV how hard it is to go up 129,000 feet and how hard it is to come down.
I tend to treat everyone like equals. That is my downfall, though, because Oprah is Oprah, and Barack is Barack, and you've gotta come in with a certain level of respect and admiration and love while still having that respect. Look at them - these people are, at this point, royalty. I think I get a little too chummy.
I look up to Jimmy Fallon. He hosts talk shows as a fan himself, and that's how I do it. When the celebrities come in, I'm excited that they're there. It's not just like a formal, 'Hey, how are ya?' It's like, 'Dude, what the hell! So happy to see you!' That's what Jimmy Fallon does every time.
Music is my main goal, but I'm not going to rush a record out. There are so many actors who have come out with albums these days. I don't want to do it because it's the thing to do. I want to wait until the time is right.
Surfing big waves is not an extreme sport to me. I fall off, tumble down, and come up. My heart's racing because I'm thinking I almost drowned, and I thank God I can breathe again, but I always think, 'What am I hitting?' Water.
You don't have to be a Brad Pitt look-alike hero just to be courageous and help out your friends and come through when it really matters. I think everyone can sort of relate to that in some way, particularly back to people's school days.
I never felt like a boy or a girl, never felt I should wear this or dress like that. I think that's where that confidence comes from because I never felt I had to play a part in my life. I just always come as Shamir.
I have to respect her family, and until they come and say, 'We're ready to do an Aaliyah album,' then I don't really want to come and try to get into that because that's very sensitive.
I think that I could be an example to young people, and they know that dreams come true.
When people do come face to face with each other as human beings, they begin to understand each other better.
There is nothing better than just policies that say, 'Come on: grow your jobs here.'
It is still breathtaking to me to watch people bring love, preciousness and kindness to their inner world, allowing the light of God to shine through their eyes so that the beauty of their soul can come forth.
I always wanted to film 'Biggest Loser' in Hawaii. We could call it, 'Come on I wanna weigh you.'
I have had that same experience where there are several people who have come up in my life at the right time and have made critical contributions to how I see the world and how I see myself.
To all the younglings I come across in 'Game of Thrones' who suddenly find themselves well known, I say the theatre is your best friend - they will remember you.
My sister was born a couple years after I was, and I realized that I wasn't getting enough attention, as much attention as I used to before she showed up, and then I learned pretty early on that if I could do a silly dance or make grown-ups laugh, then the attention would come back to me, and I would be accepted.
My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.
I was never the ingenue, so hopefully that'll make it easier to age and still work. I know a lot of actors who are really dissatisfied with where they're at even though some of them are huge stars and I feel like, 'Oh, my God, you're at the top.' Something interesting will come. It always does. I have faith.
I most enjoy sitting down with the acoustic guitar and just fiddling around and trying to come up with something like a hook or some sort of melodic line. That's something that I do habitually.
I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn't matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.
There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings.
I used to throw cooking parties in university. Everyone would come over - sometimes you'd just do a mac and cheese, but if you do that better than everyone else, you can get people to come to you.
The most important thing, to me is the intention of where things come from, like, why did you use it? What were the intentions of what you did? And if the intention is good, the intention is pure, then everything will turn out good.
Thousands of members of Congress have come and gone over the years, their individual achievements hidden in committee reports, private compromises, amendments pushed through or blocked, and innumerable, unnoticed meetings.
I grew up in New York City - I grew up surrounded by every sound that you imagine can come from a New Yorker. All of the different boroughs and all of the different sounds.
The studio part, to me, can be pretty laborious. You're inside for hours on end and can be pretty frustrating to get the sound you hear in your head to come out of those speakers.
Nothing is art if it does not come from nature.
I think I matured quite early, but what that does mean is I have moments of complete immaturity. When I come home, I don't want to be an actor. I just want to be a kid. I barely even know what money is.
Once I turned pro, I was like,' OK, this is not fun and games now. This is me. I'm going to come, and I work on karma. I'm not going to go after somebody if I don't have a reason behind it, so as soon as there is some sort of a reason for me to do something that I need to do, then I'll do it.'
When things don't come so naturally to you, you want to persevere, you want to keep pushing yourself to overcome obstacles that prevent you from having the kind of life that you want to have.
