The one thing I have never been afraid of is standing before important people and speaking my mind. I represent women who may never have the opportunity to go to the UN or meet with a president. I'm never afraid to speak truth to power.
I think a lot of young people have incredible ideas and incredible insights, but sometimes they wait before they go give their life to something. What I did was just to start a little earlier.
And I always tried to be not a star. To be someone who people like to talk to.
I grew up trying to be like my idols, and one of the main people in my life was my father. He played football, and when your father is telling stories about the game he played... Everybody wants to be like their father.
I can't imagine being on one of those shows where people have to look nice.
Never try to negotiate with anyone after he or she has eaten. People are best persuaded on an empty stomach. And forget power breakfasts. There is no convincing anyone of anything before 10 A.M.
Being authentic can be a good thing in that often people who are fixated on that are also fixated on having very high standards, so they may maintain something they think has tremendous value. On the other hand, most of the kinds of music that I've been excited about are hybrid in their origins.
I feel that David took a risk with me. I have a sense that by starting off in the theatre and going off to do films you are seen to sell out in some way. I don't hold truck with that, but you can't stop people from feeling it.
Gays and lesbians are sick people. It's definitely a disease. They haven't invented a cure for it yet, but I hope they will.
I am not one of those people who will ever be comfortable mocking or making caricatures of the stereotypes attached to any community.
I generally like grey roles. My interpretation of drama is different from the popular perception. Acting, for me, is not about overplaying, it is about concealing. I like flawed characters that people relate to. I would never do a romcom.
If you have a culture of respect, creativity flows. You create this energy, and then people have more desire to take risks.
You can't get a good crew and a good sound system, and a good light system if you do a small tour. If you want the best, those guys want a commitment of about 4 to 6 months. And I'd want the best people and the best stuff.
In the United States, we have a large, broad middle that are decent, fair-minded people who are too busy to really think about issues other than their next paycheck. Those are the people that we want to get to in order to change the social climate. And Howard Stern has that audience. So I said, 'Let's boldly go where I've never been before.'
Honesty and loyalty are key. If two people can be honest with each other about everything, that's probably the biggest key to success.
People try to typecast astronauts as heroic and superhuman. We're only human beings.
There was a stage when Balanchine and I didn't talk. I was trying to develop my classical technique as opposed to the fast-track technique that he was pushing. We were very quiet with each other. But after two years he saw what I was doing and sent messages through other people that, yes, this is good.
Some of those songs, you really have to bite them. You challenge yourself, you challenge the audience, you do something different. People weren't expecting it.
The Comedy Central CDs combined with the TV specials are what led to my stuff being traded and passed around, and a lot more people knowing my jokes than I thought.
We understand that in an open and democratic and free society, you cannot make yourself impenetrable, especially when there are more guns than there are people in the United States today.
Well, you know, the violence is mostly in Mexico itself, at least the violence that people are worried about. And so we want to make sure that violence does not spill over into our communities that are along the border.
If people use common sense and their own guiding moral compass, I think they'll generally stay out of trouble.
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
We don't want the federal government to shut down. It is so inappropriate, and it is not respectful of the people that have sent us here to do our jobs.
Sometimes I think they should set up an asylum for people like that... a whole slew of paparazzi defending their positions.
From beginning to end it's about keeping the energy and the intensity of the story and not doing too much and not doing too little, but just enough so people stay interested and stay involved in the characters.
You see people all the time who are on hit shows and then you never hear from them again.
So many people bare their midriffs, I don't know why mine is such an issue.
People teach their dogs to sit; it's a trick. I've been sitting my whole life, and a dog has never looked at me as though he thought I was tricky.
I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!
I built the business exactly the way my mother built and ran her family. I wanted a replication of the big, happy family I grew up in. I wanted happy people having fun.
Some people would view Jackie Robinson as a very safe African-American, a docile figure who had a tendency to try to get along with everyone, and when you look at his history, you learn that he has this fire that allows him to take this punishment but also figure out savvy ways of giving it back.
I'm not a celebrity whose face is recognised everywhere I go, like Gary Lineker, but my voice does make people sit up and pay attention from time to time.
I've been in things that have impressed people and they've come up to congratulate you but in a kind of, you-must-think-you're-really-special way.
Trust me, you have to fight. When people are wrong, you've got to let them know it.
At the Cruiserweight Classic finale, I said... I don't know if people had looked it up, or if they had heard it before, but it was an old Zen proverb. 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood, carry water.' It can be interpreted a lot of ways, but for the most part it's about staying in the moment.
