There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
As I read more and I got into philosophy and met a lot of friends who weren't Christians, it became difficult for me to sustain the belief structure in the supernatural.
I'm much more open to being a supporting actor right now. At the age of 60, I'll be second fiddle. Fine. I'm happy to do it.
Maybe I'm more drawn to those kind of parts because they are meaningful to me. I mean, more parent-y ones, I find them interesting to do.
I think that my peers deserve more than products to buy wrapped up in advertising. We need ideas to share and causes to believe in - opportunities to lead and teach.
I don't think anyone is more intrinsically holy. People experience God in many ways; and it seems to me that God does what the rest of us do: He chooses the means that best gets His message across.
I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.
I think it's also the case that I'm not as widely travelled, or as well-educated in history, as most of the other novelists I meet: so I have to write about my own country, at the present time, because it's more or less all I know about!
A runner needs not just to be skinny but - more specifically - to have skinny calves and ankles, because every extra pound carried on your extremities costs more than a pound carried on your torso. That's why shaving even a few ounces off a pair of running shoes can have a significant effect.
Most of the women who have offered themselves for public office over the years have done so, I believe, more because of the 'dirt' than in spite of it.
I just think it's so much more rewarding and important to go around the world and bring people together as opposed to pushing people away.
Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.
Losing my parents really set me adrift in more ways than one. It's not just losing them. It's losing the possibility of family.
I think the wonderful thing about doing theater is that it's more of an actor's medium. I think that film is more of a director's medium. You can't edit something out on stage. It's there.
The notion that there is no basic value system is far more incoherent or invalid than the notion that there are essential values. Every religion can tell you it has basic values. You ask a Christian, most Christians would say love God and love your neighbor. Is that the entirety of Christianity? No one in his right mind would say it is.
More often than not, however, the person who flatly states 'Elves aren't like that!' is hard pressed to describe how they really look.... as if Tolkien has summoned archetypes from so deep in our minds that we can only recall them incompletely.
There's nothing more confirming in your life than looking in front of you and seeing some really amazing people who you care a lot about who care a lot about you.
In short, it is not that evolutionary naturalists have been less brazen than the scientific creationists in holding science hostage, but rather that they have been infinitely more effective in getting away with it.
Between podcasts and places like Funny or Die or CollegeHumor, there are so many venues to get the word out. It makes it difficult in that there's a never-ending desire for content, so you have to constantly be turning stuff out, but that makes you better and more prolific in general.
In bed at night, I could be reading some book, and I'll come across a sentence that's totally unrelated to some scene I did years ago. But I'll play the scene back in my mind and think, I did that wrong - I should've opened the door more slowly.
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them.
Growing up, if I had been given any advice - bad or good - I probably wouldn't have been able to act on it regardless. I wasn't shy, but I'd get nervous. I got a little more confident later in high school when I realized I could get girls to pay attention to me by making them laugh.
This game will make you cry more often than not.
The problem of sexism is getting better, but I don't know if it's getting better fast enough. We see more roles for women that don't entirely revolve around the way in which they function in a man's life, but typically those women are almost always white, and even then, there are only a few of them.
I want to spend more time with those kids. I want to dedicate my time to train those kids and teach them what it takes, what they need to do to get to this level.
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.
As a historical legacy, the Kashmir conflict has been an outstanding issue for more than half a century.
From 1980 to 1990, I shot more films than any other actor in the Screen Actors Guild, apart from Gene Hackman.
Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.
Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.
More than anything, what we do as actors is to sit and watch, and I would never want to get so lost in the celebrity bubble I couldn't do that because my feet no longer touch the ground.
People do ask me for advice for some reason. And I'll just kind of pose it back to them and let them answer on their own. I never like to give my advice 'cause I don't want them to come back and 'You were wrong! You ruined my life!' so it's more about 'Hey, this is what you just told me. What does that sound like to you?'
The first truth for special operations is that quality is more important than quantity.
I don't think you can discriminate against budgets, you know? I'm an actor, I guess, so I'm just trying to play as many characters as I can. If there's a character I think I can play, and they're going to let me do it, I'll do it whether it's $10 or $1 million or more.
Men don't oppress women any more than women oppress men.
