From the time I was a little boy I found myself reading history when I had a choice. I read a lot of things, but history had a special appeal for me.
I only answer to two people, myself and God.
I consider myself to be a pretty good judge of people... that's why I don't like any of them.
So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.
I got in trouble with the police, and that was a rude awakening. That was it. I'd seen the bottom of the pit, and it was time to scrape myself out of it.
We all hate on ourselves way too much, and there are so many people who think they have to look like those women on TV. That's so unreasonable. Everybody is supposed to be a different size. And if I can just be confident in myself, then I'll look better. It's quantum physics!
Usually, I don't want to sit down and listen to the director gas on about his movie. I just can't actually imagine myself sitting down and having that much to say.
I won't allow myself to have tremendous fear.
I have women coming up to me and saying: 'I love your character! She's so empowered. She takes control; she gets what she wants.' That's another side of her. And I respect that in Joan. She says and does things that I would never allow myself to do.
It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.
In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.
I have pushed the boat out as far as I should in terms of taking on too many things. I'm getting older and I just could not take it any more. I am now monitoring myself very closely and I'm just trying not to get into that sort of state again.
But the idea of a man making his living by writing seemed, in that hardy environment, so fantastic that even today I am sometimes myself assailed by a feeling of unreality.
I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
I always knew that I wanted to do something in business and I prepared myself for that.
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself, I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone.
I've always said I learned to defend myself from an opponent coming for a hard hit. Tricks are part of my repertoire; I use them to try to get past my opponents, but the objective is always to score goals.
When my record company rejected 'Full Moon Fever', I was hurt so bad. I was pretty far along in my career at that point. I'd never had anything rejected; I'd never really even had a comment. So when that happened, it was really just a board to the forehead. But then, finally, I picked myself up.
I'm going to be 60, and I'm almost used to myself.
When I look back at my career and my life and how much I have learnt, I feel blessed with what I have. I have stopped fighting with myself.
But I would never insult the people that love this music and I would never insult the blessing of music in my life and I would never insult myself by playing uninspired music.
I've never viewed myself as above anybody else or anything like that. I'm a regular guy at the end of the day. I like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and The Powerpuff Girls.
I never thought of myself as a writer.
If I despised myself, it would be no compensation if everyone saluted me, and if I respect myself, it does not trouble me if others hold me lightly.
I borrowed a guitar at age 16 and taught myself to play because I wanted to write songs.
I made my living in comedy, but I'm not a silly person. I've got all these sides to me. Even in my movies that I've written myself, the characters sometimes border on great anger or nutsiness or other kinds of behavior. I'm not just doing fart jokes for two hours.
What the translator - myself in particular - does is not comparable to what the Homeric performer was doing.
The question I ask myself is: have I really just become a squeamish middle-aged man, or has something happened to the horror genre that shows a growing appetite for watching torture, or at least a desire to explore it on film? And if so, why would that be? I can't pretend I know. I just know I don't like it.
A lot has been written about Tony Perkins and myself and I figured, Let's get it straight. I had a relationship with Tony for two to three years, but those are only threads in the tapestry of my whole life.
I don't know how to ground myself without the other actor present.
When I sat down to write 'Rules of Civility,' I didn't write it for anybody but myself. I wasn't trying to make my mark or make money. I wasn't anxious about feeding my kids or whether my father would be proud of me.
I would never know how to sell myself as a sex symbol. That's not how I'm programmed.
We haven't even gotten a start date but we'll see what happens with that and that will be fun. I've gotten a couple of other things but I'm not really committing myself to anything yet.
I just want people to see that I do my own stuff, that I'm not stupid, and I can make fun of myself.
My family is Muslim. But I don't consider myself a very devout Muslim, but a cultural Muslim, whatever that means.
I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings.
