If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.
The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just direction traffic.
I find that I can't work and listen to radio - either I find I don't like it and it distracts me, or I do like it and I want to listen to it.
Had I done the movies that were offered to me in my prime, at the height of my career, I would have been alongside the likes of Denzel Washington. But, I chose not to do those movies.
I don't know, I think, in times where I'm really nervous, and I'm really under the pressure the worst possible outcome is for me to start thinking about it. I just do.
I remember when I went to try out for the Olympic team in 1972, Coach Iba told me he didn't care how many points I could score because if I couldn't guard anybody, I wasn't going to make the team. I knew to make the team I had to become a better defender. If you can play offense, you can defend. It just comes down to competitive will.
I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.
I want my audience to know me for my work, not because of who I'm dating or what drugs I'm on or what club I went to.
I'd say music runs in my blood. My parents are exceptionally talented singers, so even before I was born, it was a known fact to them that I'd become a singer. Thanks to my genes, I started off at the age of three and since then, music has meant everything to me.
If you're going to spend seven months of your life - for me seven months, for Roland Emmerich, 3, 4, 5 years of his life - doing something, I think you have to have something to say.
But I dig myself, and especially if my wife digs me, I dig myself more.
'Killer Joe' was originally written in 1991 and first produced in '93 at the Next Theater's Lab - a 40 seat black box theater in Evanston, Illinois - back when I was getting started. I was just 25 and I had been acting for awhile, but it was my first play and the one that really got me noticed, especially by Steppenwolf.
Basically, I'm motivated to write about sociopolitical issues as well as relationships. I think those themes have stayed with me throughout my life.
I would have had my patent long, long ago, and it would have run out long, long ago. I would have made, maybe, $100.000, much less that the patent has brought me now.
I've seen guys come along with more ability - they've been faster or bigger or stronger - but they never worked hard to develop themselves. Sometimes I've wondered what I could have done with their talent. On the other hand, the tag that I was too small and slow made me work hard.
It never occurred to me that I could live in California. Now I can't imagine living anywhere else.
An ideal day starts with putting on a good, smart, fun show where I learn something and ends with me fending off atomic knee drops from my two kids in our no-holds-barred pillow fight/steel cage matches. They are a ruthless tag team.
I feel good in my own skin because I've accepted the fact that I'm me. That's what's so great about being alive and being on this planet: Everybody's different.
We were in the same band, but we're two completely different people. People have asked me to make comparisons with our albums, and I can't, because there's no comparison. Her album's okay. I don't think she's the best singer on Earth, but she's okay.
It's hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
The whole period has taught me that I enjoy being part of an ensemble rather than just a front man. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy that too, but I get more enjoyment out of really listening to everyone.
Many retailers have complained bitterly to me about the complexity of the Carbon Reduction Commitment. It's not a commitment; it's a tax.
The only thing that infuriates me is that I have more unwritten stories in me than I can conceivably write in a lifetime.
The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing.
My personal life is invented for me, so why bother?
Drugs scared me.
I could party in a cardboard box with people who are funny and don't care. For me, it's really about who I surround myself with, so I just try to always be with hilarious people.
I'm not interested in going after a part. I think if someone wants me for a part and approaches me then I'll take it on a case-by-case basis and see what that part is.
The subject of angels and demons really grabbed me. There is a huge mass of information, and the Bible is one of the most amazing reference points.
For Oakley, I'm basically a media vehicle for them to promote the product. For me, it's both, I get a salary from them, but I also get great products so it just kind of works, continues on.
For me, 'The Kite Runner' became about a guy who's emotionally shut down because he hasn't confronted his past.
My favorite thing to do is still to go back to Peoria, go to my cabin and hunt with the boys. This is a great lifestyle, don't get me wrong. But fun for me is going back with my buddies I grew up with.
For me, the risks in terms of opening that brewpub were fairly high. I put my house up as collateral, I invested the liquid money I had and two years of my time to get it over, but that's really not much of a risk for what the potential reward was if it worked.
I was just watching baby videos of me and I was obviously an exhibitionist.
Peter Pan is kind of this metaphor for someone or something that makes you feel at home, that brings you out of loneliness, that makes you free. And that's exactly what music does for me.
I don't think there's much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do.
