The biggest determinant in our lives is culture, where we are born, what the environment looks like. But the second biggest determinant is probably governance, good governance or a certain kind of governance makes a huge difference in our lives.
I'm not one of those people who writes a biography or tries to figure out what kind of ice cream the character liked when he was 10.
'Avatar' is the greatest, most comprehensive collection of movie cliches ever assembled, but it's put together in a brand new way with a new technology, and tremendous imagination, making it a true epic and a kind of a milestone.
I tell you one thing that makes me feel I haven't wasted my life, and that is I've got some grandchildren. You can't overestimate the kind of opening to the future that gives a person, I think.
When kids play, they are working on imagining the kind of world we live in.
But the approach to recording this album was kind of an organized, chaotic approach where I wanted to maintain and preserve that wild abandon to creating.
I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
I went back to my ex a couple of times, and regardless of how many times you hear from your parents or your best friends or whoever that 'Oh, you should let it go and be over it and let him go. Move past it and find somebody new.' Regardless of the advice that you're given, you kind of have to do whatever makes you happy.
I used to dream of some kind of way that you could carry a phone with you - but I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. It doesn't matter nowadays if you are caught in traffic or got lost on the way somewhere. You can just send a text and the recipient will know that you haven't fallen under a bus.
I'm a 'what's next?' guy. I don't know what that is, but I'm excited to find out and put the same kind of energy into it as I put into track.
Clinton's fakery was so deft and deeply ingrained that it was impossible to tell where it ended and the real Bill Clinton began. This constituted a kind of political genius.
So, practice, particularly after you've attained a job, any kind of job, like playing with a four piece band, that's... an opportunity to develop.
I try to ground most of my characters in reality somehow. That's kind of what I bring to the table.
I'm kind of proud of myself. I've been able to keep a certain grace about me, even in the times of disgrace and craziness.
Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.
I'm kind of spoiled, but the great thing about life is that you never know what's around the corner.
For reasons which I can't logically explain, in all of the films I've done, I've ended up doing love stories of one kind or another, and it seems to me that love stories are extremely dependent on the obstacles you can place between the lovers. There is no love story without it.
My mom pushed me in a baby carriage at Martin Luther King rallies. My grandfather was a union organizer. And to me, there is no room - no room - for discrimination of any kind. To me, it's just an anathema.
My producer, Michael Knox, he's kind of my eyes and ears on Music Row. While I'm out on the road, he's looking for songs, and then he and I will get together and go over songs.
Because it's uncensored cable, I think we'll be able to do the kind of sketch comedy that really hasn't been seen before. We can actually finish jokes.
These days i tend to use one project I do as a kind of offshoot to the next.
Unlike the twisters he famously chased in the movies, Bill Paxton was the kind of force of nature you ran toward and never away from.
I have hesitation making any kind of decision, really in my life. I'm really slow at it.
I think our democracy has it exactly right: two terms, eight years. It's enough. Because it's important to have one foot in reality when you have access to this kind of power.
The cause of our difficulties in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its desired ends.
I think especially older people, and I count myself one, in the business - people get to know who you really are. So there comes a time when you can't just go in and audition without everybody knowing exactly how you've brought up your kids, what you said at the meeting, what kind of food you cook.
Venice is a place that is high on reinvention. The kind of place that you can go and be whoever it is you want to be and do whatever it is you want to do, and nobody's really going to ask you a lot of questions about it.
When you work on an album for three and a half years, you're kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.
Our culture has kind of let the concept of the Renaissance Man die out. We don't really tell the kids that it's okay to bounce around the world, work odd jobs, and do six different things.
I'm very accepting with my age. It's like notches on your belt: experience, wisdom, and a different kind of beauty. There comes a day when you've become comfortable in your skin.
Ain't no place like New Orleans. It's one of kind.
I really only take roles that I love and that I have some kind of innate compulsion or need to tell that story. Although it's almost like I have no control over it. It's like they choose me.
It always has been and forever will be impossible for slavery or any kind or form of injustice to produce a great poet.
I started walking at night with my sister in law which has been amazing. It really does something for you. It just kind of clears the mind, it just makes you feel better, things start to tighten a little bit.
To be appreciated by a whole 'nother generation of fans, all of a sudden discovering you, it's kind of what I did with the classic bands I love - the ones that influenced me.
Give a lift to a tomato, you expect her to be nice, don't ya? After all, what kind of dames thumb rides, Sunday school teachers?
