Chicago is the Great American City, and it was really great to live there during a time of economic expansion and opportunity and growth. I felt like I was living at the center of the world. Unlike New York, no one expects you to be a professional writer.
We live in the Age of the Next New Thing; we're assaulted day and night by tastemakers telling us what the next hit will be, the next style, the next cool.
I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.
My ace in the hole as a human being used to be my capacity for remembering birthdays. I worked at it. Whenever I made a new friend, I made a point of finding out his or her birthday early on, and I would record it in my Filofax calendar.
BMG has been an awesome partner throughout my career, and with New London, we plan to continue bridging the gap between soul, pop, London, and New York - uniting them through music.
I decided to sing again after settling in Newark in 1982. I had a burning desire to sing and lots of encouragement from my new wife, Earlene.
In New York it seems like there's no Monday or Saturday or Sunday. The town is always moving. The vibe is great.
A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.
No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.
I felt I had to share Idaho with my friend from New York because he'd shared New York with me, so I was going to share the beauty of nature with a man who went to museums and clubs late at night. But there was nothing to do where I lived at night.
What I quickly discovered is that our so-called new South Africa has as much material for a story-teller as the old one. The landscape hasn't really changed. Who is in power now is different to who was in power then, but the squatter camps grow like cancer, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
Language is always evolving. It's difficult to read Shakespeare now because language has shifted. Similarly, kids these days can get to the point really quick in about 140 characters or less because of these new tools.
I think we are always right to worry about damaging consequences of new technologies even as we are empowered by them. History suggests we should not panic nor be too sanguine about cool new gizmos. There's a delicate balance.
Scientology plays an outsize role in the cast of new religions that have arisen in the 20th century and survived into the 21st.
Well, there have been periods in the past when prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand were at each others' throats publicly and frequently. That's not productive at all.
As the 1960s began, a new breed of Hollywood leading lady was emerging. She was elegant, international, and wonderfully comedic.
Vegas is definitely a new challenge, but I wanted to be able to put on a different type of show. You get to do so much more when you don't have to put your stage in trucks after the show every night - we got to build a venue specifically for my show. It's going to be more like a party than a typical concert.
The magic was in the Marshall Plan itself. It provided an opportunity for appealing and constructive work. In a sense, the mission chiefs were given the opportunity to help act as architects for the new Europe that was envisioned.
We may be sure that out of the ruins of our capitalist civilization a new religion will emerge, just as Christianity emerged from the ruins of the Roman civilization.
The great thing is that young talent isn't tied to a how-to model for starting a line; we get to find new ways to go about doing things. And don't let people tell you you can't. Go find a way to show that you can.
Not only does travel give us a new system of reckoning, it also brings to the fore unknown aspects of our own self. Our consciousness being broadened and enriched, we shall judge ourselves more correctly.
I never walked the streets of New York hoping to be a musical comedy star. For one thing, they would have thought I was too tall, because l was five feet eight and a half, and they were all little bitty things running around in the studio at that time.
We must remember that the people for whom this change represents a first taste of freedom and a new and brighter future did not allow their resolution to falter, no matter how great the suffering by which they bought this independence.
I had saved a lot of money working at Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chip Cookies, ushering at the Golden Gate Theatre, and doing odd jobs so I could live in New York for a few months. If it ran out, I would have to give up and go home. It turned out OK. I got my Equity card and started working.
The most scared I'd ever been was the first time I sang at a rugby match, Australia versus New Zealand, in front of one hundred thousand people. I had a panic attack the night before because people have been booed off and never worked again... just singing one song, the national anthem.
I did not come here to repeat what you already know. I have come to reveal something new. I want to share with you a new revelation from God.
Activating is about changing people's perceptions of overlooked or invisible spaces. A building can become an archetype, invisible, like for a New Yorker, for example, the Statue of Liberty. You look at it, and it disappears into the thousands of times you've already seen it.
My favorite New York memory is that blizzard in '96. I get chills thinking about it. It's my favorite time here - call me crazy. I'm from Canada, and it's very cold up there.
The early gigs were pretty panicky - and great, sweaty fun. We were brand new to most people, and they were willing to take anything brand new, for the first time in years.
As a person, I'm pretty much the same except that I've come to terms with who my real friends and supporters are. I don't get particularly friendly with new people at first go.
The New England Patriots have always been a special organization and I've always watched from afar.
An influencer, to me, is someone who shares their journey - the ups and downs - and their approach to their craft or the spark that ignites a new interest allowing people to do more and go further.
I feel that things happen for a reason and open up new opportunities.
It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new.
When it comes to best new artist or album or song of the year, yeah, it's very rare that you see someone in country win one of those. It's a very strong genre, and it's got roots so deep in our culture. I think the pool of voters listen more to pop and R&B and hip-hop. Those seem to be the major contenders.
Right now we're in the process of writing new material for a new record.
