I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.
I used to be affected by criticism thrown at me, and I would get really down. But I got to a point where I just decided to go for it, no matter what negativity is around you.
A lot of times, I walk down the street and listen to people argue, and then I write a song about it.
I often debate liberals on Fox News Channel who tend to start yelling and attacking when they run out of facts or common sense. I suppose these folks figure if they bow up and get in our faces, we'll just back down and see the world their way.
Well obviously the economy is critical to everything we do and we need to get the economy back in shape, the deficit down, the debt paid off, so that the economy can grow again and grow properly.
Yeah, because what it all boils down to is at the end of the day, we are all riding on the same boat and we have to learn how to deal with each other. I think that the music and what we do in our actions is what can kind of bring us together, hopefully.
Sometimes my backswing gets long, and I get in bad positions. The club also can get behind me coming down, so I have to flip my hands to catch up to my body.
Biology sets the context, and that is critical, but obesity still boils down to whether a person eats too much or exercises enough.
As a woman leader, I thought I brought a different kind of leadership. I was interested in women's issues, in bringing down the population growth rate... as a woman, I entered politics with an additional dimension - that of a mother.
I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play I feel a little sorrowful that I'll never know the man, or any man of such warm intelligence.
Anyone can sit down and write two pages of a novel, then forget about it, and a week later write five pages of a screenplay, then forget about it, and a week later start another novel... etc, etc.
I worked in the White House on 9/11, where the vice president was given the authority to, if he deemed necessary, shoot down an American passenger jet.
Being that I was raised in the Catholic faith, I am very careful about what I choose. I've turned down a lot of projects that... could have helped me a lot financially, and I've quit shows because of where they were going and because I feel like I have to be a role model for my kids.
Arkansas is a very small state, and it's even a smaller field when you break it down to Republicans in this state.
Like the graduates of some notorious boot camp, my brothers and sisters and I look back with a sort of perverse glee at the rigors of our Catholicism. My oldest sister, Mary, was so convinced of the church's omnipotence that when she walked into a Protestant church with some high-school friends, she was sure its walls would crash down on her head.
When I was first offered the book deal, I was like, 'I am not a writer. I haven't practiced this.' My approach has been completely stream-of-consciousness, and then edit down, because that's been YouTube for me forever.
I'm from Louisiana, and that's where I got my start, in Cajun music. There's a huge music scene down there centered around our culture. Those are people that are not making music for a living. They are making music for the fun of it. And I think that's the best way I could have been introduced to music.
Because I've been so bad at looking after myself, how would I ever look after a kid? But the old cliche applied: they handed her to me, and my world turned upside down - and I realised I was now going to be vulnerable in more ways than I expected.
I was doing the 'Vogue' fashion awards when I was 16, live on VH1. I was coming down the steps, and I'm a really hard walker. I hadn't had a mistake yet in my career. Everything had been perfect. So I come down the steps on live TV, and I slip. I didn't fall, but you could see the look on my face. I was mortified. I was devastated.
People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down.
The more money you spend, the more you need to make back, and the more pressure there is to appeal to everyone - which to the studio means that the specificity and uniqueness must be watered down. But I think mass audiences like things that are more specific and tend to have a voice, like 'Napoleon Dynamite' or 'Superbad.'
I don't worry about whether I'm making a masterpiece, because I know that if you get just one of those in a lifetime, you should get down on your knees and say 'Thank you!'
If something comes up I might write about it, but without an outlet the whole thing winds down.
I study orbital dynamics as a hobby. My idea of a good time is sitting down and drawing on that knowledge to imagine a space mission from beginning to end, getting as many details right as I can.
I hope people don't compare 2D and 3D because 3D's new, it's unfair to compare to 2D which is really sophisticated, even when we're jaded about it. 3D just began, give it a chance, let the equipment and projection system catch up and be better, let the price go down, let more filmmakers get a hold of it more easily.
I've had varying luck with comedy in the past, but I'd really like to give that another go. I don't know if I'd chase down a part, but if the right thing came along I could certainly see myself stepping into that zone.
I get nostalgic for British negativity. There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers. When you go back to Britain, everybody is just running everything down. It's like whatever the opposite of a hug is.
Working in a garden calms me down.
As a child, I lived through and survived the segregated South. I sat at the back of the bus at a time when America wasn't yet as great as it could be. As a grown woman, I saw the first black president reach down a hand and touch the face of a child like I once was, lifting his eyes toward a better future.
I have finally decided to write my book on the spiritual life. I mean to put down as simply as possible the sort of ascetical or mystical teaching that I have been living and preaching so long. I call it 'Le Milieu Divin,' but I am being careful to include nothing esoteric and the minimum of explicit philosophy.
You can get this feeling of the English or Scottish or Irish or Welsh fairy, but it is by nature very elusive. It would be possible to pin down a German fairy, but the English one just vanishes, becomes the shadow under the trees.
From the depths of the Pacific to the deserts of Iraq, more than a million American soldiers, Airmen, midshipmen, and Marines have laid down their lives for their friends, their families and our nation.
My dad was more tensed than I was a day before the release. Having learned that 'Bruce Lee' has released to the highest openings in my career, he has settled down.
Having Black hair is unique in that Black women change up styles a lot. You can walk down one street block in New York City and see 10 different hairstyles that Black women are wearing: straight curls, short cuts, braids - we really run the gamut.
The military is a very cool world to write about. I went down to Ft. Benning, Ga., for military training, and I learned a lot about soldiers and officers and why they joined up and what their life has been like.
Romance is alive and well in America, but the 50 percent who can't make it work fail because of selfishness. It gets down to that. You can't oversimplify it because every situation is so complex.