I see myself as a character actor, and I've always been drawn to playing characters that are different from myself because acting is escapism for me. I've never been that comfortable playing people that are like me.
I've never had to fend for a child's life, which sounds very terrifying.
During the Second World War, nobody built any concert halls or theaters. After the war, Lincoln Center was a very brave project because all those architects had never built a theater before. We've learned a lot since then about the nature of materials and the isolation that's required.
We've never been a religious band, but the media wants us to be.
Hollywood, for me, is the studios. It's a way to produce. It's a different way to make movies, and I never took part in that.
I will absolutely say that whatever job I was asked to do, whatever schedule I was asked to work, it is never going to be as hard as looking after a child.
I think the most appealing characters for the audience are the ones that you never know whether to root for them or whether to hate them. That's what keeps people drawn to their television sets.
I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful.
Even if we artists are all very privileged, there's a constant frustration about how to do more or better, and never being satisfied.
There are different usage patterns - I never do email during the day. I don't multitask well at all. I don't know how to be in a meeting and participate and be on email at the same time. I do see some people do it more effectively. I've never quite figured that out.
I've never been comfortable as a lead performer, and I never wanted to be a singer, particularly.
I don't like it when people say, 'You're 45, so you should be wearing X and never Y.' For me, dressing is about attitude, not age.
There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior.
I have been in business a long time. I never had a successful relationship or partnership with any entity by issuing an ultimatum.
I'm never going to be fat - never again. I'm going to make it easy on my pallbearers.
Men who are too good looking are never good in bed because they never had to be.
People want me to be so full of shame that I used to dance. I would never be ashamed of it. I made a lot of money. I had a good time, and it showed me a lot.
I never weigh myself. That's the best advice I can give - never step on a scale. You know if you're being healthy, if you're exercising. You don't need to be undermined by some crazy number.
Never let it be said that the world of international economics isn't exciting or adventurous. OK, I exaggerate, because not even the most imaginative mind could construe the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to be a nail-biting barn burner.
On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and, yes, read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down, but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.
Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does.
My worst boss was a departmental chair who never learned to appreciate new developments in the field. He had contempt for students and younger researchers, and he saw the job of running the department as a nuisance.
I had never dreamed about the NBA like some guys did. I was a non-scholarship player at an NAIA college. I played on the Boys and Girls Club team in my freshman and sophomore years of high school before I made the high school team. I was our backup center in college.
Pre-production and post-production is something that I've never been exposed to. I was pleasantly surprised that you could accomplish a lot during pre-production.
In 1994, nobody could have predicted 'Shawshank' would one day be an iconic movie - and believe me, that would never have happened if Danny Glover had been Red instead of Morgan Freeman.
I remember seeing 'Snow White' and saying to my mother, 'Will there ever be a Chocolate Brown?' She said 'Probably. Why not?' I just never thought the first black princess would be me.
Barack Obama would never accept a court in Mexico decreeing what the law in the United States would be.
Up until the age of 30 I could eat whatever I wanted - I mean, literally, I never put on a pound; if anything, I was criticised in the media for being too skinny.
I don't think anything about a personal legacy. I mean, those words would never come out of my mouth unless I just repeated them. Those things have never been important to me.
Dogs who live in each other's company are calm and pragmatic, never showing the desperate need to make known their needs and feelings or to communicate their observations, as some hysterical dogs who know only the company of our species are likely to do.
I never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away.
I never really officially retired from the WNBA, I just left the doors open.
I never played sports or got into the whole guy camaraderie of, like, 'I love you, man! Seniors forever!' So suddenly being in the military with these guys who were under these very heightened circumstances, isolated from their families, living this very kind of Greek lifestyle, it changed my life in a really big way.
I never thought about the relationship of my mother, my family, to the content of my work.
I've never done songs with people just for the sake of the great combination. I've always done songs with friends.
I never make a distinction between private life and politics - that's a petit bourgeois thing. How can you make a stand against Nazi Germany, or in Rwanda, when you live life by making that distinction?
