Like sheep that get lost nibbling away at the grass because they never look up, we often focus so much on ourselves and our problems that we get lost.
Spike optioned my first book, 'Now the Hell Will Start,' and he trusted me to write the screenplay, too. That was an awesome learning experience - I grew up watching Spike's movies, and here he was giving me handwritten notes about structure and dialogue. His feedback taught me so much about how to craft a cinematic narrative.
If I would go up on a high note, Eddie would want a low one. That's how petty the situation had become.
I grew up with a very privileged background. My father served as one of the cabinet ministers in Arroyo's government, and he's been a congressman for many years, and he's running again.
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
I get along very well with the cast of '30 Rock.' I guess I bring a certain quirkiness to the show as well. I'm just thankful they keep asking me. I didn't think I was going to be asked back so every time they say, 'We want you back,' I'm screaming. I'm jumping up and down and screaming.
I understand how hard it is to force yourself to be someone different. By the end of high school, I had taken to doing my math homework up against a concealed wall during lunch because I was tired of socializing.
I grew up in a small town in Kansas, so I love meeting the fans. Those are the people who spend time out of their day to watch the things that I've done, and I've gotten to do some great supernatural stuff - 'Teen Wolf' and 'The Gates' before that - so it's nice when I get to go to Comic-Con every year.
At the beginning of every role I take, I have to start from basics and build it up. It's like a new construction.
Tennis was more than a passing interest, but I found my ability didn't measure up to these West Coast kids who had played 12 months a year and taken it much more seriously than I.
Kids have what I call a built-in hypocrisy antenna that comes up and blocks out what you're saying when you're being a hypocrite.
And before our current legislature adjourns, we intend to become the first state of full and true choice by saying to every low and middle-income Hoosier family, if you think a non-government school is the right one for your child, you're as entitled to that option as any wealthy family; here's a voucher, go sign up.
The best gift I was ever given was the arts. My mum gave me those on a silver platter. Growing up, her and my grandmother would take me to ballets, classical concerts, even smoky jazz clubs I wasn't supposed to be in!
Everyone messes up in relationships and has peaks and valleys in their personal lives. When I realized it wasn't the end of the world and I would keep on standing, I knew it was going to be OK.
The first time I met President Obama was 2006 in Baghdad. He was the senator from Illinois; it was a month before he actually ended up declaring. He had to come to Baghdad to kind of check that box, and I was the correspondent for 'Newsweek' at the time.
At Year Up, we have helped thousands of students rise from poverty into a professional career in a single year.
Growing up as a high jumper, I said if I could ever jump 2.40, I'd be pretty satisfied with my career. It's definitely a barrier for high jumpers.
Some girls get swept up in the lifestyle - clubbing and partying with celebrities. You can't live your life like that, though. It's fake.
When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.
It's funny how it usually works out that I end up dying. It sort of works out, because by the time I die, I'm usually tired of working on that particular movie, so I look forward to it.
The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry.
You can get some spiked up greens even with no metal spikes, it just depends.
All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.
I had a very brilliant father who was not only intellectual, but was street-smart and very curious to boot. The day I found out that he didn't know everything, I grew up. It was a shock. I just thought that the man was the end-all of everything, and he knew the answer to everything. Then I found out I'd have to find out my own answers.
This stuff on enemy combatants, the Bush Administration has fought like a tiger to avoid having to produce any evidence to a judge to show why somebody is locked up in perpetuity. Another example of that is the torture scandal.
I get up in the morning, do my e-mail, I check my e-mails all day. I'll go online and I'll buy my books at Amazon.com, but I don't want to buy all of them because I want to go to Duttons and I want to buy books from another human being.
I wanted to make Canadian films, and I ended up making American films.
I have a very strict regimen of showing up at my desk at a certain hour with my cup of green tea. It is very quiet. I don't like having a lot of atmosphere around.
Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
When I sit down to make a set list I usually think, 'We'll build it up here, take it down here, go into a quiet section here, explode here,' in a way that there's a flow and it doesn't feel like shuffle on an iPod.
There is an element in which anxiety co-represents with aspects of my personality I wouldn't want to give up. It allows you to have foresight. I may not be as empathetic. It's hard to figure out the difference between pathology and personality.
I've sorta learned that I'm so tired of taking myself so seriously. It's so great to show up at work and truly enjoy every word you say.
Liars hate silence, so they often try to fill it up by talking more than they need to. They provide far more information than was needed or asked for.
I can't deprive myself of things because then I obsess about it and end up eating.
I write about my region, the countryside in which I grew up.
