I guess something that you love to do, you gotta ease up off it and give it a little space, come back and be fresh to it.
TV is easier: it's all planned out for you, and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up, but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over. To me, that's more pure.
Generally, when I wake up in the morning I set out a series of problems for myself and I write them down, and when I'm sleeping, my mind solves the problems. When I wake up in the morning, I have more clarity on the issue.
The hits always wind up being the songs with big, high choruses. They're the ones too high to sing every night - not that you'll ever, ever hear me complain about having to try.
I grew up watching Letterman, 'Seinfeld,' 'SNL,' and Monty Python movies. But nothing made me want to get into comedy more than when 'Mr. Show' started airing.
So, when the discussion about not using the term feminist came up at a conference workshop, I couldn't believe it. The more I listened, the more I felt the need to express my passion about my identity as a feminist.
I grew up not reading fiction; I watched movies and read comic books, and one of the ways I taught myself to think about narrative was through film.
I'm not the same person I was. I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me. I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that.
I always grew up watching things transform, and a lot of that was what we would call trash.
I miss my kids sometimes and that can get me down when I've been away working, but then I wake up and recognize how incredibly lucky I am. Spending time being down is less time out there achieving and enjoying.
Coming up with a way to fix mistakes challenges your creativity and your critical thinking skills and your resourcefulness. Often you end up with something better than what you planned on in the first place.
I try to compartmentalize as much as possible, and I have the most amazing team in the world. They really set up my time in a way that is completely efficient all the time.
I always remember to go on the Staten Island Ferry because it's the most amazing view of New York. And it's free! You see Ellis Island, and it conjures up something of that great moment: you know, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It's staggering.
A lot of parents pack up their troubles and send them off to summer camp.
If I can bring joy into the world, if I can get people to stop thinking about their pain for a moment, or the fact the tomorrow morning they're going to get up and tell their boss off... then I'll be successful.
You're only going to get surface with me. It takes me ages to warm up to people.
Once the troops move into Cambodia, the colleges and universities of this country were on the verge of civil war. Many closed down. The students were up in arms. And it looked very much like there were going to be real problems in this country.
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
Certainly I'll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I've gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.
As far as everyone else's opinion, I mean, if I would have thought that everyone was right, I probably wouldn't have left Compton, so I don't get too caught up on what the next person thinks.
I just didn't work that much while the kids were growing up.
Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.
Growing up, I saw my dad do charity work for children with health issues. That had a profound effect on me.
I will not have my son grow up in a tension-filled home.
I have had a lot of blessed, interesting things happen to me and have bumped up against some amazing people.
We must insist on assimilation - immigration without assimilation is an invasion. We need to tell folks who want to come here, they need to come here legally. They need to learn English, adopt our values, roll up their sleeves and get to work.
I love having music just to chill to and also to rev me up a bit.
In college, I would follow Bob Dylan around, and I would show up to a concert, and he would sing some song he hadn't sang in a long time, and it would speak to something, and I would think it had some great fateful implication.
If we put the camera on ourselves, our friends and neighbors, we'll come up with some scary stuff.
I grew up in a miniature village in the middle of the countryside in England, quite secluded from the outside world. I was always enamored by the fashion industry.
We all get so caught up in our day-to-day lives and have so many gripes. But when you see the way others live and how they make the best of it, you'll realize how lucky you are.
The way Germans work is that they are slow to warm up but when they do they are your friend for life and very loyal.
As a writer, you rely on whatever makes you up as a person, whether those things are twisted and nasty or otherwise.
We should recognize that on the day that we are born, our glass is half full. In America your chance to fill your glass the rest of the way up is greater than it is anyplace else on this planet.
I grew up in the Bay Area until 1976, then I pretty much went all the way through primary and high school on Bainbridge, though like anybody who grows up on an island, I ran the first chance I got.
I do not take up a responsibility unless I am sure of putting my heart and soul into it.
