My 21st birthday was awesome. I was in L.A., and it was great. I had a bunch of friends that came out. The night ended up in a completely different direction than we thought it was going to go.
All these stories are grist to the mill of the government because they build up a very useful war psychosis.
When I took over the family business, it had already been a publicly traded company for 20 years. During one of the first annual meetings I attended, one shareholder stood up and advised me and everyone in attendance that I should resign.
I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is - this thing that happens to everyone, so I've heard.
Well the way I ended up with my own record is that I did this concert at Wesleyan University. It was just one night and we had no thought of making a record.
My favorite subject was English, and I wanted to study English abroad when I was young, when I was a kid, but my mom said 'No, it's too dangerous to go abroad by yourself.' So I gave up.
The first things I did was I was a writer, painter, and photographer, and we grew up very poor, so even though I could get into any college I wanted, there was no way to pay for it.
I kept thinking I would be spending my life up to my elbows in shampoo.
Is there anything more useless than a crouton? I sometimes wake up in the small hours with a start and realise that what's roused me is an overpowering urge to visit violence on its originator.
When I was growing up, my mother would take me to plays and museums, and we'd talk about life. Those times helped shape who I became.
Some of us are like a shovel brigade that follow a parade down Main Street cleaning up.
When I joined the band, being that I was going to take this up as a profession, I realized that there were no two finer guitar players in the world that I'd rather play with.
Anyone who has a parent can relate to this idea of not quite understanding who your parents are or making up stories about them.
I have written things that Republicans and Democrats and all kinds of figures have either hated or felt very uncomfortable about. Because in doing these long projects and books, you get close to the bone. And they're not calling me up and asking me for dinner.
I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could.
You look at the Pew Hispanic Center study on the number of illegal aliens in America and the number of jobs they have, that's 7.4 million, illegal aliens in America. A quick way to create jobs in America is to remove those illegal aliens from our community. That frees up 7.4 million jobs that American can seek.
Ideas must counter ideas. You can drop all the bombs you want, but if you don't pull up weeds by their roots, they just grow back.
I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.
One of the things that I'm really proud of is that I have really good timing. It's very easy for me to see what's coming up and it's no coincidence that I went headfirst into wine and then headfirst into new media - none at all.
I didn't want to be behind a desk. I didn't want to do a normal job. I had made my mind up. I became despondent prematurely. I had my mid-life crisis when I was 16. I suppose I'd agree with that. But acting has helped me develop a lot in my private life.
'9 to 5 the Musical' is perfect for anyone that's ever wanted to string up their boss, which is almost all of us.
Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.
I can run up a wall and do a back flip - that's the most impressive thing that I can do.
At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.
You know, when you go to high school or, you know, when kids are younger and there's not an understanding of differences. But I built up a very strong, thick skin.
You buy a house and you get it checked out and you feel like you've kind of made your mark here in some way. And then an act of God just comes up the coast and has the potential to just completely wipe it clean. Weather like that is certainly humbling.
A Christmas Carol is such a fool-proof story you can't louse it up.
When I was two and a half or three, my mom got a call from someone asking if wanted to go on an audition. I ended up getting the job; it was a commercial for Hasbro. It was my first audition and first commercial. I just had to smile and laugh and dance around.
I've always liked trees. And then, growing up, I took an interest in ecology, hedges being destroyed, the landscape being turned into prairies.
I started getting into Internet technologies and computers. I wasn't especially interested in being a musician, but I wound up finding my way back to being interested in music through computers.
This programme would only really make sense and work properly if it was also broadcast on France's international television channel TV5. So I ended up with a double production, on France 2 and TV5.
There are things about growing up in a small town that you can't necessarily quantify.
I got involved in improv comedy. It settled me down when I was getting wild. I was sort of an evil teenager smashing up my cars and drinking and driving, let's just say, a lot.
I've grown up around people who love photography, and I think from being photographed for so long, I always wanted to understand how it worked, and I've been fortunate enough to be photographed by some really wonderful photographers, and so I learnt a lot from them, and I always ask them questions.
I do not keep up with the details of particle physics.
I grew up in the heart of the Depression.
