I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.
In many cases your imagination is much more effective than what can be shown. It primes you to know something is about to happen - the anticipation and anxiety is worse than what ends up happening.
I was raised looking at women who were strong, and they weren't really into playing race cards or playing gender cards. I didn't grow up around women who were like, 'Well, let the boys do that, and let the girls do that.' I didn't really see that in my house.
In the end, I'll put my good acts up against those of anybody in this country. Anybody.
I don't think I set out to have a career in female groups, but it's just kind of happened, and by nature of having worked with my sister - growing up with a sister who also plays, and being in communication with other female musicians.
My main influence is Kool G Rap and Cam'ron, pretty much. If you were to mix those two people up, I wish that would be me... This is my voice. I sound like nobody; I sound like me.
Friends do give advice, but in the end, it's up to you. Although I think it is nice to have a guy's perspective on girls' issues in relationships and vice versa.
Music, even if I ended up doing something different or do end up doing something different in the long run, it's just something that is life blood. If I'm not participating in some way, I feel like I'm wasting my time.
Your characters can do the worst things on Earth - cut to a happy baby, it ends up being OK.
I grew up in Boca Raton, Florida - the worst place on earth.
I could open up a little gym, and I would be blissfully happy.
My daughter Karen was born in 1958, the year my first Paddington book came out, so she grew up with him.
Who didn't grow up through the '90s watching 'Friends?'
I grew up in Solihull, on the edge of what was then the Birmingham conurbation. It was a good place to write comedy from. I didn't feel allegiance to anything. I didn't have working-class pride or upper-class superiority.
It's strange: I've done so many things up until I did 'Obvious Child,' including writing children's books and making 'Marcel the Shell.' To me, the through-line is incredibly clear: it all comes from wanting to be connected to my own inner voice and not wanting to be on somebody else's agenda if that means that I can't be myself.
Look, we want freedom and we want liberty in this country. But we've also got to have the guts to stand up and run a tight ship in America. Morality is now a word that many people consider very square and outdated. But if we don't stand up for it, we deserve what we will get in the end - unprincipled anarchy.
Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he's got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or spend five years in the Army. Put him in the Parachute Regiment, they'd soon sort him out.
Cross the wrong state border with your gun, or wake up one morning to new legislation or a new presidential executive order, and suddenly you're the bad guy, not the good guy. No wonder some gun owners seem so touchy; they feel, at some level, like criminals in waiting.
I have an office full of product from brands trying to be in videos and an inbox full of songs from artists, but at the end of the day if the artist doesn't support the brand or it doesn't make sense for the song, then it will never work. What we do is try to pair them up so that both sides are happy.
Tracy Ullman, I grew up watching her shows and standup and improv and specials. Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg. They inspire me to do it all. I always wanted to do it all; I never wanted to be put in a box.
The day I wake up without cellulite? Now that would be the perfect day.
Some of us can be examples about going ahead and growing, and some of us, unfortunately, don't make it there, and end up being examples because they had to die. I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death.
The first 'Star Wars' film was enormously important. I grew up right smack-bang in the sweet spot of all of those. It's true cinema magic. It's fair to say that, as a kid, I would have been very happy to be Han Solo, and I would have been happy to have gone out with Princess Leia.
In high school, I started saving up to get a nose job, which is so ridiculous. I had this job at Tim Hortons, and I was trying to save up $10,000 for a nose job.
I don't want to sign something just because everyone is looking forward to what I sign next. When I take up a project, I am all in to deliver the best I can with sincerity and honesty.
One of our things is that money follows; it does not lead. So we want people that are fired up and passionate about their mission... and people that aren't so married to spreadsheets and thinking that kind of voodoo controls the future. Because it doesn't.
'Garbage Time' was the name I came up with. Midnight was my decision. Were they the right decisions? I dunno.
People are quick to be like, 'You're irrelevant. You're a flop; you're washed up.'
I always prided myself on at least trying to be literate and use the right words, and if the audience didn't get it, then they could go home and look it up.
I grew up backstage and on movie sets, and I thought they were the most magical places on Earth.
I think it's more interesting to throw people into a story and let them catch up instead of explaining and feeling like you have to slow down for them. I think audiences, for the most part, they don't want to be ahead of you.
We've all grown up with 'Ozzie and Harriet,' 'Father Knows Best,' 'Eight Is Enough.' White families have always represented the universal family.
Humor has always been important to me. If there is a shield of faith that you can keep up against difficulties, humor is the Teflon coating.
Trying to get the talk show, looking back on it, we had to beg a lot of station managers to pick up the show because people thought no one would watch it because I'm openly gay.
It's ironic, really, because I've spent the bulk of my career making my living in a very commercial realm: network television. And yet, my sensibilities don't necessarily line up with how I pay my rent.
It is day after day in this institution, borrow money, run up the debt, run up the deficits and then with a straight face say, we are going to repeal a tax that affects 1 percent of the American people, just 1 percent of the American people.
