People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case.
I'm embarrassed to say that I don't have a lot of hobbies. It's not because I don't have interests; it's just that I don't have the time.
I don't know what to say about it except Tom Hanks is a great person, a serious person; he's dissatisfied in a very likeable way, in a very discreet way, and Steven Spielberg is similar in his discretion and drive. But Spielberg is calm. He's this driven filmmaker and visionary. He really is.
I would say there is a zone of R&B that hadn't been quite innovative.
'Britain's Royal Families' became my first published book, in 1989, from The Bodley Head, and the rest of the story is - dare I say it? - history!
When I did 'Sex and the City,' it was like, 'Let's do a comedy where the humor is not coming from innuendo but from the a truthful place. This is a show where we're going to be able to say and do what we want.'
Meeting Stevie Wonder was a massive, lifetime achievement for me. He's one of the sweetest people. I sense a kindred spirit in him, and I hope he'd say the same. Actually, he did.
I was one of the first people in the Palestinian world, in the late 1970s, to say that there is no military option, either for us or for them, and I'm certainly the only well-known Arab who writes these things - and who writes exactly the same things in the Arab press that I say here.
People have this belief that actors are able to go out there and say, 'Oh I choose this job,' but most of the time we're just taking the job we can get. We don't just get offered thousands of jobs; we might earn one job a year and that's the one we'll take because we've got to pay the rent.
I was pretty awkward when I was young, but I was never afraid of putting myself out there. I would say stupid things but then they would laugh at me and possibly find it endearing.
The biggest compliment I can ever get as an actor is to have someone say, 'We didn't recognize you.'
I've done everything I can in my life to be the best person I can be, and I can look in the mirror and say that.
I've had fans come and knock on my door. I'm usually polite, but I'm usually very direct and say, 'It's not cool that you come here uninvited.'
My memorization skills aren't that great so I need help in that area. As far as everything else, I listen to the director. I'm someone who doesn't argue. I hit my marks and say the lines.
Most people generalize whatever they did, and say that was the strategy that made it work.
I am a character actress. Well, let's say, I am a leading character actress who does interesting, odd parts.
I've always been able to hear and read what I say before I say it. That's why I'm a good quote. Or a good interview. If I say something that's uncomfortable for someone's ears, it's going to be the truth; I just happen to voice it. But it's the truth. It's not my opinion.
My mind is never stopping. I think, if you stop, you die. Maybe it is a problem for me - I have to talk to myself and say, 'Please stop. Switch off.'
The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.
I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day.
I was put in a position with a man that, whenever he would call me at work or at home, work-related, he would say jump and I'd say how high and I would jump.
Planned Parenthood is a pretty popular organization. Way more popular than Congress! It claims that one in five women have received care from one of its clinics. And this care, despite what abortion opponents say, is excellent and not easily replaceable by 'community health centers.' Texas tried it, and thousands of women went without care.
No one ever doubts that I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.
I don't know what more to say. I mean, we're all going to die in a world that is worse than when we entered it.
Whenever people say 'women's soccer,' I want to correct them to say 'soccer.' Every girl has had their sport diminished because they're girls.
We all make judgments on people, but some are much more brutal than others. It's easy to say, 'Ya know, I'm not crazy about what she's wearing,' but you don't have to be nasty about it, and you don't have to be public about it.
I give a speech at some colleges and corporations called 'Performing Your Life: An Evening with Jeffrey Tambor.' I get asked a lot of questions, and people say, 'Your stories are wonderful. You should write a book.'
A lot of times, good improv is when both people, or however many people are in the scene, really have no idea what the next thing you're going to say is.
Daddy was like a lot of people who kind of turn their noses up when you say the word 'organic.'
There's a lot of variety of musicians in Korea. I cannot say they are the best in the world, but I can say that Korean artists are really dynamic artists, so I am going to show that from now on.
When you say 'fear of the unknown', that is the definition of fear; fear is the unknown, fear is what you do not know, and it's genetically within us so that we feel safe. We feel scared of the woods because we're not familiar with it, and that keeps you safe.
Although cover notes for classical music albums tend to say that the trill of flutes suggests mountain streams and so on, I don't think anybody listens to music with the expectation that they're going to be presented with a sort of landscape painting.
Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.
I knew I heard the doctor correctly. I didn't think he said something else, I didn't think for a second, 'Well maybe he didn't say it.' No, I knew I heard him! But I still couldn't comprehend... in my mind... in my soul... he just said, 'cancer.'
People say that text messaging is a new language and that people are filling texts with abbreviations - but when you actually analyse it, you find they're not.
It doesn't give me any satisfaction to think that my concerns will be validated by my grandchildren's generation. I would love to be wrong in everything. My grandchildren are my stake in the near future, and it's my great hope that they might one day say, 'Grandpa was part of a great movement that helped to turn things around.'
