Saying no frees you up to say yes when it matters most.
Even the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security trustees appointed by the president say that Social Security is financially sound, without any changes for the next 40 to 50 years.
In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it.
What's really the driver of talent is not raw ability. It's not even just experience. It's what's called 'deliberate practice,' which is to say, if you do something a lot, you get really good at it.
It is baffling, I must say, that in our modern world we have such blind trust in science and technology that we all accept what science tells us about everything - until, that is, it comes to climate science.
I take apart restaurant menus everywhere I go. I kind of tick off a lot of chefs in restaurants because I'll say, 'You can keep all of the sauce, keep all of that garbage - just give me that piece of fish. Forget the salad dressing, I don't need all of that extra stuff. Just give it to me straight up, and I'll eat it.'
The Internet is part of our evolution. The mystics used to say, 'We can travel across the planet in a thought.' Now we really can. We can be connected with a million people at a time.
The idea of close encounters of the zero'th kind - which is to say, not a close encounter at all, but simply uncovering evidence that someone's out there - dates back to the Victorian era.
I think it's really important for people to hear what our men and women in the military have to say.
Focus on eating real, whole, natural foods. As I love to say, if you can pick it, pluck it, milk it, or shoot it, you can eat it!
I'm a sponge when it comes to stories. I'd say everything influences me in some way, but for 'Red Queen' in particular, I was really affected by the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R. R. Martin.
It so depends on each script, because you can say... I always thought I wouldn't have wanted to do something that was kind of like as big and commercial as 'The Dark is Rising,' but I really liked the script. I thought it was really clever.
I am very happy to say I look just like my dad. But mothers always think their children are prettier than they really are, and mine has always told me I look like Tom Cruise.
I'd never painted anything before. I was quite content to take other people's work since I didn't care anyway about the subject matter. I approached subject matter as a scoundrel. I had nothing to say about it whatsoever. I only wanted to make these exciting paintings.
On Twitter, if you want to quote someone else, you say, 'RT, re-tweet, that person's name, and then what they said before.' And it's a way of essentially saying, 'I'm not saying this, but my friend said this and I thought this was interesting.'
Sometimes I say in France: Europe is no more the center of the world - and the United States, neither. We have other key players on the international stage: China, of course; but also Brazil, India and South Africa. And their influence is very, very strong.
Tunisian liberals say that the U.S. Embassy in Tunis is unengaged with their efforts to make sure the Tunisian model remains one of expanding freedom.
I think my wife has always been aware, whatever country we have been in, of my dramatic leading man status; a little too dramatic she would probably say.
In a way, I don't want to know what's being said in casting offices, because it can get pretty brutal, and I don't want to have to think about the reasons why I don't get one job or do get one job. I can say, 'Oh, my height,' and that'll make me feel better, but I don't know for sure.
When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.
I always say the person who taught me how to sing indirectly because I listened to her all the time was Brandy. I fell in love with her voice when I was six years old. I always loved Brandy.
I would never say out loud that I am raising my children alone, but a lot of the time it has felt like that.
I am hoping this is my year to have children. I understand that I am possibly more European in my views of marriage. I am not going to say I'm not going to get married, but it's not my priority.
No one's going to tell me how to make my own choices. For too many years, everybody told me what to say and what to do and how to be.
People demonize me; people idolize me; everything I say and do has been scrutinized.
Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.
There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there by chance.
I'm an early riser, which is sometimes a drag when I have late-night concerts. But I prefer to wake up early - say, 8:30 - and maybe take a nap during the day.
There's a love of rhetorical skill in the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden doesn't just go on tape cassettes and say, 'America sucks.' He recites poetry; he finds things that 'America sucks' rhymes with.
I say to folks all the time, 'Watch what you're eating. You don't have to eat it all. Make conscious choices. It doesn't mean you have to starve yourself and eat carrots all day.' Have an awareness.
To Western parents that want to adopt a child, I would say to people that money is not everything, wealth does not matter.
I was unknown because I came to Washington from the West. I started covering Watergate. Immodestly, I'd say I did it pretty well, in part because it was hard to go wrong.
All I can say is, I don't encourage younger kids to read my books, and actually, the biggest age group on my Facebook page is 25- to 35-year-old women.
Even successful musicians have had periods where people say they suck and no one likes them, even after they've had periods of great success. So I think it's like you just gotta do you and try to stay motivated. Until, you know, you decide to stay home and make spaghetti all day.
Everybody has their challenges; I couldn't say that we have more challenges than other people, they're just different.
My roots were in acting. That's all I wanted to be. Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'
