I grew up completely overwhelmed by TV, and part of the reason why I have gone into television is as a way to justify to myself all those wasted hours of watching TV as a kid. I can now look back and say, 'Oh, that was research.'
Who uses funds more productively - private citizens or the government? I dare say that Warren Buffett can use his surplus funds more effectively in private business and creating jobs than the government can.
Let us not become so intense in our zeal to do good by winning arguments or by our pure intention in disputing doctrine that we go beyond good sense and manners, thereby promoting contention, or say and do imprudent things, invoke cynicism, or ridicule with flippancy.
I don't have any other skills. Some artists say that to mean that their embodied passion for art gave them no choice. I say it, very specifically, to say that I really didn't have any other options.
I have found, writing a blog, that being non-opaque is necessary. You pretty much have to say what you know in much more firm terms or risk that the legions who always know more than you do will tell the story better.
People are going to say what they want to say.
I don't call up the press and say, 'Look at me!'
Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?
A Tribe Called Quest was one of those things where it was supposed to be about growth. When I say 'growth,' I don't just mean with our sound or our product, but Tribe was supposed to grow as individuals.
I can't lie - I love talking to the people at my shows. I'm so grateful to all my fans. I couldn't do it for this long without them. So if they want to come past to say hi and whatnot, then it's part of my job to talk to them - and you know, it might be the best part of my job, too.
All I can say is if the part doesn't delight me in some way, or I can't feel any compassion for it, I just can't do it.
Everything that has a spare piano is 'like Satie' and everything with strings is 'filmic,' Sometimes I get annoyed when they say my stuff sounds 'like Satie'. No, it doesn't. At least, I don't think so.
I just look back, and I say, you know, Christopher Guest just raised my whole career to another level.
Even before I was working off-Broadway, there were lots of different TV shows that I would actually say 'no' to, and my agents would be like, 'Are you crazy?' but they stuck with me because they know the kind of things that excite me.
I'm conservative, and people know where I stand. They can trust me to do what I say I'm going to do. I'm predictable.
Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.
There's a problem with political polling in that you have so much pressure to do what your client wants you to do and say what your client wants you to say. I've never felt that pressure. I am independent of the political parties.
I really don't have anything urgent to say, and I think you shouldn't write unless you have something urgent to say. Sometimes that troubles me, and sometimes I don't really care.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the nonprofit world, the right picture is worth tens of thousands of dollars. I use PhotoPad to sync our Samasource Flickr account to my iPad and slip it out of my purse at cocktail parties to tell our story.
Just by the nature of making the choice to be true to who I am, I'm political. Sometimes that's all you need to do: Show up and be black, gay and Christian in America and actually say it out loud. And refuse to let anything or anybody take that away from you.
I'm not in denial about technology, but my mother used to say when I was a kid, 'Son, you're handless,' because I couldn't fix anything. My ambition is to be a Luddite.
I've met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother's father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious.
I'll just say it: I'm not the sharpest tool in the box. Being forced to go back to school is still a fear of mine.
When I ask the young people from California why they want to go to New York, and the ones from the East why they're determined to go West, I hear what you'd expect: new challenges, different weather, boyfriends, girlfriends, to make a name... They laugh when I say, 'But your poor mother.'
My weekends are spent hidden in the woods, and then I have to come back and pretend to be this very upper-crust insurance investigator. But, I mean, duality's nice. You never get bored. You can't say the grass is always greener if you're in both backyards.
I guess you could say I have grown up, matured. I have seen a lot, and I guess that probably sums it up.
People say they are inventing electric cars. Well, where is the electricity coming from? Flowers? Maybe someday. But what is available now is oil and gas.
Professional politicians will say anything, and they're always careful to leave themselves room to turn around and do the other.
I can understand when people say that they're not a big fan of my music. That's an individual opinion, and I respect that. But you don't have the right to comment on my choice of citizenship, my skin colour, or my religion. It's not open to discussion.
I always say, if you keep your head in the sand, you don't know where the kick's coming from.
I like to be at a party and be a quiet observer, be in conversation. I wouldn't say I was a class clown growing up, but I would definitely sit back in class and take snipes at the teacher.
A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, 'Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.'
In tennis, a lot of parents are accused of driving their kids into tennis. I would say I'm the opposite: I drove my parents into it. They didn't take it that seriously until I was about 11 or 12 years old, when they realised I had an opportunity to go pro.
I try to avoid describing one interpretation of my books. Of course I have an opinion. I have things I want to say, but I don't ever want to limit anybody, to have them say, 'Oh, he said this, so that's what it's about.' I'm happy people bring their own stuff to it.
In the theatre, if you say 'Macbeth', all the actors will start looking very anxious. I'm so well-trained not to say it in the theatre that I can hardly say it in normal life.
