Maybe it's just my own chronic morbidity and melancholia, but I really do think about it a great deal and quite often in the small hours of the night when, it is said, the greatest numbers of people die.
I don't feel I want to complain about anything that's said about me.
Sartre said that wars were acts and that, with literature, you could produce changes in history. Now, I don't think literature doesn't produce changes, but I think the social and political effect of literature is much less controllable than I thought.
I guess my first professional experience was when my church choir director told my mother that I had a gift with my voice and said that I should think about auditioning, at 11 years old, for the chorus of our regional opera company.
Anyone who's gotten their passport in America will tell you, when you get it, it still says what country you were born in. So I remember getting my American passport. I was like, 'Woo-hoo! I'm going to travel.' And I opened it up. It said, 'Born in Iran.' I'm like, 'Oh, come on, man!'
I wasn't expecting two seconds of me on the medal stand to go viral after the Olympics. I came back to my room after the medal ceremony, and my dad said this picture of me doing a face I don't even remember making is blowing up.
One day my 3-year-old daughter said 'Your very handsome, Poppy.' That was the best compliment ever.
We had a couple of films that, in the course of working on them, the budget shrank to the point where we couldn't make it. They literally ran the numbers: They took our numbers and the stars' numbers, and when they calculated whether we could make our money back or not, it said no.
I read the 'Kapoor & Sons' script in a half hour, forty five minutes. Not because I skimming through it... I read it like a book. By the end, I was blown away. I picked up the phone and said, 'This script is gold.'
They haven't said it, but let's be clear: I would never have been on the list for James Bond, so I'm not labouring under that misapprehension.
I think David Cameron is really not very passionate about the environment. He said all the right things. I don't think he's come through with anything that's tangible.
Music was always the distraction, so it was the obvious choice to pursue. My dad always said to find a job I love to do, that way it wouldn't feel like a job. So I did that.
I'll never forget a meeting with one publisher where they said, 'We don't publish books for teenage boys; teenage boys don't read.'
When I look back at football, I've always said to myself, 'I'd rather leave the game and have something in my tank rather than have left all of me out on the field.'
Marriage is traditionally old-school in many respects. It is highly antiquated, and, that being said, beautiful.
You often hear people say 'Luck is self made.' I think it is, to a certain extent; if you work hard on something, you are more likely to be lucky than if you don't. That having been said, I do believe during in my career I have been at the right place at the right time with the right people.
I always said if it gets to a point where I really want a child, I would adopt; kids are amazing, so I'm getting the selfish stuff out of my system so when I have them I can say, 'Go, run. I have plenty of money, go play.'
I really moved through my career based on curiosity about something. I never looked at a title and said, 'I want that.'
We were talking about the kissing in the movie just recently. Clearly, it's pretty challenging material, but Ang said two men herding sheep was far more sexual than two men having sex on screen.
She said, and I'm not kidding, 'Is this a speaking role?' I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.
I was good at football and cricket at school. My dad said, 'Son, be an architect,' and I came to Melbourne passionate about becoming an architect.
So I rang up my local swimming baths. I said 'Is that the local swimming baths?' He said 'It depends where you're calling from.'
Both my parents said they never got so many emails from friends and colleagues - with all the theater work that I've done - than when I was on 'The Good Wife.'
I went to the doctor last week. I said: 'Can I have some sleeping pills for the wife?' He said: 'Why?' I said: 'She's woke up.'
While choosing a fashion show, I take into consideration the designer and the collection. Then only I said yes to do a show.
I'm a bit of a Luddite, really: I don't use email much, as I started drowning in it. So I said 'screw this' and dumped my laptop, though I've begun to re-engage with it.
The quality of life is so much higher anyplace you can ski in the morning and surf in the evening - there's something to be said for that.
It never really worked out for me in my own country. They said, 'You're not famous enough for the lead roles, and you're too present for the supporting roles - you'd overpower the lead.'
One of my teachers once said that the way you know you're on the right path is that it works. Now, that doesn't mean you don't run into blocks and brick walls, but it does mean that you can find a way around them or find a way to change yourself or your project in order to find the flow again and have it work.
When I launched the development of the GNU system, I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom, thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom, then it's a success. It's not popularity for our code but it's success for our goal.
They did cast me as an ingenue once, and the novelty was nice. But I said, 'There is nothing here to play!' I really like getting into the meat of a role.
A whole bunch of agents and editors looked at my stories, and they all said, in effect, 'You're a pretty good writer and you should probably get these published; when you grow up and write a novel, get in touch.'
I have said, on a number of occasions, that we could have a lower minimum wage or no minimum wage.
I said to myself I've got to go up there and do it because the New York Mets keep winning every day. The game was on the line and I wanted to go out there and come through for my team. That win tonight means a lot for us.
I grew up climbing mountains in Montana and Wyoming and my wife and I were engaged on top of a mountain peak: Hyalite Peak in Montana. It was a 15-mile hike to get to the top of that, round-trip - thankfully, she said yes.
If I said it once, I'll say it again: 'We have the power to change everything.'
