Ethiopia didn't just blow my mind; it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage a man handed me his baby and said, 'Would you take my son with you?' He knew, in Ireland, that his son would live, and that in Ethiopia, his son would die.
My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana. I said 'No, but I want a regular banana later, so... yeah.'
I said I thought first I was on the stairs; then I remembered I was in the kitchen when he came in.
There's an assault on human sexuality, as Judge Scalia said, they've taken sides in the culture war and on top of that if we have a democracy, the democratic processes should be that we can elect representatives who will share our point of view and vote those things into law.
I started billboard painting in Minneapolis, and I went to General Outdoor Advertising, and I said, 'I could do that.' They said, 'Oh yeah... we can always use a good man around here.'
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.
I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.
It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
My mother says I was two and a half when I first mentioned I wanted to be an actor. My father said, 'The word is pronounced 'Doctor!'
When I was in college at UCLA, I took a playwriting course. I was all set to be a writer. But I had to take this acting class as a theater arts major. I had to do this scene in a one-act comedy. I just said this line, and then... this laugh happened. I thought, 'Whoa. This is a really good feeling. What have I been missing?'
No, I don't want you to draw any conclusion. I want you to listen to what I just said.
When a man lacks mental balance in pneumonia he is said to be delirious. When he lacks mental balance without the pneumonia, he is pronounced insane by all smart doctors.
I said, look, do you think you could bring Gerry through, and they said yeah, absolutely, they thought that. Joel was very keen to cast him. If all my music team were happy, I was happy.
What I've said before, only half in joke, is that everybody in Ireland is famous. Or, maybe better, say everybody is familiar.
Socialism and communism fall of their own weight because, as Margaret Thatcher said, you run out of other people's money. Because socialized medicine never falls of its own weight because you put people on lists, and they die waiting to get the treatment and care. So you don't go broke.
I got an agent. He said, what do you wanna do, and I said, I want an Oscar nomination. That's your job, that's what I'm paying you for. And I got it.
I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.
I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it.
If I showed you scripts from my first few movies, the descriptions of my characters all said 'the ugly girl'.
And my mother caught wind of this. She never had really tried to guide my career or really had any say in my life as an adult, but this was the one time she said she would never speak to me again if I quit acting.
I went up a straight crooked lane and, I said 'No thanks, yes if yer please.
I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I'd better write a book.
One day I got an invite to help the Christina Noble Foundation, and by this stage, I'd already been talking about her for 10 years. I said 'yes' right away, and that was the first time I met her.
Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.
I was watching the Nina Simone documentary alone in my room, and I said out loud to myself, 'Why do we not know that this woman is beauty? She is beauty! Why did no one tell me this growing up? Why was her name not next to 'beauty' in the dictionary?'
The mechanical and social achievements of our day must not blind our eyes to the fact that, in all that relates to man, his nature and aspirations, we have added little or nothing to what has been so finely said by the great men of old.
Listen to the Beatles' 'Things We Said Today.' Ringo Starr does not play a fill in the entire song. It doesn't need it. 'A Day In the Life' has gorgeous fills, but there, the song needs it. When I play on any record, I'm striving to get where Ringo is. You play what doesn't take you out of the song.
We would make songs, and the producers said we should play it for my dad. I was kind of scared, I didn't know what to think cuz we were just joking around.
I said 'Brian, no one is going to respect me as a mother after this.' He said, 'oh no, yes they will, this is a movie, don't worry about it.' But they're not.
There's so much stuff said about me that's not true, so now if something is hurtful and wrong, I send an e-mail or letter immediately, saying, This is not true.
I said if I made 10 films in my life, I would be very lucky. That's how I meant it. My fear after my first one was whether they would let me make another one, so I had this goal in my head.
I thought his performance was absolutely wonderful and had said so, but he seemed, as actors quite often are when they first see something, to be disappointed. I think he expected more from the film and himself.
My priority doesn't lie with the whole website and Facebook and such; I'm still walking down the road in a pair of real shoes. You need to just play as much as you can. Get in front of people, as I've always said. It doesn't matter if it's ten people at an open mic or opening a show for someone. Play all the time.
Some critics said, 'Hey, why are you writing historical novels?' I say they're not historical, they're contemporary, because people walking around who lived through this, even a little bit, they carry it inside. The contemporary isn't just what you can see now.
He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.
