They fail to recognize the broad biological principle that organic material is constantly being recycled. Everything has a time of being - a birth, a life span, and a death.
I spent most of the '60s, when I was starting to try to write novels, living and working in Greece and Turkey. These are countries where the ancient past is interfused with the daily present, and I remember being struck with wonder at the constant sense of continuity and connection, the reminders that lie in wait for you at every turn.
I feel the older I get, the more I'm learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it's all about finding yourself.
I kind of have an interest in all history. And I suspect it comes from being Irish - we like stories, we like telling stories, which makes a lot of us lean towards being writers or actors or directors.
You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny, and all the things that a person could be. If you can achieve that, you feel great. You so rarely get to do that as an actress in general, but as a black actress, it's almost never.
Producing a series is like being Lewis and Clark: You know where you're going, you just don't know how you're going to get there. When people say, 'You should create a bible for your show,' I say, 'You don't want a bible. It'll prevent you from making discoveries along the way.' And that's what happened on 'The X-Files.'
We ask the great masses of India to be patient a short time longer, while the cause of freedom is being fought out, not because we want to delay, but because the hard facts of war make a complete change impossible at the moment.
Being in Australia, I was really sun conscious. For a couple of summers there, I did the baby oil thing, and my my mom said, 'Just don't. You'll regret it.'
Being on stage is the best part of my career. I just say whatever comes into my head. It's the only time I feel grown-up and in control of things.
At the heart of personality is the need to feel a sense of being lovable without having to qualify for that acceptance.
I don't feel I was ever a 'famous' child actor. I was just a working actor who happened to be a kid. I was never really in a hit show until I was a teenager with West Wing playing First Daughter Zoey Bartlet. In a way, that was my saving grace - not being a star on a hit show. It kept me working and kept me grounded.
Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.
Simply being secretary of state didn't allow Clinton to authorize herself to deviate from the requirements of retaining and transmitting classified documents, materials and information.
When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.
We've got ballots flying around, being counted by hand, arriving by truck and in God knows whose custody.
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.
Philanthropists today want input into how their monies are being deployed. The big question is, can governments use this insight to sell the rich the idea of paying more tax rather than spend more on charitable giving?
That's the Apple I want - I want an Apple that's bold and taking risks and being aggressive.
I don't mind being called a puppet. But I'm the puppet of the people.
Years ago a friend and fellow writer, Nick Antosca, once made a remark about it being best not to threaten, but to simply act. An effective way of going about things, I think.
And that's the kind of thing people think, you know, that if you sign up to be a singer-songwriter you know how to deal with people setting up hate websites, or people being obsessed with you and crying when you touch them, but you don't, and you just have to deal with.
There are no large-scale original musicals being made right now. They're all Broadway adaptations and jukebox musicals or catalog musicals, and they just don't interest me as much.
With poets, the choice of words is invariably more telling than the story line; that's why the best of them dread the thought of their biographies being written.
American comedies especially are all about these men being browbeaten by their wives and it's impossible for me to watch.
I love playing moms. It's a lot easier than being a mom, I hear.
I put together amazing records, whether that's finding the beat or putting the right hook on there, and picking the right artists on the record. That's me being an A&R. And I'm making sure that they give me their best.
We're all capable of being more than we presently are, and the effort that it takes and the will that it takes and sometimes the trauma and tragedy that it takes to force us into that kind of growth is the story of our lives.
I don't like to brag, but I must tell you that I am regarded in some circles as being in the upper echelons of the elite loony left.
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
I am proud of being a Greek of the diaspora.
I grow my own vegetables and herbs. I like being able to tell people that the lunch I'm serving started out as a seed in my yard.
The pressure to being a comedian is being funny, but I've given that up, so there is no pressure whatsoever.
Music became a healer for me. And I learned to listen with all my being. I found that it could wipe away all the emotions of fear and confusion relating to my family.
It was really fun being in Tara's trailer, working on my lines. Tara is such an amazing actress. She's so good at what she does. I learned a lot from watching her.
My education - my Ph.D. in storytelling - comes from having worked on it, being a lover of film and watching them, from working with some great writers and some very good TV directors and then working with some who weren't.
If you go through your life being completely truthful, everybody will hate you, and something I deeply fear is being hated.
