The problem for us, as viewers, is that we want famous people who are passionate about the things they're famous for, because that makes them worthy of the attention. But I think many of those famous people just want to be famous.
I'm from Berkeley, California, so I'm fully trained in socialism and all, but basically what they teach you there is markets are efficient and we can't beat them, so we might as well index.
I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them.
'King Lear,' I've been seeing all my life. I mean, the great actors of my lifetime... to join their company, as it were, by playing a part that's challenged them, is one of the great joys of being an actor who does the classics.
You cannot eat a cluster of grapes at once, but it is very easy if you eat them one by one.
My grandparents used to pray five times a day, but they were quiet about their own thing. Completely liberal day by day; my grandmother was a social worker and my grandfather was an engineer, but they never talked about religion. My entire life I couldn't remember one conversation I had with them about religion.
We are cannibalizing our audience by only giving them regurgitated material. Every movie is either a remake, a sequel, based on something else. Based on a former television series. Based on a successful videogame.
My family and friends are the only people I pay mind to. It's none of my business what anyone else thinks. I don't even know them, so why should I care?
Football's all about opinions, all of them different, whether from a top analyst or a man in a bunnet, and some folk are just never going to like you.
To get a connection to your characters, you have to put them in a situation that you can feel yourself.
And I'm auditioning right now for a movie, and then I have a script that I'm reading right now for a horror film, and I'm meeting for a couple of television shows that I just had yesterday, and pretty much was offered one of them.
I've taught statistics, math courses and what I've found is that often if you teach them algebraically the formulas, you'll have one group of kids doing well.
I have come close to producing films. But generally by the time they hit the screen, there's about 50 people with producer credits, so what's the point. I usually find scripts I like with no money attached and take them to producers that I know and try to raise finance.
These names: gay, queer, homosexual are limiting. I would love to finish with them. We're going to have to decide which terms to use and where we use them. For me to use the word 'queer' is a liberation; it was a word that frightened me, but no longer.
Taylor Swift dates guys so she can write a breakup song about them. I don't think she's dating for love - I think she's dating for creativity. So let's get her off the market and put her in dating detox. If she really wants love, she has to stop writing music about them.
There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.
We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein's soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly.
There is no recipe to be a great teacher, that's what is unique about them.
One of the reasons I don't have kids is because I think people would have been very unfair to them. Think of it. You're still asking me questions about The Exorcist.
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.
Book reviews have never helped me. Most of them erred in their interpretations and their work has been a waste of time.
The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life.
Writing a novel is a huge adventure; when it's going well it's more fun than fun. When it stutters to a halt put it aside. Go for a swim, go for a walk, take a week off. Don't panic or be afraid; you and your characters are in it together. Trust them to come to your rescue.
Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.
I'm not happy not doing anything. When positive things are rolling in, you've got to take them when you can get them.
I imagine a child. That child is me. I can reconstruct and vividly remember portions of my own childhood. I can see, taste, smell, feel, and hear them. Then what I do is, not write about that kid or about his world, but start to think of a book that would have pleased him.
The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.
Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.
I love the beautiful distractions of the world - television and movies, video games, the Internet in general. But I try really hard to avoid them, because they don't help me become a better writer. They subtract hours from my day. And a writer's main currency is time. Time to daydream, time to walk and think, time to sit and do the work.
I don't really believe in moral victories. You can have them when you're dealing with public opinion, but in litigation, you want to win the case. I want to win.
I love amazing people. I love dazzling them. That's why I think performing magic is one of the greatest things a person can do.
A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but I like them. It looks like cunning, but you try to get extra things from them all the time, by stealth, by making them feel confident, so they trust you and you can push a bit.
Think tanks do have points of view, and they are absolutely entitled to defend them.
Everybody is dealt a hand of cards. It was my choice to play them the way I played them.
I was a bar-back, which is the person who cleans the bathrooms at the end of the night in the bar, and a cook. I had kind of given up. I was into backing other people up. Music was something I just did on the side and I don't think I had the energy to pimp myself out, like call people up and ask them to book me to play.
My uncles, who are farmers in Minooka, Illinois - I grew up with them and their pickup trucks and mustaches, and to me that was masculinity: big hairy sweaty guys who could pick up a bus.
