You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule.
You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.
It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?
It feels good when your hometown supports you, and Macon's always done that with us. Every time we come here, it's an event - which is nice.
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.'
You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.
What I'm getting at is, you know, if we really want to get serious about helping all the people living in the street and getting people jobs, we could just hire half the people in the country to spy on the other half.
If you can find the courage, if you have in your heart even the slightest bit of rebellion against injustice, maybe you can channel that and become a leader.
If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.
I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.
In the marathon a crazy athlete can just keep pushing from the beginning, at a championship you don't need a time just to win the race.
You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all.
On the contrary, history generally confirms that the more conscious and the better you are organized in vanguard organizations, the more constructively you operate in the mass organizations of the working class.
I went to a lot of theatre schools, got a lot of training, did a lot of repertory where you do a different play every night. I took a lot of voice, movement, and acting classes.
Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.
The older you get, the less physically and mentally robust you become.
The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci used to say that for her, an interview was like a war. I get the sense that we've forgotten that here in the United States. You turn on the TV, and you see very bland interviews. Journalists in the United States are very cozy with power, very close to those in power.
Honestly, you could beat me, torture me - just don't bore me.
If there's any place where you would express your deepest doubts, it would be church.
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.
At Accenture, we are visibile, and I feel when you are visible - when people are watching you - you need to speak up.
You have a lot of time on these tours. As Alice Cooper said, you can either drink all day or golf.
If a thing is going to represent you, your vision, you should be involved in every aspect of that thing. I like my role as executive producer on anything probably as much as performer.
I literally will write Shonda Rhimes, the creator of 'Grey's,' an e-mail once a month or so and just say, 'Hey, I love you and thank you.' That was my moment. Because of that, I'm doing 'Magic City.'
That is the great pleasure of working with great directors. You get to look at the world through many different prisms. I guess I love talent, whatever form it takes.
You and I are but specks of that rhythmic urge which is Brahma, which is Allah, which is God.
In a building with apartments, of course, you want to make connections. Life is easier that way. There's salt if you don't have salt; you can knock at someone's door, like in any city. But you know, you can hear the others, and you want to sleep, you get annoyed.
I like directing. It takes a lot out of you, but I'd like to do it again - I just have to find a story I want to tell.
In grade school, I was a complete geek. You know, there's always the kid who's too short, the one who wears glasses, the kid who's not athletic. Well, I was all three.
Think of the long view of life, not just what's going to happen today or tomorrow. Don't give up what you most want in life for something you think you want now.
I hate belongings. I hate clutter. It really bothers me because I can't think properly. If you've got distractions in front of you, your mind goes nuts.
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
I mean one of the basic rules when you're acting is that you mustn't stand in judgement on a character, you mustn't say Hitler was a bad man because you can't act in that way.
This is someone who has a very stringent morality, and believes the system works, and has been deeply, deeply disappointed, and hurt, by it. You know, so she's in a very different place in life.
