What I'd tell any kid in high school is, 'Take business classes.' I don't care what else you're gonna do; if you're gonna do art or anything, take business classes. You can say, 'Well, I don't want to get commercial,' but if you do anything to make any money, you're doing something commercial.
I can't even begin to tell you how many casting couches I was attacked on. Not just by casting people, but by stars.
What I find most upsetting about this new all-consuming beauty culture is that the obsession with good looks, and how you can supposedly attain them, is almost entirely female-driven.
If you've grown up with guns, the thought that someone might take them away makes your stomach churn. They make you feel safe. If you didn't grow up with guns, if you don't know how to use them, then the thought that someone else has them makes your stomach churn.
Everything from the lyrics to the production, solos to the writing - it's all democratic. At the end of the day, you know, when you're all done with the grind - which it is always an incredible grind for us to write records - I think it makes it that much more special to hear the final product.
Religion and politics hit nerves. There's a lot of anger about a lot of things. It's not easily resolved. I guess that's what wars are about. Wars are about prejudice and fear. Hit first before you get hit. Believe me, I know.
I think that every minority in the United States of America knows everything about the dominant culture. From the time you can think, you are bombarded with images from TV, film, magazines, newspapers.
To argue that universal health care would wreck the U.S. lead in cancer survival, you'd have to argue that universal health care would wreck the entire U.S. economy.
There's just a feeling, when you're just an actor - I have great admiration for people who are just actors. I don't understand it, the idea of waiting to get cast, being at the whim of others. I find it incredibly powerless and frightening, so that's why I've been constantly trying to create my own content.
There was a time when you would dream about, say, movie stars. Now, you virtually follow them into their bathroom when they're going to the loo.
I think that people have this unrealistic expectation that people are just supposed to love them. I'm sorry to break it you, but ain't nobody supposed to do nothing.
Every day, you got to do adjustments. Every pitch. You got to do what it takes.
I really only had one audition in my life, and that was when I was 14 or 15. When I was that young, I listened to what my teachers would say, like wearing a certain kind of leotard that you'll be noticed in.
I feel lucky because earlier in my career, I found what I liked to do; it's build software that you see your friends using on the street, and they like it.
When I get home after being away for work, my wife always stuffs the fridge with loads of what she calls 'nibbles' - all the great things you can eat straight from the fridge, like chunks of cheese, slices of ham, bowls of hummus.
Television is a very writer-driven business, and it's one of the few parts of entertainment where writers are treated with respect, only because they need you. If they didn't have to treat you with respect, they would be happy to dismiss you.
As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace.
Producers have a tendency to put you in a pigeonhole: 'What does this white, middle-aged preppy know about 1960s Kingston?'
I always imagined myself somehow as an electron around some atom, and you're just, like, bouncing around and spinning. There was a never-ending supply of places to go, people to see, things to do, and fitting it all in became kind of an art.
You can feel the vibes, feel the people pulling for you.
Refinancing your mortgage usually makes sense if you can lower your interest rate by at least two points. But the most important question to ask yourself is, how long will it take you to break even?
To do it on film, where it'll be seen by more people than have seen the play since it was written, it humbles you.
No matter how brief an encounter you have with anybody, you both change.
Even when you're 22 and you feel immortal, you know in your heart you're not.
If you wanna be famous, then it's okay if the music is fake, because fame isn't real.
I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, 'We're black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we're all brought up differently.'
Being under the microscope meant I was never given any slack. I still managed to screw up plenty in life, mind you, but in the things I really cared about - the legal work, or the stories I was telling as a writer, or the office I built in government - I wasn't left a lot of margin for error. It's kept me driven.
You've read the Torah, right? So you know the Torah defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.
I don't think at my age... you can start ruling people out in politics.
In L.A., you constantly go on auditions, and you're usually not what they're looking for - you get used to going back and back to the same show, and nothing happens.
The older you get, the more you are aware that everybody has a certain way of seeing things, which they have to honour.
The busier you are, the less time you have to make decisions.
Creation's gold mine is in you. The key is deliberate intention. Whatever your dream may be at this moment, identify it. If you cannot define your desire, it can never become a reality.
This sport gives you the highest highs and the lowest lows.
What you want, as a filmmaker, is to be obsessed with and fall in love with the material.
I want to look my best for God. So many people have the attitude that if you're a Christian you've got to dress bad, wear an old color, not do anything to your hair, have nothing. It's no wonder that Christianity is not very attractive. I mean, how many people do you know in a Western culture that's going to go, 'Yeah, give me some of that?'
