I have been working since I was 20, and I'm 38. I actually once averaged out what I had made over my professional life. I think I could have made that much as a waiter or an insurance salesman. You know, I spent so many years in my 20's making $10,000 a year.
After the age of 80, everything reminds you of something else.
It sounds weird when you complain about having to eat so much, but it's like a job.
When you think about archaeology, archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell the story of 99 percent of our history prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing.
If you offer athletes stipends, then you're into pay-for-play, and that's the ballgame. People should realize that, and they should realize that amateurism never has been a sustainable model for a sports-entertainment industry. It wasn't in tennis. It wasn't in the Olympics. And it's not in big-time college sports.
Whenever anybody says what you do isn't good, it's always unflattering and makes me feel uncomfortable. But when the person who's in charge of the United States of America says, 'Not good,' I'm like, 'Oh.' It's a little unflattering.
It's always so nerve-wracking being up there on stage. It's even harder playing in your hometown - and I have a couple of home towns - but, you're playing for all the people you knew in high school, so it causes no small degree of panic in my mind.
It's only Western civilization that, God forbid, you talk about dying, when it's the only thing we know for certain, right? Everyone's going to die, so what's the big problem? 'Oh, God. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it.' I mean, I'm one of them. I'm not a big fan of talking about dying.
I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't.
I tell my students that with a 200-page novel, you are going to write 100 pages that don't make the final cut. See it as an opportunity, although it took me a while to enjoy that 'lost in the woods' feeling.
By appreciating the darkness when you design the light, you create much more interesting environments that truly enhance our lives.
What's wonderful about Tolkien and Shakespeare is that they show up your own individual microscope. They're so infinitely vast. You can reinterpret them in so many ways.
My private life is very private, and I have chosen not to live in America or England, where you are so exposed and can't fight against it.
Having to stake out your identity and have people question whether or not you're being yourself was a tension that I could relate to.
If you are running a city you must focus on day-to-day problems.
I think there's a character one has if you're a chief executive officer. Movies would suggest you're a bad person - if you're wealthy, if you've done well, oh, you must be bad. And frankly, winning the lottery doesn't change who you are; you're the same person inside. And I'm the same person I was as an 18-year-old who fell in love with Ann.
I always think I could play a fantastic psychopath. I'd like to play a psycho. With a heart, you know. A caring lunatic.
I saw a report on the news: 'Peter Dinklage tweeted... ' What? You know, I don't need any of that stuff. I got an email account; that's all I need.
I don't want to make films that give you the answer. If there is a message to my films - and I hope there isn't - it's to be open-minded.
You can't write a thing that is hermetically sealed; there has to be a way for the audience to get in and participate. I think that's a massively valuable discipline for any artist.
When I see David Attenborough talking about how chimps live, big apes, I just remember my dad and the way he'd look at you. He couldn't speak, but everything else about him was, 'This is us, a family.' Relationships are just as intense as they are for people who can speak. Probably more so.
There's no way to fake weight loss - you just kinda have to not eat.
I think that what we need to do is say, 'Reading is going to really affect your life.' You take a black man who doesn't have a job, but you say to him, 'Look, you can make a difference in your child's life, just by reading to him for 30 minutes a day.' That's what I would like to do.
You hit a wall at some stage when you don't want it so bad, but you don't know when that's going to be - as far as competition or as far as health is concerned. Sometimes it's just natural. You just taste it, and you want it so bad that you find other gears.
Thinking about your role will automatically get you in the frame of mind to get your strategy and game plan right before you step onto that field.
You have a lot of emotion at the end of the race. It is not easy to control that when you win.
Anytime you look at someone in detail, you're putting the camera on that person. What I typically look for is one or two or three really strong characters who will hold the narrative throughout the work.
It's not hard for me to access a bad actor. That's always there. It's actually kind of a load off your mind because, the worse you do, the better it goes.
Things aren't always the fairy tale that you thought they were.
I often tell people I don't care whether they join the NAACP or some other group, but you better join something.
There are billions of dollars spent every year on traditional media. The majority of people are spending more time every day on the Internet, especially on mobile. You're starting to see a shift of that spend go to mobile, especially to things like 'Instagram'.
The simple act of saying 'thank you' is a demonstration of gratitude in response to an experience that was meaningful to a customer or citizen.
Country fans are the most loyal in the world, but they know every song that you put out - not just the singles.
People always want to think that because you're not from a certain circumstance, you can't relate. That's ridiculous.
I definitely want to make it very clear to everybody that the educational institution that we have, the school that Will and I have, is not a Scientology school. And that, you know, I know there's been, you know, a lot of buzz around that idea and that it is not my desire to, you know, teach Scientology at all.
Isn't it time you came out and told the world what you believe?
