A good song has to have a great melody, and the lyrics have to touch my heart. Now, if it's just a little toe-tapper, got to make me feel good somehow or another, or when I sing it I can't make you feel good.
It's so amazing that you can give somebody like David Fincher 'House of Cards,' and he can do whatever he wants - Netflix doesn't say, 'Oh, you can't do that,' or, 'We need a subplot here about this.' It's pretty neat that it is allowing the creatives to be creative.
You do need to maintain some of yourself and know who you are, but that doesn't mean you can't evolve.
Normally, if you play a part, you have the words, and you invent the personality out of your experience, your knowledge - your life, in a way.
The ritual of film-going in some sense replaced that of churchgoing, because you share something communal, sometimes mystical.
A lot of people say I tried to emulate Tupac, but when I look back at my career, we're very different artists. I took pages out of Pac's book, of course, and lots of other rappers - Biggie, Nas - of course you take pages out of those books, but you eventually make it your own thing. And I think I did a good job of that.
Buying phosphate-free soap allows you to say, 'My detergent doesn't have the harsh chemicals others do.' The question is, how are you washing with it? The very worst thing for the Earth about detergent is that we heat water to use it.
Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially.
Cash from a reverse mortgage can be paid out in several ways, including a lump sum, a monthly payment, a line of credit, or a combination of those. If you do not need money right away, it is usually a bad idea to take all the money upfront, since it starts accumulating interest charges immediately.
We get caught up in all the stress - 'Got to do this, is this the right thing for me to do?' - but what about the thing you want to do? That's what'll keep you young. It's empowering, not becoming a prisoner of some other person's idea of what you should be.
Well you know, I've been into music my whole life, so to be able to put an album together with some of that music was awesome.
My mom always said, 'Marry someone smarter than yourself, Katee, because No. 1, you're not that smart. And No. 2, then you'll have smart babies.'
You go to traffic court in many locations throughout the country, and you can spell justice - J-U-S-T dash U-S. Just us.
I think looking is the essential act of loving. Brothers, fathers and sons, lovers, whatever. What you do when you love someone is look at that person as that person is.
It's very important to give back to the community and do anything you can.
How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.
It's not that you can do this calculated move to try to further your career. You just follow what's in your heart, and later you look back and go, 'I was either really dumb or really smart, I can't believe I did that.'
Call me a nerd if you like, but I do find it hard to leave home without my laptop and a good book.
On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Maintaining a relationship is easy when you both are in same profession because you understand the work pattern.
In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce products, where your competitors can essentially match you on the product itself, you need to have something else. You need to have an added value, and that added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand.
For some reason, it seems like pop writers, it's like they just get worse or something over time. And then you're really jealous of movie directors whose careers seem to grow and they'll be 70 years old and still doing these incredible jobs. I'm going to reverse that, I hope.
A businessman admits that he 'let go' an employee because he was a Sunni Muslim. You simply have to look after yourself, he explains. I am shocked, like a good Westerner should be.
All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.
When my girlfriend and I talk about being happy, I'll get choked up, which I think is the greatest gift you can give a girlfriend.
Sarah Palin - now don't laugh - is writing a book. Not just reading a book, writing a book. Actually, in the word of the publisher, she's 'collaborating' on a book. What an embarrassment! It's one of these 'I told you,' books that jocks do.
I remain your servant and I will do as you ask of me.
My dream scenario would be that you could go into a bookshop, examine copies of every book in print that they're able to offer, then for a fee have them produce in a minute or two a beautiful finished copy in a dust jacket that you would pay for and take home.
I always tell clients you have to be able to remember why you chose to do a movie: to always be able to look at a movie and know, whether it's good or bad, why you chose to do it.
If you respect a language and culture, it shows in your work.
For me, the reason I keep working out and want to get bigger and focus on staying fit is because when you do fall it's easier to tighten up and not get hurt. I also wrestle, and that helps me a lot with taking a fall. A lot of what I do at the end of they day are things that will help me to not get hurt.
There's always the danger when you have influenzas that infect chickens, that when you have the close quarters of chickens spreading from one to another and occasionally a human coming into close contact, that there will be the jumping of species from a chicken to a human. This is not something new.
Growing up, I've had plenty of obstacles, but to be honest, I didn't always have doubters. I was a standout athlete, so when that happens, you don't have too many people telling you 'You can't do this,' and 'You can't do that.' I've always been a bit of a people person and a hard worker.
High school is what kind of grows you into the person you are. I have great memories, good and bad, some learning experiences and some that I'll take with me the rest of my life.
I knew Quintessentially was a success when my father, who does a lot of business in Beirut, introduced himself to somebody and they said, 'Oh, do you know Ben Elliot? I'd really like to meet him.' I remember him ringing me up, really annoyed.
It is something you can't predict, and it is the huge sadness in your life, losing a child.
