As a parent, you have to be good coach and bad coach, and I think in the college-application process, I didn't want to be bad coach. 'This is amazing! I'm so proud of you!' That's the role I wanted with my kids.
I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.
A lot of times, you have an idea, and all the things you are thinking about might fuel it. But that's not where the idea came from.
Everybody has their thing they like or don't like to see. It's all in your head. That's why people take their own pictures, because it's difficult for someone else to capture what you seek.
I'm in the entertainment business, where you're only as good as your last show.
We are in the middle of a big swamp of ignorance that is taught by a lot of nonsense, propaganda, absurdity, amalgams. I have a hard time listening to any speech. You feel like you want to stop the TV every two seconds to rephrase them, because it's lie after lie, turning stuff upside down, and you can't follow that. That's the trap.
People say, 'Oh, you're famous now, so you must go to L.A.' - I don't live in L.A. now - but it's like, why wouldn't you? The weather is amazing, the film industry's there, it's a great quality of life.
You look at the road you could have taken, you know, I just think that's interesting... I've been on a lot of roads and I had to hitchhike on a couple of 'em... I have to be very honest: There's not an awful lot of regret in my life. I think that, you know, you learn from everything, and then, sometimes, you don't.
Being on 'The Vampire Diaries' feels almost like a game you play when you're a kid. When I was a kid, I used to have to take the garbage out at night on Wednesdays. I lived out in the country. I'd take the garbage out, and I used to pretend that I was the only person in the whole world, except for one other person, and he was looking for me.
As you all know, Prince is no longer with us. It is extremely difficult for me, and that is why I have chosen not to discuss it.
You know, a lot of those angry sort of Southern man characters that I've been doing are based on different people I might've had as, like, a soccer coach or as a teacher.
You need to talk to people, and you need to hear what it is they have to say.
You can't really tell what the audience wants but you can tell what will keep everybodies attention in the same place.
We want you to find that thing that will make your life better.
I think making friends is not being afraid to look stupid, because everyone wants a friend who is willing to be stupid and fun. If you try and be too cool, it only works in high school. After that, being uncool is a very cool thing to do. So just have fun, and don't worry what other people think of you and people will want to be your friends.
The biggest problem is the funerals that don't exist. People call the funeral home, they pick up the body, they mail the ashes to you, no grief, no happiness, no remembrance, no nothing. That happens more often than it doesn't in the United States.
Every training camp is important so you can show you're improving and staying consistent.
When you're out on the road touring and touring and then making records, you're just constantly looking forward, constantly working. You don't really stop to look at where you are or where you've been.
At the pinnacle of great design are products so gorgeous and lust-worthy that you want to lick them: a Porsche 911, Samsung's Luxia TV, an Eames lounge chair or anything by Loro Piana.
The difference between chirping out of turn and a faux pas depends on what kind of a bar you're in.
Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.
The great thing about journalism is that there is so much exposure to all kinds of people who can turn up later as characters, whether you intend it or not.
I don't really like to talk about other people. I think people who have things going on in their lives, I think they have enough to deal with, they don't need, you know, Abigail Breslin weighing in on their lives.
I always wanted to film 'Biggest Loser' in Hawaii. We could call it, 'Come on I wanna weigh you.'
You don't need a high concept to make a great film, of course. 'Withnail & I' is not - it's probably not much on paper, but it's one of the funniest films ever made.
God doesn't make things difficult for us. Do you want to know what the truth is? Look in the Bible, and you'll see that Jesus describes Himself not only as the truth, but the way and the life as well.
I was 20 years old when, despite mass protests against military action, Iraq was invaded in 2003 - it didn't make for motivated political participation, I can tell you.
The whole point of this game is that everything flows together in one simple movement... it should just flow and be fluid. And that's what I want to bring to the table every single time I fight. And I enjoy making it look, you know, like an art.
Once you're a football player, you're a football player for life. You always think of yourself in terms of that. We all do. It's hard to get rid of when you can't play anymore.
When we were working on 'Taxi to the Dark Side,' we would purposefully not show it to certain people in the cutting room, because we would include a lot of horrible material and would need a fresh pespective. They would look at us and say, 'Are you out of your minds? You can't include that!'
As a black man, sometimes you can't tell if what you're seeing has underlying bigotry, or it's a normal conversation and you're being paranoid. That dynamic in itself is unsettling. I admit sometimes I see race and racism when its not there.
When you play a guitar for a long time, you get your hand oils in there; it starts feeling good and behaving, and you just don't want to mess with that.
To get the Nickelodeon award? That's like 'it.' It's one of the best. It's definitely where you want to be in your career.
Everything is scary if you look at it. So you just got to live.
Success in Silicon Valley, most would agree, is more merit-driven than almost any other place in the world. It doesn't matter how old you are, what sex you are, what politics you support or what color you are. If your idea rocks and you can execute, you can change the world and/or get really, stinking rich.
I was busy with my family, my budding career as a TV writer, my antipathy for the Los Angeles Lakers, and my general reluctance to engage in anything that might force me to leave my comfort zone. But sometimes ideas won't let you go. For me, educating girls was like that.
