The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.
Unless you have a long-running series, most actors just go job to job if you're lucky to keep working. You just do a movie or a play or a TV thing, and it's over at some point.
If you want to do interesting software, you have to have a bunch of people do it, because the amount of software that one person can do isn't that interesting.
Because its hard to realize now that that was the end of the great depression, you know. All of a sudden all of this is in front of me and I'm solvent, you know. I'm making some money and I know where my next meal is coming from, and I have a new pair of shoes and that's it.
It's a weird thing because I've been single at the time when I've been successful. That's good and bad. Good, because you meet lots of people, bad because your privacy is infringed, so it's harder to develop things.
If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.
Just learning that you have MS is such a devastating shock.
The first heart you win over is that casting director. In first meetings, they'll be the ones who see your pitch for the character. And then as you get further up, they'll be the ones reading with you in front of the network.
How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?
I consider it probably one of the biggest honors to be in the Academy. There are only like 1300 actors in it, and as far as I know, you're a member for life. To this day, I'm wondering how lucky I was.
I have learned that while your putting your record together you can get so caught up in making what you want that you forget what you wanted in the first place.
As young, hot actors living in Hollywood, you get even more attractive.
The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.
Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.
Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?
I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.
I grew up with a father who taught me chess at the age of 6 or 7. He'd always beat me. Of course. I was a kid of 6 or 7. After he won, he'd look at me and say, 'It's good to be king.' And then he'd say, 'But you know what's even better? To rule the world.'
In my time, you needed to speak a little Italian, and that was it.
The big difference between TV and theater is that you get to do a new play every week, so it's quite challenging, but it keeps you fresh. There's never any fear of getting stale in your performance.
Become a worry-slapper. Treat frets like mosquitoes. Do you procrastinate when a bloodsucking bug lights on your skin? 'I'll take care of it in a moment.' Of course you don't! You give the critter the slap it deserves. Be equally decisive with anxiety.
I heard Nirvana, and discovered that songs could be like poetry, but a little bit more refined: you didn't have to have 20 verses to get your point across.
I wrote the book because I wanted to be able to share some things that I had learned and as pompous as that may sound, as you get to a certain point in life, you figure so what am I doing?
When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy.
The very fact that you thought of it means that, somewhere in your mind, it's believable to you. All you have to do is convince your audience that it's possible.
I think I'm a mousepad. I don't want to be a mousepad, but I'm a mousepad. I'm also a screen saver, thank you very much. It's weird.
Until you walk a mile in another man's moccasins you can't imagine the smell.
Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist.
Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
The bottom line is, when it comes to an actor and his performance, whether nominated or not, it simply has to do with whether that character had enough resonance with the audience. You know, to the filmgoers. And that something that you can't control.
Criticism always seemed to me a lot like police work. You look for clues, fingerprints, motives. You need to construct an airtight case.
Dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.
If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.
I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive.
I told him that I can play it if he wanted to write it, and I would be willing to try and go there emotionally. I did not know as an actress if I would be able to get there, because when you feel really deep emotions or pain, you don't want to go back there.
The prudent course is to make an investment in learning, testing and understanding, determine how the new concepts compare to how you now operate and thoughtfully determine how they apply to what you want to achieve in the future.
Do you have any problems, other than that you're unemployed, a moron, and a dork?
