I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.
As I wrote I began to see more strongly that there were inescapable analogies. You couldn't really live through the '80s without feeling how crass and distasteful some of the economic doctrines were. The slave trade is a perfect model for that kind of total devotion to the profit motive without reckoning the human consequences.
When writing a thank-you if you've had lunch with someone downtown, send an e-mail. If somebody is giving you a dinner party in his or her home and all the work that takes, that person deserves a written thank-you.
This nation has always struggled with how it was going to deal with poor people and people of color. Every few years you will see some great change in the way that they approach this. We've had the war on poverty that never really got into waging a real war on poverty.
I am my own worst enemy. My friends and family will say, 'You've got everything going for you right now', and I say, 'Oh yes, but!' Which is not a good way to be.
I think part of being human is learning to roll with the punches, to deal with any kind of personal or professional disaster that might crop up. You have to learn to deal with that stuff or not survive.
When you do an animated series and add characters who are not from the canon, you really have to win over the hardcore fans.
I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you're trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you're giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you're trying to do?
Every now and then you get a nice Jewish kid who likes black people and they would come in, and it would be a stream of them, and have black friends and really feel the black struggle on the acting tip and it's a reason why all of us are not dying in the movie.
Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share your sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes.
If you don't have eyebrows, you don't really have a face.
When I came home after 'DWTS,' I had a couple of days, and I had actually given the Mirrorball to my mom. She loves to decorate the house, so I said, 'Here - make it pretty. Do what you want with it!
I don't think you should reprimand your child for everything you're feeling because for them it's as serious as when something happens in our day and we get upset about it.
If you don't really have a dream, you can't really push yourself; you don't really know what the target is.
The Iraqi people are some of the warmest people you'll meet in your life. They are extremely receptive to strangers. Their hospitality is immense.
To be honest, I wasn't a sci-fi geek at all. But I do love a good sci-fi film, especially one that can really take you away. And I read some reality-bending novels growing up, like stuff by Vonngeut, so I already had one part my brain open to the unnatural and unusual, and it's generally fun to venture into that world and film in it.
I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.
If you're soft and fuzzy, like our little characters, you become the skinny kid on the beach, and people in this business don't mind kicking sand in your face.
You can make sure your kids make their beds and hang up their clothes and put their dishes in the dishwasher when you're the one calling the shots. So, parenting alone, for me anyway, I think is almost easier, being single.
Publishing, legacy or indie, is a vehicle, and you can't opine about whether someone has chosen the right vehicle if you don't know where she intends to drive it.
I was a punk when I was 15 - I was definitely into it in a big way and loved it - but I came to London when punk was maybe where you'd say punk is dead.
In fiction, you are not limited by real facts. You can manipulate reality; you can invent without being disloyal to the essence of history.
Whoever you pretend to be, you must face yourself eventually.
If you go back to 2001, the market had two violent short covering rallies then, although I know the market didn't officially get going until March 2003.
I'm not afraid to use my personal experiences and put them into a song. I think that's when you get the best stuff anyway, when it's real emotion.
Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.
As an artist, as an actor, as a writer, you have to use what's personal to you. You have to be personal about your work; otherwise, it doesn't ring true.
I don't write about the same thing every time, everyday, different things are happening out there and if you take the time to look around, you can see that, then you can put it all together and tell the story.
You can be sure that I will always consider how changes to Social Security will impact people with disabilities when considering the various proposals offered for reform.
The challenge for a director - and I think a lot of directors feel the same way - is that today we have to put on a producer's hat, too. Meaning, you have to sometimes think of it being 'business show,' not just 'show business.'
You live these three months in this reality, in this dark reality. You don't want to do those films every year because they're taxing. I started smoking a lot of cigarettes.
If you don't let love in, then you can't really give it back.
I play a curator, the most American part you can think of. My work is to protect the Declaration of Independence. I work at the National Archives in Washington.
So, when I say 'match the hatch', if the fish are taking the nymph, and you're actually producing a replica of a flying insect, you'll catch fresh air.
This is not a screenplay. I don't do twenty drafts. I'm not going to show this to you until it's published or accepted for publication. You can make whatever suggestions you want, but I probably will ignore them entirely.
If you live through the initial stage of fame and get past it, and remember thats not who you are. If you live past that, then you have a hope of maybe learning how to spell the word artist.
