The best employees are those who bring real energy and initiative to the job. I like to know whether you're the kind of person who can set priorities, take initiative, and drive results right from the beginning.
A psychologist said to me, there are only two important questions you have to ask yourself. What do you really feel? And, what do you really want? If you can answer those two, you probably can leave your neuroses behind you.
The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.
It's hard to think it's important to try out as cheerleader when you're starring on Broadway. But you do kind of miss the things that I now see my children doing. I'm just happy they are not actors. The Valentine's Day dance is really important. Pitching in Little League is very important. And the medals and the scouts are really important.
If you are prepared to make a fool of yourself for them then you usually get that back. I think that there are points where you become so close to an actor, you know them so well, almost as well or better than their spouse. You have to know them, warts and all.
I got all these books about, like, what you need to know to enter the entertainment industry. And I remember I sent my music to record labels, and I took these little DVDs and sent them all over the place. And either no one got back to me or they just kept saying, 'You're too different.'
I had a dream that my dad passed away and that Jesus came into the room and he was basically knocking on my door, saying, 'Hey, you need to find out more about me.' So that Sunday morning I ended up going to church, and that's when I got saved.
At 50 you're more confident, more comfortable in your skin and you don't put up with nonsense, especially from men.
One bit of advice someone gave me - which I haven't yet tried - is that if you go to an area where you might pick up a tummy bug, you should seek out the local probiotic yogurt. Eating it will introduce you to the local gut flora, apparently.
I think that my interpretation of Italian was a lot more southern than what my husband cooks. You know, I grew up in Queens and in Brooklyn, and we - really, it's more southern. It's Naples and Sicily. It's heavier. It's over-spiced. And like most Americans, I thought spaghetti and meatballs was genius.
I was a tax attorney for something like seven years, so I was a tax geek. I was really into it. Tax is one of those things that people think is incredibly boring, but like any science about systems, once you get into it it, becomes incredibly intricate and interesting.
What happens when you take a lion out of the safari and try to take him to your place of residence and make him a house pet? It ain't going to happen. That's the type of person that I am. I'm that lion.
Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology.
This is the time it all starts, I'm telling you. Like, 16, I mean, forget it. You could just get beat up, you could go through these grueling schedules.
If you're more interested in looking like a hipster, a jazz musician, or a young hunk, I'd recommend the pork pie. It has a narrow brim and a flat top.
As an offensive player, you always want to produce and score goals, especially when that's your job on the team.
George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge... you can't hear him talk.
I think it's dangerous to think that you're successful, because then you become complacent.
If you wish at once to do nothing and be respectable nowadays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study.
What's really cool about LEGOs is that you can put a bunch of bricks on the table, and everybody will make something different. Everyone has different ideas, and some of them may seem crazy.
You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.
It was good to learn so early. They're not going to be kind to you. You have to do it and get on, and then gulp down and get better.
For the longest time I was brought up listening to only two genres of music, pop and rock. So in the past few years I've been trying to expand my interests because I think that you can only write to the extent of your knowledge, and if your knowledge is limited you can't write past that.
I understand that sometimes when you're young it's difficult to remember the difference between real life and what is part of fantasy.
Acting makes you live plenty of lives.
The complexity of the emotional life of the play is what you live to work on.
We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right.
I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own.
It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
I think the more the actor lets you know what he thinks of the character, the less the audience cares - like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes.
I guess the thing I would say most fervently is that your original impulse to write something is an impulse you should trust, and that if it doesn't work on the first draft, which it hardly ever does, the commitment to revising ought to be something you embrace really early. And to revise and revise and revise.
If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages - not to mention the myth of Icarus - predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure.
'Sweet Dreams' is such a dark-sounding song, but it's about not taking anything for granted; share yourself with others after you have first spent some time with yourself.
Sometimes the best way to make 'em laugh is to show 'em how you honestly feel.
I push every day against forces that say you have to go faster, be more effective, be more productive, you have to constantly outdo yourself, you have to constantly outdo your neighbor - all of the stuff that creates an incredibly productive society, but also a very neurotic one.
Even if you do succeed most people wouldn't notice anyway.
