For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.
A real love story is sometimes exhausting. A romance is deliberately constructed to yield a certain result; the ambiguities are trimmed out, so it's neater and more pleasing to our hearts. But you don't live a love story, you live a life.
Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means.
It's a very nice kind of quasi-fame being a writer, because you remain largely anonymous and you can have a private life, which I really cherish. I don't like to be in the public light all that much. I don't crave the whole fame thing at all.
There is going to be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East if Iran gets a nuclear weapon. And you are going to see it in Egypt, in Turkey, in the Emirates. All of those people will want that.
It is quite unsettling looking into someone's eyes, especially when you aren't used to it.
What else does anxiety about the future bring you but sorrow upon sorrow?
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.
The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.
But I think you have to - whatever the environment looks like, it does enter into people's art work one way or another; it's very remote or it isn't. It's remote in my work but it has to have a certain degree of ordinariness.
If people believe you're on their side, they will trust your decisions.
I find that when you do yoga, you don't crave unhealthy food. But I try to always let myself eat whatever I want. I have dessert or chocolate every day, but I'll only have a few bites. I try to have a little bit of cereal in the morning, and then I always try to have protein for dinner, too. But I eat pasta and stuff like that.
Especially with comedy, you take massive risks because ultimately you're trying to be funny. If you're not funny, then it's really embarrassing and you look stupid.
Many of you may remember that I supported Mike Huckabee for president in 2008. He was doing great, beating out Mitt Romney, when some shenanigans were pulled by bringing in Fred Thompson as a candidate to compete against Mike for the evangelical and conservative votes in South Carolina.
As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!
When you're travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
When you look in the mirror at the end of the day, make sure you feel good about what you see.
You can't make a good movie with a bad script, no matter who's involved.
You know Latin people? African-American people? How our skin ages more slowly? Even though we're dramatic, we move our faces, we eat higher-fat foods, we're the ones with fewer wrinkles - it makes you wonder.
Catholic theology believes that God gave man free will, and you can't give somebody free will and then send in a play from the sidelines.
We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.
Even the most brilliant accomplishments on the Internet are essentially cold. Google has changed the world, but you don't snuggle up to it. YouTube is a giant carnival, filled with freaks and mountebanks, a place to gawk and laugh and get bored. Certainly not a place to feel anything.
Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit.
Sometimes you can forget about who you are in a relationship. But you can also be inspired by the person you are with to become something you always knew you wanted to become.
Overdone lipstick is a deterrent to men. It rubs off easily onto their skin and the edges of their shirts, so it discourages them from kissing, touching, and coming closer to you, which is what they really want to do!
In singing, there's a vibration that comes from deep down inside, literally from your sex. When you put out that vibration, people can feel it. Billie Holiday does it. Peggy Lee does it. It's very hot.
You say that your hope is in God, and he will, I am sure, stand by you. But you must not forget that you have been given worldly means to use and employ against human arrogance and wrong; it is necessary to see such things with a broad mind in order to oppose them.
The hardest thing about being in this business is just being able to be yourself. People act like there's this one set of rules to follow to be a pop star and I think, 'Well, you say I'm a pop star, so maybe that's not true.'
It's such a male-dominated industry. You can be a feminist, it's just difficult because it sometimes comes back at you.
You didn't just pay lip service to the goal of overcoming the division of Europe and Germany... Rather, you put yourself at the forefront of those who encouraged us on the way to unity.
It's rare that you have a policy issue that can be solved by throwing more money at the problem, but the technology to make bus service more frequent and equip buses with GPS systems that provide real-time schedule updates to bus stops exists and operates in many parts of the world. We should be installing it in our major cities.
You don't know what unconditional love is. You may say you do, but if you don't have a child, you don't know what that is. But when you experience it, it is the most fulfilling ever.
You know, larger-than-life politicians have larger-than-life strengths and larger-than-life weaknesses.
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
You know when you're writing, and it's just you and the computer screen, and you never think that anyone is ever going to read it... you're able to say private things when you're writing.
Let me tell you something. I'm a funny girl, and I gave birth to what? Funny. I can't help it. It just is what it is, and my kids have been around my antics so long, it kind of rubs off a little bit. So when it comes to what you see, you only see what is really manifesting in our lives at the time.
