The problem with the Dorises and the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly. There is no long-term vision, and they forget that once you get into that whirlpool, then you have to fight the system that solidifies around you in order to keep being the outsider you claim you represent.
This is now the way our culture prioritises. Look up 'Steppenwolf,' and you'll get the band before the novel. Look up Jesus Christ, and you'll get the musical. Look up Princess Link-a-din and you'll get LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network.
It took a catastrophe of socialized medicine to wake a lot of people up because it affects every single person in America, either directly or indirectly. That's when you get people's attention - when it directly affects them.
I like to remember phone numbers because it keeps your brain active. If you don't use it, you lose it.
When you're doing a series like this, you're constantly looking for new ways to excite your audience.
I've learned the importance of loving what you do. I have also learned more patience due to the nature of the music business.
Pound's crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don't put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.
I started in the supermarket business in the early '70s. And by '75, '76, I realized you don't have a business unless you own the real estate.
I would love to do comedy, but you have to be phenomenally good. I'm not sure I'm there yet. I can imagine it being so much fun but I don't think I've quite got the gall to go ahead just yet.
Every NBA player, every athlete, I think once you get to this level in life, whether you have kids or you're about to have kids, understands that this is so much bigger than this sport.
If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.
It's the fans that need spring training. You gotta get 'em interested. Wake 'em up and let 'em know that their season is coming, the good times are gonna roll.
I've had quite a life, when you stop and think about it.
It seems like the good things that have happened in my career are things that you don't try to plan and push, and make it happen, it just seems to happen.
Getting back to the point, a guy like Jerry, he deals with the business, and he doesn't see it as being evil or ugly, it's what you have to do, and I mean I know there's some really ugly parts to it and parts which drive me nuts, but not in the same way as music business.
I've advocated a proportional tax system. You make $10 billion, you pay a billion. You make $10, you pay one. And everybody gets treated the same way.
You find out two executives are planning to break their contracts, keep the money you gave them, and steal 40 employees. What do you do? You fire them.
You have to go to the ultimate situation in drama.
I've been competitive from day one. It's in my nature. Whether people recognize that or not, I don't know how they can't. I'm not gonna go out there and try to hurt somebody or win by all means. But if it's up in the air, I'm gonna try harder than you to get it done.
You can hear some artists, hear five of their albums and still have no idea who they are. But if you've heard most of what I've recorded, you know me. You go from 'Honesty' to 'Going Through Hell' - you can listen to the hits, and they pretty much reflect who I am. 'Take a Back Road' is the same thing.
I think a lot of people of my generation are discomfited by the assertion of neutrality in the mainstream media, this idea that they're the voice of God. I think it's just honest to say, yes, you know where I'm coming from but you can fact-check anything I say.
Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.
When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.
I have always been the kid who's asked 'Why?' In my faith, you're just supposed to have faith. But I was always like 'why?'
The very first big photo shoot I ever did was with Bruce Weber. I couldn't believe this guy was taking my picture, so when he told me to get in the bathtub, I just did. It's only now, looking back, that I realise, you don't have to do everything people tell you.
Of course you draw from yourself, but the artistic nourishment you want to get is be versatile, do something different, and I think I got a chance to do that in a lot of different ways.
I hate the idea of theatre just being an evening pastime. It should be emotionally and intellectually demanding. I love football. The level of analysis that you listen to on the terraces is astonishing. If people did that in the theatre... but they don't. They expect to sit back and not participate.
The solution is to change the cake recipe, and that's the way it is with government. We can start adopting policies that work and that encourage economic growth. If you got incentives for encouraging big business development but not small or medium business development, it's not going to work. It needs to work for all three.
Humanity's become a product and when humanity is a product, you get Auschwitz and you get Chair.
The finest compliment you can pay a man is that his word was as good as gold.
I see the effects of sexual and gender liberation all around me, just like you do, but I don't have a sense of being in the majority.
If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you're criticizing God.
I think when your imagination goes to work, and when you're first bullied, you feel like you're going to die. School becomes a war zone, and you can't function.
You got to make the most of your second life. I was born Nayvadius, but now I'm Future. Should I dwell on what Nayvadius was supposed to be? I get a chance to experience life as something else. I wasn't supposed to be like this.
You know, we - if, for example, Jerry Brown can withstand, you know, what will probably end up being $200 million of spending by his opponent and get elected governor of California, that will be a big victory in the nation's largest state.
I noticed there were so many people, especially women, who would come up to me having recognized me from TV and say, 'I heard you were a math person, why math? Oh my gosh, I could never do math!' I could just see their self-esteem crumbling; I thought that was silly, so I wanted to make math more friendly and accessible.
