I don't like to rule by committee. I like sort of an autocratic way of dealing with things.
I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.
I don't want to find out what celebrity X, who is a Browns fan, thinks of the zone blitz scheme. I don't think that's the sort of thing that I would even ask many people when they come on the show; it's very obtuse, even if they are an expert on football.
It's very easy for me to say what success is. I think success is connecting with an audience who understands you and having a dialogue with them. I think success is continuing to push yourself forward creatively and not sort of becoming a caricature of yourself.
I grew up cinematically in the '70s. I was watching a lot of Godard, Bresson, Dreyer, and all sorts of old films and the Czech New Wave.
There's nothing I'd rather do than sort of, you know, sit at my computer and rhyme.
I feel when acting, I am sometimes overly self-conscious; I think, 'Going, no, don't, put your eyebrow back where it was and, you know, turn to the left.' You know, I'm sort of very consciously adopting this character. But with music, I don't know. I found it was a question of just closing my eyes and just sort of letting things come out.
We go to the theater to be entertained, but if what is left after you watch the movie is a sort of eye-opening perspective on some social issues, then it can be a really powerful piece of art.
All I know is that, thanks to a sort of habit which has always been ingrained in me, I have never, at any moment of my life, experienced the least difficulty in addressing myself to God as to a supreme Someone.
Women, more often than not, do things which aren't remotely relaxing but are all about preening, which is just another sort of work.
Oh yes, I've been approached to do all sorts of nonsense. How about a remake of 'West Side Story?'
I was obsessed with the idea of going to college. And I took many years off after that, so I sort of missed the weird, crazy transition that was what making movies was in the nineties to what's happening now.
There's all sorts of stuff people want to publish anonymously.
I think this idea of fighting the enemy within is sort of more interesting than fighting an external enemy.
I think you sort of shed skins as you go along in life. You get into your 40s, and you feel like, 'OK, no more pretending.' You get to just be who you are.
It is a quirk of American culture that each generation of nonconservatives sees the right-wingers of its own generation as the scary ones, then chooses to remember the right-wingers of the last generation as sort of cuddly.
You can't forge a new sort of consensus, you can't forge public opinion, by following public opinion.
I love doing comedy, and that's the thing I will always go back to, really, but I'd love to have the freedom to do sort of 'meaty' roles but also have the freedom to do the sort of films I want to make, like what Woody Allen does. You forget he's funny because you're so gripped by the story, but they still make you laugh.
I would say I've actually done a lot more comedy than I've done drama. It's weird the way that worked out, because when I came out of theater school I took myself way too seriously, so it's kind of ironic that I ended up sort of going down the comedy path.
I think that debut albums are supposed to sound sort of raw. You don't want to record 'Sgt. Pepper's' as your first album, because where do you go from there?
Vampires aren't made - they're just born that way, and no one knows why. They're sort of a race unto themselves.
I never feel lonely if I've got a book - they're like old friends. Even if you're not reading them over and over again, you know they are there. And they're part of your history. They sort of tell a story about your journey through life.
Over-the-knee socks remind me of the 1920s, silent films, and the stars of the era who wore the rolled-down stockings. They sort of referenced that in 'Cabaret,' when Liza Minnelli was singing 'Mein Herr,' and I love the way she looks in that scene.
I've been working on Barb for a while. I looked at her as a sort of every woman. She's incredibly strong; she's incredibly generous. She's seemingly insane because she is in the situation of a polygamous relationship, but she had definite reasons to do it.
Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it's starting a new business, whether it's leaving home, whether it's getting married, or whether it's flying in space.
My history teacher could make us feel like he was imparting rare gossip to us when he was talking about Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs. I just loved that sense of - the Western canon is here, and it's gossipy and tawdry, and everyone is sort of goofy.
I love stories that exist in this amped-up, personal world - sort of like 'Pee-wee's Big Holiday,' actually. That world really only exists inside that movie, but what a wonderful little world it is.
I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it's a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.
I was sort of shocked when it all of a sudden turned out that I got all A's through college, with the exception of two B's in the first term. I never envisaged myself as summa cum laude.
I love actors, and I love the casting process. It's funny, like, some writers don't like actors because, I think, they are the faces of the show, and so you feel sort of secondary, but I love actors because they elevate the material; they make it better.
I love finding out why people don't love things. And if you ask people why they don't like things, particularly when they get into this sort of culture box, you find out that they're not liking things because of what people are going to think about them, and not because of what the things actually sound like.
If you ever see me in a social setting wearing any sort of sportswear, then you know I'm in crisis.
There are a few places around the country, north shore of Oahu would be one that I would point to, where people really look out for each other; it's a real local sort of a place and once you're in that sort of ohana, or that family, everybody kind of looks out for each other.
I sort of came from a big family - eight kids - and I guess I always, more than most people, really revel in privacy and solitude sometimes.
I'm not really a plot writer - I'm more interested in the characters and sort of small events that propel the story forward.
I think the leotard for me became, after I retired, a sort of a symbol of the confines of still fitting into the ballet world in mind and body.
