At Cornell, my acting teacher said you cannot be religious and be an artist. I sort of got it, because faith is a comfort and art comes from a lot of places, in a lot of people, from the dark chasm.
I was influenced by a lot of stand-up comedians... Eddie Murphy back when he was doing 'Raw.' I watched that so many times as a kid, I can probably still quote the entire thing to this day. Chris Rock. Dave Chappelle. George Carlin. A lot of the guys who were sort of edgy for their time.
If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?
If everyone in the music business were brutally honest about what their intentions were then you could sort things out, but it's all smoke and mirrors.
Since the Gothic, European sculpture has become overgrown with moss, weeds - all sorts of surface excrescences which completely concealed shape. It has been Brancusi's special mission to get rid of this overgrowth and to make us once more shape-conscious.
I do have an occasional temper - I sort of inherited my dad's short fuse.
Whether it's a 16-year old girl, or a mom, or a guy, or anybody, as long as they come up and they're excited to meet me 'cause they've had some sort of relationship with something I've created, it's the coolest thing ever. It never gets old. It's awesome.
Swinging a gold club is sort of a throwing action, and even as a kid, I could throw things far and fast.
The Hewitt sisters were these amazing - both sort of philanthropists and dilettantes who went out and single-handedly collected all of these of-the-moment designs in wallpaper and textiles and in graphic design in order to teach people about design.
The streets of New York are entirely man-made and unmistakably that, so you feel as though you're on some sort of presentation platform whenever you're out on the streets.
There was a time when meanings were focused and reality could be fixed; when that sort of belief disappeared, things became uncertain and open to interpretation.
I didn't expect to feel pathos for the villains in our show. I feel quite moved in several of our episodes; I never realized that a show like 'Motive,' which aims for a broad appeal, could have that sort of emotional impact.
When I finished grad school, I sort of fell into journalism. Someone mentioned that there was an entry-level job at the Reuters News Agency. I applied, and, to my amazement, I got the job.
I'm not really a zombie genre guy; I'm not particularly versed in it. Doing 'The Walking Dead' sort of turned me on to the whole thing.
Most people are living lives of sort of survival. And constantly posing an existential crisis, either through fantasy or oblivion, really has been pretty much explored in rock and roll. At least in the western version of rock n' roll.
There are so many different kinds of relationships, so it's sort of difficult to define what is considered normal.
I don't think the Bonzo Dog could have evolved in America, nor could the old Nice: because of their musical discipline. This is one thing that British groups do have, a sort of discipline. Sometimes it can get a bit soulless, but on the whole I think it's preferable to the American alternative.
We're sort of putting a slightly different spin on Steve Rogers. He's a guy that wants to serve his country, but he's not a flag-waver. We're reinterpreting, sort of, what the comic book version of Steve Rogers was.
Certainly in the Capitol you do get moments were you sort of take a deep breath and think of all the historic figures who have been in that building, like Abraham Lincoln, who have stood right in those same rooms to make the landmark decisions.
The coming-of-age story has sort of become a joke. It's something to capitalize on, and that is painful because when you are coming of age - when you are going through something like that - the genre is so meaningful.
The Twenties have this sort of attitude where you never know what's around the corner.
I cross things out more than I write them. And if I try to sing a line, and I know that it's written incorrectly, I get this weird sort of physical nausea, and my mouth curls up all strange. I guess that's why I always write the words first: because, if everything feels okay, I'm ready to put it to music.
In 1992, the most treasured voter was a voter that would sort of swing back and forth, one that might vote for Republican for president, Democrat for governor. The voter that didn't have that strong of a partisan ID. These were the voters that we targeted.
I've made some films for the military that are teaching things like cultural awareness and leadership issues, that sort of stuff. And try to, in essence, look at what training they're doing and say, 'This is how you can improve the training from a humanistic point of view.'
People talk about grief as if it's kind of an unremittingly awful thing, and it is. It is painful, but it's a very, very interesting sort of thing to go through, and it really helps you out. At the end of the day, it gets you through because you have to reform your relationship, and you have to figure out a way of getting to the future.
In general, for me, a big thing in my life has been just sort of learning what true self-esteem is and what true positive self-image is. And being a dancer, and growing up in that world, you're so focused on yourself, and you're so focused on achieving goals, on finding perfection, and working on your craft.
Every day I pull into that parking spot that says 'Head Football Coach,' I get out of my car and pinch myself sometimes, just to make sure it's real, sort of like, 'Is this really happening?'
I've always been sort of influenced by my male relationships and that period of my life when you start to cringe and be like, 'I can't believe I wore this or that.'
I was once again looking for a book idea, and I remembered Holmes, but I specifically remembered that there was this World's Fair thing in the background. I thought, 'I'll read about the fair.' I had nothing better to do. I'd dismissed about a dozen ideas, and I was getting sort of antsy. I started reading, and that's where I got hooked.
It would be absurd for me to diagnose Sarah Palin with a sprained ankle, let alone any sort of mental illness.
I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.
The first time you meet someone, the conversation is sort of on life support. You're just trying to live another moment in the life of the conversation.
I'm sort of like the kid that kicks around in Vans, beat-up Converse, ripped jeans, and t-shirts.
I really love young Tom Hanks. He's just one of my favorites. He's a great, quirky every-man. I also love Zach Braff. I really love actors that are quirky and interesting, that sort of try to portray 'normal' people.
In school, I was playing old men and women, babies, Russian people, and all sorts of weird parts - a lot of comedy - and that's sort of like home to me.
There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don't think there is enough of. One of my favourites is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 'The City and the Stars.' It's set in this far future on Earth in this somewhat static society and trying to break out.
