You know the stories of a woman saying to Churchill, 'Sir, you're drunk,' and he said to her, 'And you're ugly, but in the morning I'll be sober.' I was really excited to do that scene, but I did get slapped.
I'm not as impatient as I used to be. I used to hit people if I didn't like what they were saying. Just lash out. 'Bam - shut up! Hahahah!' I was terrible.
I do remember a lot of teachers saying I would do well on TV, as I have a 'modern look,' but I never knew how to take that.
I'm trying to be number one all the way around. It's not just the South, it's not just the East, it's not the West, I'm going for across the world, you know what I'm saying? This is where I'm coming from.
Scientology is not written with disrespect toward God. It doesn't worship something that is evil. It is scientific, mathematical, and spiritual. The black community has to check it out and see what's there. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but you have to take a look.
The American people are screaming out saying it's unfair that the wealthiest, the largest corporations who can afford the best attorneys, the best accountants, take advantage of these special tax treatments that the lobbyists have, along with lawmakers, have cooked in the books here.
I've noticed that a lot of people, subsequently, when they introduce me are very careful not to say the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. A lot more people are saying Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.
I know how I like to be treated, so I always start by saying, 'Could you give me a moment of your time, I know you're very busy,' and usually, they will.
I know what you're saying, but I already told you all the truth and I, I don't what, I don't know what else to do. I just do the best I can and tell you the only thing I can, and that's what I already told you many times.
Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it's just noise that can be a distraction.
During 'Chicago Hope,' I never let directors talk to me, because I was so spoiled. I started off with people like Milos Forman, Sidney Lumet, James Lapine, unbelievably gifted people. So there I was, saying, 'Don't talk to me, I don't want your opinion.' I behaved abominably.
I love feeling like I'm 'on the pulse' of things. Nothing more satisfying, more valued, more exciting as a writer. Because shaping pop culture really means that you're saying something that a lot of people want to hear.
But most distinctly, I remember always saying to myself that when I get big, I'm not going to go to bed hungry, I'm not going to wear hand-me-down clothes.
When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - 'Nick of Time' and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.
There are 500 million people on Facebook, but what are they saying to each other? Not much.
I was only saying to the Queen the other day how I hate name dropping.
I wouldn't write a book, because saying the word I over and over again would nauseate me.
I've always been fond of the saying that when it comes to oversight and reform, the federal government does two things well: nothing and overreact.
I don't think Ripley is gay. He appreciates good looks in other men, that's true. But he's married in later books. I'm not saying he's very strong in the sex department. But he makes it in bed with his wife.
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.
I feel lucky that I can have people laugh solidly for a whole hour by just saying what I think and getting paid for it.
But for everyone, I think, there is always a pressure to conform, and I guess as you get older you realize it's less interesting to do that. It starts with you, though, saying, 'I know what I like doing and that's what I'm going to do.'
Not that I have any interest in saying goodbye to Rocky. I absolutely adore being involved and a part of something that is really a phenomenon.
Writing for TV entails saying every dumb idea that comes into your head to a room of people. And doing so with the confidence that it doesn't make you look like an idiot.
I don't know anything more piggish - I don't know anything more un-American than saying, 'Oh, I'm worried about my own little handout or my own little program or my own little economy and we'll kick this can down the road and let some future generation deal with it.'
Giving more to women will, to some extent, come at the expense of men. People sometimes try to sweep that under the rug by saying you will create so much additional resources that everyone will be better off. I don't think that's true.
Now, for pure bloggers, for individual people who are just posting their own thoughts, they would still run the same risk of saying something wrong or embarrassing, but they wouldn't harm their institutions by doing so.
There's a saying in Africa: 'To find out you are pregnant is to have one foot in the grave.'
Bad taste is not illegal. I always got my first laughs as a kid by saying inappropriate things. That's always how we're going to get our laughs as comics.
When you look at food as an ethical issue in the Christian tradition, you don't find very much about it. You don't find, as you do in the Jewish or Islamic or Hindu traditions, a lot of restrictions saying you can eat this but you can't eat that.
Obamacare has got everyone on edge. I mean, small business - men and women or big business are sitting out there saying we have no idea what this is going to cost, but we know it's going to cost us and cost us a lot.
A cult following is a nice way of saying very few people like you.
The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.
The Labour Party of today has fits of horrors of the very thought of somebody like me might saying that they bought in white Australia. But I believe they did.
When I was 16, I definitely burned a couple of bridges by saying, 'I won't do this!' I was not diplomatic about it. I came to a fitting and was like, 'I don't wear fur; cancel this show!'
But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes; not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying.
