'I Know You Care' is about my dad. And I haven't seen him for a long, long time. And my parents divorced when I was really young. And I guess I just wanted a - it was my way of saying that I wasn't bitter or angry anymore. I was just sad and just felt like something was missing.
I never understood the idea that I was a 'backpack rapper.' I think that's a lazy way that people started thinking. They like saying that because I got dreads. I look like I belong a certain place, so it's easy to put everything in a box.
I'd like to be out in the city every day, listening to what people are saying and asking about what they need. I'd like to inspire others by doing as much as I can to help people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and others.
It's never me saying, 'When is my day over?' It's more, 'When do they legally have to get me off of the lot, based on when I have to be back the next day?' The first call is a big thing in the acting world and in the union world. There needs to be a 12 hour period, and I need it.
We started to have more women and little girls in our audience, where it started to be 40 percent female that sat in our live audience. So I think, when that was happening and the women were stepping up and saying, 'Hey we can do what the men do,' and then you saw it on a reality show, it was just inevitable for us to have this women's evolution.
When you have Candidate A saying the sky is blue, and Candidate B saying it's a cloudy day, I look outside and I see, well, it's a cloudy day. I should be able to tell my viewers, 'Candidate A is wrong, Candidate B is right,' and not have to say, 'Well, you decide.' Then it would be like I'm an idiot.
I'm saying nothing new that Dave Pasquesi is really good at what he does.
Listening is more important than talking. Just hit your mark and believe what you say. Just listen to people and react to what they are saying.
I went in saying I wanted to be the food guy.
You're saying 'will it become politically unpopular to have the position I'm having.' If it does, so be it.
People keep saying I've changed. I used to be confrontational. But I'm - I haven't changed. It was - it's just that circumstances have changed.
Let me acknowledge that I realize that, in honoring me, the Committee of the Royal Academy of Sciences is in fact saying a good word for all of those of my generation who have been laboring in the same vineyard.
I think that what people want is for government to function... not through temper tantrums and saying we are not going to participate, we are not going to play ball.
I don't believe in saying no.
People recognize me once in a while and appreciate the work. It gets a little embarrassing, but it's good. If you work as an accountant, you don't have people coming up to you in the streets saying, 'Hey, great job on tax statements!'
Every backstory involves my father. I remember hearing Gary Oldman talking about backstories and saying, 'I got to stop using my father...' And I feel the same way. I don't know. What I come up with always involves some element of this son trying to prove himself to his father.
Autobiography is awfully seductive; it's wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass - the slave narrative - speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying 'I,' meaning 'we.'
In high school for prom, I asked my girlfriend - we were both into horror movies - by dressing up as a zombie. I had a bloody t-shirt and I spray-painted a giant question mark on my t-shirt and had people hold bloody sings saying, 'Dying to go to prom with you.'
I had fans, and the industry and everybody saying, 'Keep the Righteous Brothers going; keep the music alive,' and I really didn't want to do that. I had sung with a couple of guys who would supposedly be really good Bobby Hatfields, and I thought, 'Oh geez, it's really anti-climatic.'
I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He's a very great director.
Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.
What, exactly, did Sjahrir do for the Republic? ... His entire underground effort can be summed up by saying that he sat quietly and safely away somewhere listening to a clandestine radio.
I'm tired of being the bad guy all the time, saying 'no' to people I like.
People be saying, 'Watch - when she gets some money, she's going to get a Gucci purse.' But I don't think that's my style. I like finding random stuff and random brands. Maybe one day when I'm sophisticated and older I might settle down and invest in a nice leather handbag.
I have no problem with saying I am a socialist or with saying I'm a feminist. That's how I was when I was 15, and you know, I haven't grown out of it and probably never will.
If there's any indirect way I can motivate or inspire Olympic athletes... that is one of the greatest honors. Even Natalie Coughlin saying that I inspired her. I'm so humbled by that. I think that's amazing.
In many ways, writing is the act of saying 'I,' of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying, 'Listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.' It's an aggressive, even a hostile act.
At the end of the day, you're saying lines and playing pretend. All that varies from show to show is the level of the intensity and the terms of the expectations you place on yourself.
I miss people. I miss going anywhere and meeting a random person and saying 'Hi' and having a conversation about life. I love people.
I'm not saying that Sam J. Jones was Flash Gordon - there's no such thing. No actor can be the person, that's a bunch of crap. People pay to see an actor be himself, whether he plays Hamlet or whatever.
I'm a person who has a hard time saying no, and it gets me into trouble because I sometimes overreach.
I think just calling up a VC and saying 'I want to pitch you' is an enormous waste of time.
I'm responsible. I even did a commercial for MTV saying how I was going to register to vote. And I still haven't.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
With anything you put out there, you're going to offend somebody, but most people get that it's a joke, that I'm playing a character, and that I'm actually making fun of what I'm saying by saying it.
We're at economic war with China. It's in all their literature. They're not shy about saying what they're doing.
