Whenever I write, I try and approach my stories from some kind of universal theme or idea or emotion.
To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.
When I'm filming, I try to get a facial two weeks before I start shooting and then again once I've wrapped. On set they tend to use a lot of make-up, so I like to prepare my skin right before, and then unclog all my pores right after.
If you have a problem, try to get help, you can get through it if you get help.
It's when I compare myself to what other people are able to do that I run into trouble. It is a bummer. I just constantly try to put things into perspective.
I teach 18- to 21-year-olds - the 'Harry Potter' generation. They grew up as voracious readers, reading books in this exploding genre. But at some point, I would love for them to give Umberto Eco or A.S. Byatt a try. I hope 'A Discovery of Witches' will serve as a kind of stepping-stone.
Hopefully, if not it's not working right. I'm like a navigator and I try to encourage our collaboration and find the best way that will produce fruit. I like fruit. I like cherries, I like bananas.
I'm comfortable with my femininity, and I don't try to change what I look like just because I'm reporting on football at the end of the night.
I can only put myself in the process and try to learn through the process. Sometimes it will go well and sometimes it won't.
I'm not a Lincoln expert, rather a biographer who has had the pleasure of reading much of what has been written about him from his lifetime to this year of his bicentennial. Some advice: Don't try that unless you have at least five years available.
You should examine yourself daily. If you find faults, you should correct them. When you find none, you should try even harder.
If you just keep your head down and just try and do your thing, sometimes magic happens.
Yes, Americans can still get credit for cars and trucks and refrigerators, and those businesses are doing well. But just try to get a home loan now.
I'm a big fan of unflinching drama and bold drama. If you shy away from dark subject matters, there's only certain places for TV drama to go. If there are shows that can break through that and be brave, those are the shows that I personally enjoy watching. I try and do work that I would watch.
It would be a mind-boggling endeavor to try to identify each individual who claims to have been a survivor of victimization during this period of 24 years.
I try to look at people like Adele and Norah Jones, who are very successful but don't have to deal with scandals.
I feel like people expect a lot out of girls, like you're supposed to know who you are and what you want out of life right now. Some girls know. I did. But lots of people don't know. You have to try a lot of things and not worry about what people are thinking.
When you're hot, you try to ride it as long as you can.
When I do an album I try to find a producer that's excited about something that they want me to sing, and I check with the record company to find out what they think they can sell - which is their No. 1 priority.
When my mother did fittings for her clients, I was hiding, looking at these beautiful ladies try on these fantastic clothes. I was dreaming as a small child to try these clothes on myself.
Every time I make a mistake with a company, I write it out and try to figure out why it happened.
I don't know if I'm a populist artist, but I do try to maintain a spirit of generosity.
I try to treat people the way I would like to be treated, but I can't worry about what everyone's going to think.
So often we try to alter circumstances to suit ourselves, instead of letting them alter us, which is what they are meant to do.
People will come up to me and try and be secretive and say, 'Can you do the Gollum voice for me?' And I'm like, 'Are you kidding? It's 8:30 in the morning on the Victoria Line.'
Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.
I have lots of memories of my father. He was an incredible father. We all loved him to death. He'd try to educate us as much as he could and was always looking out for us. He was very protective.
Most poets, like most people, try hard to be like someone they admire or they are possessed with an image of what they ought to be.
When you start a company, it's more an art than a science because it's totally unknown. Instead of solving high-profile problems, try to solve something that's deeply personal to you. Ideally, if you're an ordinary person and you've just solved your problem, you might have solved the problem for millions of people.
I think if you want to do a thing properly you have to take a lot of care. I've always found it's easier to draw comics if you know clearly in your head what you're drawing, rather than if you try and make it up as you go along.
I try not to want any one specific thing to happen because that's then bound to probably not happen. Particularly in Hollywood, I try not to set my hopes on anything.
That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year.
When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.
Maybe it is true what they say, that playing these Chuck Berry songs is easy. But try singing them. The words come out hard, like bullets.
Facing the press is not easy, but because you have to go, you have to try to take a lot of positive things for yourself from these face-to-face meetings.
I remember early on, in the first couple of years especially, I would run into some people that would try to put Kickstarter under the 'social good' label. And I actually had this very visceral reaction - I just didn't like that at all.
