By doing something positive in this world, you're helping people and the future. We're all trying to help the world... make it a better place to live. We're actually still changing the world, aren't we?
Established actors will challenge you if they don't agree with the way you are taking it, and you have to argue it. But with a younger cast, they are more likely to wonder whether what they are doing is okay instead of trying to second guess the director. That helps push you.
I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.
You're trying to put yourself in that moment and trying to prepare yourself, to have a 'memory before the game. I don't know if you'd call it visualising or dreaming, but I've always done it, my whole life.
Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone.
I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.
I'm not trying to achieve perfection. I don't like this forced control people have over work.
I think there's an ongoing effort involved in trying to get a bigger perspective, trying to let go of things that limit your capacity to love and be loved or your capacity to hear and to really speak.
Working for a federal agency was like trying to dislodge a prune skin from the roof of the mouth. More enterprise went into the job than could be justified by the results.
I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
It's difficult sometimes when you have somebody who is of a different culture trying to make light of something that is maybe not quite something that they understand.
I think books that are meant to be read in the nighttime ought to confront the very fears that we're trying to think about.
When I first quit my day job, I was terrified. I called my editors and said I'm trying to make a go of this, and they threw every contract at me they could. And for two years, I had a book or an anthology out every month.
Well, I'm not trying to get rid of the unions, but I am saying that they appear to be an antiquated concept in today's economy.
I think I'm still trying to find my feet as an actor. And I know it ain't brain surgery, but it confuses me and it comes between me and my sleep a lot.
I think the most important thing for an actor is reading the script and trying to figure out if you can play that character well. The last thing on my mind is if the director made good movies previously. It's not my job to know if that director's last movie was any good - it's my job to know if I can play the role.
I'm just trying to grow. That's one thing I told myself is, 'Don't worry about who people say is the best player.'
I want to get better as an actor, to keep trying to work harder, trying to discover something different. In some ways, it's a pretty frightening experience. But normally, I do tend to walk against fear and hope that I'll be able to survive.
I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.
Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.
Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.
There are companies trying to build business within Saudi Arabia, and what they find is that if they try to bring on locals and teach them how to become senior executives, they just don't show up to work. They are not predictable as to when they'll come in and how much of their hearts are into that opportunity.
When I was 13, listening to Choice FM, I would listen to a lot of R&B from America, and whenever a British person tried to do it, it didn't really work, they just sounded like they were trying to copy that whole style. Now the music sounds British, something real rather than an imitation.
I think the Tea Party movement is great. I think anybody who has been frustrated over the last few years with the Republicans and Democrats, when they were trying to grow government and have spending and we weren't focusing on creating jobs and get our private sector growing again, I think that's when people started to wake up.
For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that's because my parents always treated me as an adult.
We always try to reinterpret sport in an innovative, fashionable way, and when we do fashion, we're always trying to bring our sports heritage into the fashion world.
You're always trying to balance your understanding of who you are and what you need, and your longing and imaginings of freedom.
What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together.
I was looking for a new challenge and got an interest in trying to make a difference for families. You become more aware of how important families are. They are the key institution in our culture. The reason I got into politics was to try to make a difference for that key institution, whether it was tax policy, education policy, or whatever.
As a mom, that's at the forefront of everything in my mind, so I'm always trying to balance, whether it's bringing Violet to work or, the second I am done working, getting home to her.
As an audience member, those studio films are fun. I like an adventure tale, and I also like to go see something that has more of a social pulse. I like to keep learning and trying new things. And if the scripts are good, it doesn't really matter.
I'm trying to write a TV show. Ideally it would be just a reality-TV show, getting the guy who played Eddie Winslow and Kirk Cameron to live in a house. The Jehovah's Witnesses would come to the house a lot or something like that. I kind of like the idea of Scientologists and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses trying to convert Kirk Cameron.
You know, I think the film business is its own worst enemy because it sells movies on DVD footage and 'behind the scenes,' and now it's a real struggle trying to keep storylines and plotlines a secret.
We are trying to communicate a fulfilled ideal. Does anybody remember laughter?
So I started to learn Russian and I was one of those probably way too eager, annoying young actor kids who was trying to change all my lines to Russian, much to the dismay of the director and Nic Cage.
