I don't think I am even the best I can be. I like to listen to other singers and learn from them, but I'm always working on myself, trying to improve, trying to be very tough with myself.
I've been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I've been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.
I was trying to land an 18-year-old strapping first baseman from Blanco, Texas, population 200. His name was Willie Upshaw. It turned out there were only three scouts who knew about Willie - Dave Yocum and I working for the Yankees, and Al LaMacchia from the Atlanta Braves.
I'm trying not to put myself into anything I'm not 100 percent confident about.
I wasn't the kind of kid who would get A's without even trying. I had to work to get good grades, but I was very organised about it because I always wanted to do well at everything I did. I'm very competitive.
I need to decide whether to apply for college or delay it for a couple of years while I pursue some more acting projects. Right now I'm trying to sort things out, so I can make the right choices.
Once I start something, I always finish it. They had been trying to get X-Men made for 30 years and they thought maybe if I got involved, it might actually happen.
I try not to listen to the shoulds or coulds, and try to get beyond expectations, peer pressure, or trying to please - and just listen. I believe all the answers are ultimately within us.
As a privileged survivor of the First World War, I hope I may be allowed to interject here a deeply felt tribute to those who were not fortunate enough to succeed, but who shared the signal honor of trying to the last to salvage peace.
Stand-up is my heart and now I get a chance to do that and the music altogether. That's going to be great. I'm trying to be the Sammy Davis Jr. of 2005. I'm planning on going out with Cedric the Entertainer because he's got that musical bone, too.
I'm just trying to get paid; I'm going to be straight up.
That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension.
Look - I'm an African-American. I'm black. But I'm just looking at the character and trying to find his soul, his energy. If you can wipe away the blanket of skin and flesh that people tend to see, and look inside for the essence of the soul, then that's the work I'm doing. That's the work I always do.
The important aspect as we look at this budget, and as we look at previous budgets, is the budget system - what I'm trying to get at is changing budgeting itself in Wisconsin.
My success was due to good luck, hard work, and support and advice from friends and mentors. But most importantly, it depended on me to keep trying after I had failed.
You are always trying to make something that is more than the sum of its parts.
To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.
I don't spend time wondering what might be next; I just focus on trying to savor every day.
Studios have been trying to get rid of the actor for a long time and now they can do it. They got animation. NO more actor, although for now they still have to borrow a voice or two. Anyway, I find it abhorrent.
I call it an old-fashioned seafood house for the new millennium. We are trying to update what we know as old fish houses and places like that, which are great, but I want to give it a new, fresh look with updated versions of the classics we all love.
I was on vacation with my family when I got the scripts for 'Wanderlust' and I was trying to work on the audition while I was on vacation. I remember a big gust of wind blew the entire script into the pool, so I had to dry it with a hairdryer.
Some of my first teachers were incredibly tough. You could never sing more than three words without being stopped and having to do it over 20 times. I loved that - that sort of process of dissecting and trying to figure out and master this incredibly mysterious instrument.
A movie goes from several stages, from idea to script. As you continue shooting, you will make some adjustments. You're constantly adjusting. It's like a piece of music. You're constantly trying to make it better.
First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.
Man, I'm not trying to be important; I just go out and play.
I'm always trying to be a good ambassador for my country.
The Democratic party has gone so far to the left that people just can't relate to it anymore and the Republican party is trying to go totally to the right.
When a film works, the director had a lot to do with that, but the director also didn't have a lot to do with that. There are so many moving parts. It's really about being open to how the river is flowing and trying to get on the river.
Some stuff I don't even put out. I'll just be home, happy, creating something for myself, and then ball it up and throw it in the trash. It's less about trying to prove something or get on somebody's list or make a fan happy or make a hater mad or convert a non-believer. That's not the case for me anymore.
When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from a distance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived, you know?
When I was growing up and trying to get my foot on the ladder, I had the self-belief that my mother taught me, and it never occurred to me that anything could go wrong. I've learned life can't be like that.
I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.
I'm going to beat this cancer or die trying.
I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise.
I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I try to write, if I catch myself trying to write, I'll fall right on my face. I'll see it. If I see in the prose that I'm - 'Boy, look at me writing,' I rewrite it. I rewrite it because I don't, because I think it's distracting.
I wouldn't consciously pursue trying to make something for the charts. It's just not in my scope now. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes.
