Educators are still spending way too much time trying to control what kids learn, bending the content to their own purposes, hoping beyond hope to change - by using technology - but not change too much.
I think that the process of trying to become somebody else, and obviously the director/actor relationship in trying to do that, is such a weird, undefinable thing.
When you're a young kid and you're gay, you're out there on your own. And you're trying to figure this thing out. And your parents typically aren't gay.
I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.
If you're an unattractive girl who's trying to be beautiful with Botox, forget it. If you are a beautiful girl who's trying to be beautiful with Botox, you will look like you're angry all the time.
The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.
Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they're trying to say with jazz. You don't need any prologues, you just play.
Obama is trying to paint us as a caricature, as if we're some bizarre individualists who are hardcore libertarians. It's a false dichotomy and intellectually lazy. Of course we believe in government. We think government should do what it does really well, but that it has limits.
Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
Nobody has trusted the Iranian government from day one, but the idea of just refusing to have any kind of talks is dangerous in the extreme. Every administration says at least that we're trying to have talks between Israel and Palestine and solve the Middle East peace problem.
Country radio went through a time where they were trying to pigeonhole everybody, and trying to make the gap really narrow, and I think that they've opened that up a little bit.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve.
If it's just me on stage telling stories for, like, an hour, that's great. That's fine. But like a sandcastle on the beach, it gets washed away at night. It's so much more powerful if we can all share our narratives and doorstep moments and make us feel a little less alone. I'm just trying to use social media and new media as a way to capture that.
I'm not trying to be someone I'm not.
I've been trying to find women writers for my staff for a while now and I have three women on my staff and three guys so it's pretty equal. I don't know why that is. It's been the same thing for a while. It's hard for female comedians to stand out. That's weird. That's a shame.
I'm afraid I'm still trying to find that balance. Especially now that everyone wants a piece of me. I find that I have to become more and more reclusive, and pick and choose when I am public and when I am private.
I'm just trying to keep my mind and my body active. The tough part about it is that physically I'm sort of limited.
I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think them, that is what I do, I feel them with the sympathetic neurons and I work out with my brain what it is that I am trying to write about, or I can't do it.
If I had to perform in a comedy club I would bomb; I would be trying too hard.
I'm trying to let winning the world championships settle in right now before I begin training again shortly. During the skating season, we skate on average 20 kilometres a day. On top of that, we're riding a lot and lifting a lot of weights.
When I was eight or nine, I wrote a new version of 'Peter Pan' for the school play. They didn't use it - I imagine it was unperformable - but as recompense for not doing my script, I was offered any role, and instinctively went for Captain Hook. I came on trying to be terrifying, but everyone laughed at me.
No matter how brilliant an actor is, there's always a point where they let you down, but that's all part of their journey. They might be trying something they need to explore.
I think trying to create intimacy on a set with a boom over your head can be a little embarrassing.
I'm now the elder in the position of doling out wisdom and trying to mend fences.
The minute I get into a hotel room, I scatter my stuff everywhere. It's like a bomb site within a minute. So I suppose that means I'm trying to nest.
I was trying to figure out what a memory feels like.
It's sort of an action flick. You can't be that funny trying to steal diamonds.
I know there's a great deal of speculation, and while I appreciate the interest, kind of, my contract ends in May and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm fortunate to have a couple of opportunities to think long and hard about.
The government is a very large constructor. They have schools, colleges, hospitals and courts, offices. We are trying to influence the public works department to adopt green buildings.
The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.
If I had been under ObamaCare, and a beaurocrat had been trying to tell me when I could get that CT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. I was able to get the treatment as fast as I could based upon my timetable, and not the government's timetable. That's what saved my life.
They're trying to kill me before I'm dead. I come to Quebec to spend some time with my family and they say I'm dead.
If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up.
I put so much pressure on myself to raise the bar with each and every project. I treat it like every film is my last, and I make sure I pour everything I have into every film I make because if I'm not trying to improve, someone else will.
I've always thought that guns are a cowardly tool in the hands of men and women trying to solve problems with each other. And cowardly in the hands of filmmakers. It's taken so lightly in films.
