I spent my time trying to understand grand jury procedure - a topic about which I never before had the slightest interest.
I'm undeniably very nerdy, but I'm trying to recognize and pursue more masculine pursuits.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it won't keep the wise from trying.
Everybody wants you to do this thing that you've always been doing forever. That's what they want: they want Martin Scorsese to make the same film two hundred times rather than trying to be something different.
While I'm trying to be different, I'm trying to be very conservative at this point in my career.
Trying to understand women is a tall order period.
Today's youth are told to get rich or die trying and they really shouldn't take that attitude forward with them.
Corporate documents, like football game plans, are not easily drafted in a stadium, with thousands of very interested fans participating, each with their own red pencil, trying to reach a consensus on every word.
I'm still trying to figure out what the right line is between myself and the people I play. Sometimes I go too far one way or too far the other.
Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write papers about.
We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.
The biggest danger is trying to put too much pressure on yourself, trying to get in too good shape.
Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.
What we know about Cleopatra's looks is based purely on her coin portraits. Engraving was imperfect, and that when you are a ruler and you ask for a coin to be engraved with your likeness on it, you are probably trying to project a certain air of authority.
Some researchers sensibly suggest that rather than worrying too much about which programs our children are watching, we should concentrate on trying to reduce the total amount of time they spend in front of the screen.
A continual atmosphere of hectic passion is very trying if you haven't got any of your own.
Trying to give back a little bit is important.
I don't think that anyone was trying to keep me from writing the first album. It's just when you're on 'American Idol' or a TV show like that, you wanna capitalize on that momentum, and you want to use that to your advantage, obviously, so the best way to do that is to get the music out as fast as possible. And there's no time to create, really.
The truth is that sometimes art may not exactly reflect one's personal politics, but the story, the drama, the thing you're trying to say, might want to go in a certain direction, and while it may seem like it has resonance with things that are happening topically, you kind of want the world you're creating to have its own internal logic.
The farther away you writers stay, the better I like it. You know why? Because you're trying to create a bad image of me... you do it because I'm black and Puerto Rican, but I'm proud to be Puerto Rican.
I know that my tendency is to be linear, and I'm trying to find ways to subvert that. And so in 'Bellocq's Ophelia' my device for subverting it was to tell the story and then to tell it again; it always circles back to this one moment, and it's not linear, but it's round in that way, and much of 'Native Guard' is like that.
I have managed to infuriate the bank bosses; acquire a fatwa from the revolutionary guards of the trades union movement; frighten the 'Daily Telegraph' with a progressive graduate payment; and upset very rich people who are trying to dodge British taxes. I must be doing something right.
It's not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I'm not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn't interest me.
When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.
The important thing to me is that I'm not driven by people's praise and I'm not slowed down by people's criticism. I'm just trying to work at the highest level I can.
It's like, how do you continue to make records that are representative of who you are that your fans will recognize as your band, while still trying to push things forward and present new sounds for people.
I do think the Obama agenda is the furthest left agenda we've seen since probably LBJ and the Great Society. And the differences have been that instead of him trying to go center-left, he's gone - in my estimation - more left. He's shown the country a much more aggressive liberal, more European style agenda, and that's on a center-right country.
I've, we have in this state, like many other states, we're experiencing an enormous budget deficit that we're trying to grapple with. But we will have progress despite the deficits.
All I know is, I was trying to win the football game. And the bottom line is, you have to do what you think is right. You have to go with your gut. And if you don't do that, then I think you regret a lot of things later on.
You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it's been something I've been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it's something I hope to continue because it's interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.
My struggle over the years has constantly been, it only takes 10 minutes, or an average shower, to come up with a mini-series or two, but it takes a year to draw them. So for me, it's been just trying to find a way to get all these ideas and all these incidents on paper.
Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
I'm not trying to be the new anybody.
The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.
