The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.
What I'm saying is that, unlike a lot of portrayals of me, I'm not hiding behind the sunglasses. I'm out there working. I'm not trying to sell anybody anything, but I do realize we're entertainers.
Trying to ground everything in reality was the most important thing to me.
We may be more sophisticated in how we hide it, but there are still so many phobias in this world, whether it's Islamophobia, xenophobia or homophobia. I've been trying to do things that expose and help teach and draw attention to all of the 'isms' and how we do or don't deal with them in our world.
You know, I like playing around with my voice and trying all different types of kooky voices.
I tell stories. I kind of stumbled on that by trying to combine Jane Austen and magic.
You're never a loser until you quit trying.
There are kids don't want to do something because they're afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure that they're always trying to extend themselves.
Often times when you face such an overwhelming challenge as global climate change, it can be somewhat daunting - it's kind of like trying to lose weight, which I know something about.
Even to me, as I was trying to tell the government what had happened, it just didn't seem to matter.
We try very quickly to show that we are not at war with the Iraqi people. We're trying to deal with the people who are indeed themselves at war with the Iraqi people.
What the results are telling them is that the most money is spent in volume by young people. They also see young people as the consumers of tomorrow and are trying to capture their attention from their competitors.
No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.
I'm opening up my heart to the idea of dating. It's funny - my friends would always come to me for romantic advice. I know nothing, and things have changed since I was dating in high school! I'm really trying hard to spend this time working on myself.
'Short Term 12' was such a marathon. It's like trying to convey the same emotional depth as 'The Gambler' but with less time and a fingernail's worth of the budget.
While you're going through this process of trying to find the satisfaction in your work, pretend you feel satisfied. Tell yourself you had a good day. Walk through the corridors with a smile rather than a scowl. Your positive energy will radiate. If you act like you're having fun, you'll find you are having fun.
We are all advertising, all of the time. If you want to sell your car, what do you do? You clean and polish it and make it the best you can. Some people bake bread when they are trying to sell their house because the smell adds a friendly feeling. Even the priest, with all his or her fervour, is advertising God. Everybody is selling.
I feel awful for women who are trying to raise kids on their own, with zero income and no fathers present - that's single motherhood.
I love that people are still obsessively trying to understand and decode 'The Shining.' People want to find meaning in things that seemingly don't have meaning on the surface.
I just consider myself a student, trying to learn more about it.
Learning about all those different things psychologically - about grief and my own addictions and problems and stuff like that, and really getting an education on it, I think it was part of the process of it, learning about it and trying to lick it.
I'm really trying hard not to do anything that has been done before. So knowing everything I can about the legacy of magic challenges my team and I to invent new illusions.
I'm trying to open a Chopper shop this year.
As a former small business owner, I recognize both the important role small businesses play in our economy and the broad universe of challenges that small business owners face in trying to make ends meet.
I'm not trying to conquer Hollywood. I love my day job.
I was the guy literally in the chess club who decided to wear a bow tie for the last two years of high school, so I obviously wasn't trying to get the ladies.
I'm not trying to find another thing that's wrong with me, but I'm such a nice person, and I have a couple of drinks and I'm really good fun and then I'm really not fun.
This drama between Dean and Ehrlichman took place while I was trying to give the contents to the FBI.
I'm not trying to be new school and I'm not old school - I'm classic. There's a lot of new cars and there's a lot of old cars, but I'm just classic in doing what I do.
My wife has been incredibly supportive of me as a writer. Trying really hard to make sure I get the space and time I need to work as a writer and being willing to make some of the sacrifices that you have to make to live the life of an artist.
The same thing I did in 2013 is what I'm trying to do in 2014, which is continue to improve, continue to shock people. You know, I have several projects coming up between 2014 and 2015, and hopefully by 2015, I'll have another hour of stand-up material where I'll be able to go on the road and tour again.
When I grew up in the '60s, we were actually dominated by this, you know, sort of conforming '50s culture, even though we were like trying to express our own culture, like, the dominant culture was the thing that was forming us. And I think that that's true today.
Whenever you're trying to do your own take on a classic piece of literature, it's almost like you're trying to swim up your own stream or drive down your own path.
You can spend the rest of your life trying to figure out what other people expect from you, or you can make a decision to let that all go.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
I think Tupac was more someone who was trying to inform us about what was going on, and he did it through entertainment.
