I'm from a rural town outside of Stockholm, so in coming to L.A., I've been able to not think that much about my background. It's much easier for me in this big town, this big bubble to isolate myself from that and be a little more self-confident. I'm here to do my take on soul.
And, uh, I did that, and there was nothing more ridiculous to me than finding the weight of the earth because I didn't care how much the earth weighed.
We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?
'As I Lay Dying,' I reread that often. That's the first work of Faulkner's that I read that so amazed me and that I responded to emotionally and viscerally. I admired it so much, and I think that's why I keep rereading it.
The need we have for information is great, and we get it from many admirable sources. The need we have for understanding and acceptance is much greater. The arts are uniquely able to help us meet the greater needs.
I guess it was but I think peoples morality has changed. It's gotten more liberal and more diverse and even in a sense much more fundamental, you take the fundamental religious right in this country, its got to go back about 50 years.
There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I'm doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much.
My first car was a Holden Commodore station wagon. I can't remember much more about it than that - it was coffee colored, and I think it was four cylinders, so it was really quite weak, but very safe for a young man to be driving.
It always makes me sad when someone comments on how much they love my work- from 15 years ago! I don't want to be just another old school guy that fell off.
Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?
Low budgets force you to be more creative. Sometimes, with too much money, time and equipment, you can over-think. My way, you can use your gut instinct.
I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. In order to appreciate cultures of another nation, one needs to go there, know the people and mingle with the culture of that country. One way to do that, if one is lucky enough, is to buy things from those cultures.
There was a time - before I made movies - when I was more forgiving, but now that I've learned as much as I have, I want to do movies that I want to see, that have their own unique flavor.
I like to cook with the philosophy of using great ingredients and not altering them too much.
The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.
I think Direct Cinema's trying to be insightful by looking at reality in a very close way while, in fact, much more is staged than we like to think. In cinema verite, it's about trying to make something invisible visible - the role of fantasy and imagination in everyday life.
It is much easier to become a father than to be one.
We really don't have much of a choice between Obama and Romney. Neither one of them are for Medicare or taking the steps that's needed for jobs in America.
I definitely listened to country music. I don't think I listened to hair bands as much as I did Bruce Springsteen and U2 and Aerosmith.
New York is nice, but I don't like it as much as I used to.
People come up to me and say, 'You look so much better in real life.'
I turned popular music on the radio, and I never listened to it again after that, in about 1985. That's when I switched over to classical music, and I pretty much stayed with that since then.
I'm not somebody who goes online after every episode airs because that would be, for me, getting too much feedback and too much information.
In World War II the hostility and the exasperation resulting from the statification of the economy and the strain of the war have been directed as much against the government as against private capital.
Isn't that wonderful? When we drove through several of the places we lived - Grand Rapids, Washington - they all had those placards. That they stood by the street and had in their hands placards that said 'Gerald Our Ford'. That meant so much to us as we were driving into Washington.
There are stars out there who would die to have this much exposure.
If your strategy calls for you to be in America, then you will go into America. If your strategy calls for you to be in M&A, then you'll do an acquisition. You usually acquire a company to acquire technology, geographic advantage, etc. Similarly, geographic expansion is very much like M&A. It's done to advance a strategy.
When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.
My mother and father were perfect role models. They were together for 25 years and very much in love. But I've got too much to do now. I'm only 27.
When you are suddenly standing in front of a bunch of journalists being asked what it's like being a British Olympic legend, it's a bit much to take in.
I was much involved in the development of the spark chamber as a practical research tool.
Going to a party, for me, is as much a learning experience as, you know, sitting in a lecture.
I obviously identify with the anti-authority figure. I've pretty much always had problems with authority, ever since I was a kid. But, yeah, it's not identifying, I think it's more a part of my natural DNA that I question anybody who has a plan. Everybody's got to have an angle; that's the way I grew up.
This much I'm sure of. Chances for winning = 1 - (# of math students playing)/ (# of math students cheering). That's a fraction.
I don't know, I think people who meet me just get pretty much what I am.
The starting point of all great jazz has got to be format, a language that you can work within that, in some ways, is much tighter than the blues or even gospel. It's all working towards the same destination - the difference being that Miles Davis flew there, and I'm still taking the subway.
