Roger Clemens is one of the most wonderful men I've ever known. I loved him very much... still love him to this day. He treated me like a princess.
Too many actors try to get too much out of scenes that they ought to be leaving alone, just doing them quickly and getting the hell out.
I fantasised about F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' - I loved it, and then I read everything J. D. Salinger had to offer. Then I was turned on to Kerouac, and his spontaneous prose, his stream of consciousness way of writing. I admired him so much, and I romanticised so much about the '40s and '50s.
It is strange to reflect how much energy is thrown away in attempting to know the unknowable.
I can't stress too much how much Ry Cooder was an influence on me. Having one of the most respected musicians around like my singing really gave me the confidence to do it.
China saves too much, produces too much, sells too much to Americans and consumes too little.
It was the view of the people in the Department of State that the handling of Yemen affairs from Aden was too much of a burden on the then Consul, so an additional officer was named to the American Consulate at Aden to handle Yemeni affairs. I was designated for that task.
I slowly began making a few photos with animals over the years, and I liked how people reacted to them. When I would have the animals on set, I'd notice the way the models would interact with them and there was so much true emotion that you rarely see between two human beings.
Dance has definitely made me a better role model.When I'm performing, I'm always thinking about my face and my look. I used to have a much harder time with it.
The idea of accumulating ambitions or achievements didn't get much further than wanting to do the next exciting thing. I really haven't set out with any list of achievements.
Your surroundings may change but your essence and your personality pretty much stay the same.
The playing field is anything but level when you walk into the grocery store. So much government subsidy goes into processed foods. Even when you're well-meaning as a parent or a shopper for yourself, you can't help but be pulled toward the highly processed food.
It's just so much more exciting to have no limits and to be able to take your character as far as you want or need to get where you want to go.
Education - much like law or medicine - should be a profession governed by professionals. Unfortunately, too many policies, even those that are well-intentioned, come from the top, leaving out those closest to the classroom, who have the greatest insight into how to provide a high-quality education for all students.
A nation is not a budget, no matter how much ideologues want it to be so.
We never have business meals at El Bulli. If it's about business, you're probably not paying much attention to the food.
Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.
I'm quite chameleon in my work - not normally looking much like I do in real life.
I was thrilled to be able to read at three. I just thought everyone loved reading as much as I did.
There is no comparison. The American landscape is so much more dangerous. They have real snakes, mountain lions, bears; we only have adders, and they're more frightened of us than we are of them.
I don't even like to talk Lions too much just because the way our relationship ended.
The only thing I don't like about acting is that it takes so much time away from my family. Otherwise, I don't have any complaints.
I never really got on my own case about my own acting. I know a lot of other people have, and probably very justifiably. But I don't worry about stuff like that too much.
I wasn't enjoying golf much. I was kind of getting a little bit tired, I was getting a little bit moody, and I was constantly getting angry. That's not me. And when I saw that I knew I had to change.
I listen to very little music, particularly contemporary. If I listen to it, it's going to be my own music, some arrangement or something. I spend so much time listening that the way I relax is by watching things, a comedy; that's my way to wind down.
I just wanted to see China with my own eyes. I wanted to see whether North Korea was the best country in the world or China was the best. I grew up believing that China was much worse than North Kore, because that's what the regime told us.
When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.
I'm like a middle-aged person; when my friends go on about modern bands, I don't know what they are talking about. I'm into rock n' roll, like Jimi Hendrix. Not so much because of my parents, who used to play a lot of Nina Simone and older blues, but my brother and sister.
If you turn a blind eye to fare evasion, if you accustom people to getting away with minor crime, you are making it more likely that they will go on to commit more serious crimes. That is why we have so much disorder in London. It is a disgrace.
I'm pretty much living my dream job, but one day I would love to dedicate more time to writing and performing my own music.
I think audiences crave something new. I don't think audiences want the same old thing, no matter how much conventional Hollywood tells you that.
And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.
I trained in psychiatry in the 1970s, and much of our training was about what was then psychoanalytic theory, with a little bit of theory from Jungian psychology and a few other places.
I don't know much about only children. I was the middle one of three, and if ever I was alone with mum and dad, it was a rare moment.
At the high school level, the coaches get these kids in revenue-driven sports and take them away from baseball. There's so much pressure on these kids to even play spring football. We need to get the African-American players back in the game, which I think would make it not only a better game, but more exciting and entertaining for everyone.
I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written... Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn't have much of a social life going on.
