I was hired as a sous-chef at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. The chef liked to drink - some mornings we would find him sleeping. Two weeks after its opening, I became the chef. I was 20 years old, and way over my head. I had to hire the cooks and do the menus.
In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks.
The way I choose to live my own life rates time and space as real luxuries.
The East Timorese government does not believe that we should consider compensation for the victims because there are tens of thousands of people who were, in one way or another, affected by the violence either directly or indirectly.
With 'Ed Wood,' I sobbed. With 'Frankenweenie,' I was crying. With 'Edward Scissorhands,' I always cry. There's always an incredible amount of purity, even if they look a certain way.
That first year after a child, I kind of just hunker down at home - I surrender to that side of me. I don't try to get my body back or be in the world; I go the opposite way.
It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.
You can't be Eazy-E and not move a certain way, basically. So, I studied the culture of it, and also, one of my uncles is from L.A., and he's great. He was like my performance coach. He helped me get the lingo down pat. He helped me get a lot of things down pat because I would talk in that accent for 10 hours a day.
The problem is we moved to LA... The only way to be punk rock in L.A. is to be a Republican.
The one thing that's closest to my story is the thing about trying out for the juvenile delinquent role and getting it. That was the start of my acting career... which I've resumed, by the way.
What family you were born into matters so much more than it did before in a perverse way.
I had never really planned that I will host reality shows. I just took up some offers that came my way. But reality shows are a good platform to showcase talent. They help one become a household name in a matter of few days.
History is a way of interpreting, rather than, say, knowing, the past. It is usually a set of disputes between those who have access to the same sources. It depends on ideology as much as voting in an election does.
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
The surest way to empower the new terrorist gangs would be to withdraw from U.S. diplomatic missions.
When I set up my first restaurant, I was so inspired by Wolfgang Puck, who is also based in L.A. and is now a good friend of mine, and the way he would engage with his customers and greet them personally.
The great thing about being an actor is things happen to you very quickly. I like to put myself in the way of surprise.
The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.
Fortunately, good policy, true principles, and effective leadership work whenever they are tried. When we reduce government, balance budgets, and keep taxes as low as possible, states respond in a positive way.
To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.
I love to prove people wrong. They expect I'll sound a certain way when they see me, then they hear me and they can't believe it. I love that.
My mother was a strong-willed and opinionated woman - a Sicilian! - and if she didn't like something, she'd let you know about it. So her undying support of her kids went a long way in proving to us that we were on the right path.
The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in his own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude.
Shakespeare very rarely makes the least attempt to surprise by his catastrophes. They are felt to be inevitable, though the precise way in which they will be brought about is not, of course, foreseen.
Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.
There is no real way to prepare yourself for having a child other than just getting thrown in the deep end pretty quick.
I'm not sure there's a difference between books that affected the way I see the world and books that influenced me as a writer.
I hate repetition. Even when I am home and have to buy milk, I go a different way each time to avoid having a habit of anything. Habits are really bad.
I used to think that only people who were crazy were attracted to the desert, but once you've lived there, you become that way anyway.
For 'Way Down Low', I was particularly inspired by a breakup I was going through and a transition I was making from Austin to New York.
Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish.
We're not uncomfortable with it, and we've already been through enough of the music business where I'm not really worried that commercial success is going to in some way - we're already past saving, you know what I mean? It's too late for us.
It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.
I made 'Batman' the way I made every other film, and I've done it to my own satisfaction - because the film, truly, is exactly the way I wanted it to be.
If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating.
To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.
