Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn't.
I knew that part of the problem with sensitive issues is that, because they're uncomfortable to address, we have a hard time doing so honestly, if at all.
You have to work to be relevant. If you don't, then people will forget, and the studios won't want you because they won't remember the last thing you did that made money.
I'm very aware that after you've played Cleopatra, there's not a lot that can top that in this sphere, so it means that I want to almost change the sphere I work in rather completely because I will always be comparing it to Cleopatra.
If people want to criticize me because it sells papers, that's fine. I just don't like it when it's inaccurate.
Look, of course people are scared of entitlement reform because every time you put entitlement reform out there, the other party uses it as a political weapon against you.
I played Big Band jazz music. I wasn't into rock and roll. I was just there because it was a living. I surprised everyone. I'm still surprising people.
I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day.
I always admired my father because he was a man that never put on any airs, you know. And I always tried to be that kind of person.
It is not necessary to be too avant-garde, because you risk not being understood.
I heard it in 2008 and hear it again now - this notion that the only reason one would support Hillary Clinton is because she is a woman - or only because she is experienced and smart. She is all of those things. But I am with her because... Hillary Clinton inspires me.
But as an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an aeroplane because you're confident that you'll catch a bird flying by. It's an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn't come by, but a few times it does.
It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.
I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.
The preppy lifestyle has gone global. We feel that our business has grown so well because preppy travels so well. It's all-American classic.
In 1983, NASA invited Canada to fly three payload specialists, in part because we had contributed the robotic arm that is used on the shuttle.
I'm from a small town so, like, everyone's married with children or about to have children. So it's a little hard when you go home and people are like - and that's why people think I'm gay - because they're like 'Why aren't you married?' And I'm like, 'it doesn't happen for everyone right off the bat.'
Now, do I think there has to be shared sacrifice among other nations in the world who want a stable and secure world? Absolutely, there has to be. But I don't think that America can ever abdicate its leadership role in the world because of who we are and where we've come from. We are the symbol for the world for freedom and liberty.
I think these ladies, that group of 130 women, are going to make a difference in what goes on down there, because they're going to hold the locals' feet to the fire.
I'm always on the phone because I'm usually not with the people I want to be with.
Let us come to the philosophers, whose authority is of greater weight, and their judgment more to be relied on, because they are believed to have paid attention, not to matters of fiction, but to the investigation of the truth.
I get uncomfortable and kind of scared sometimes of certain public situations because, since I've been on TV or I've appeared in some films, people think this boundary between us has been removed, and I owe them something.
While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything.
It is one thing to think gold has some marvelous store of value because man has no way of inventing more gold or getting it very easily, so it has the advantage of rarity. Believe me, man is capable of somehow creating more bitcoin... They tell you there are rules and they can't do it. Don't believe them.
The best comedy, I feel, comes in a drama because it balances each other out.
And so it can be very much in the interest of bank A to sell-short bank B shares, or buy CDSes on bank B, because they have exposure to bank B. It's the responsible thing to do as a fiduciary, and yet if everyone does it at the same time, it's destabilizing because everyone is selling.
Our redneck reputation back then was originally just because we had long hair. Back in the '60s and the early '70s, in the South that was kind of a no-no. At all the Army and Navy bases we'd play, we would get into fights with the soldiers over our hair. But I think our music overshadowed everything else.
Whether I get adequate attention or not, people here do know the work I have been doing systematically and without compromise for over 40 years. I get tired of people making excuses for guys who don't continue the art because they can't make a living.
I'm such a fan of actors and also enjoy watching them work so that I can help their acting in any way I can. Sometimes it walks a tricky line because you want to be entertaining to some degree. But honesty is always entertaining to me. I'm a big Woody Allen and Spike Lee fan, and I find their films to be very honest.
Back in the Rat Pack days, we'd take Frank's plane and sit dead center, because of Nancy. We'd watch the Rat Pack in the center ring and you couldn't ask for a better thing.
Lord of the Rings is a good thing for us because it opened the door for the genre in general. Le Guin's stories are very different from Lord of the Rings.
The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.
You work your butt off and somebody says you can't have your record played because it offends them. Tyrants are made of such stuff.
Efforts to develop critical thinking falter in practice because too many professors still lecture to passive audiences instead of challenging students to apply what they have learned to new questions.
I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power - like, you know, running the country. Which is a thought that continues to give Americans indigestion... Direction is about having a vision, but the practice of being a director is a con game - a confidence game.
I think cooking is really key because it's the only way you're going to take back control of your diet from the corporations who want to cook for us. The fact is, so far, corporations don't cook that well. They tend to use too much salt, fat, and sugar - much more than you would ever use at home.
