One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff.
Because I was traveling a lot during the '70s, the only thing I could do on the road was take photographs, so there wasn't much painting during those years.
I've always slightly worried the kids who play football around my house. They know I'm an actor, but felt sorry for me because they'd never seen anything I've done.
To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.
New York is a great place to be as an unrepresented actor because there are so many 'open auditions' that you can show up for without being submitted by an agent.
In Britain, we need to start presenting the option of being a writer in front of black women. We need to present the idea of being a writer into poorer communities because the majority of black people in this country are working class. We need to let working-class people know that their voices are important.
It's not about talent once you get to the NFL because everyone's got it. It's about being willing to go that extra mile to be the best and that's something that I've always done.
An actor's only perception is of their character, and they're looking at one piece. A writer is looking at the entire story. They're going to see things that the writer didn't see because they're only looking through their lens.
They made me use an accent, which I wasn't thrilled about because a lot of us, obviously, don't have them.
With In the Company of Men, the misogynist label stuck early and firmly. In the end, it probably did hurt the film a bit, because getting women into the theaters was difficult.
When 'Tracks' first came out, I was courted by Sydney Pollack. I had lunch with him, and he opened the conversation with, 'Honey, you ain't gonna like what I'm gonna do to your book.' I really liked him, but I turned him down, because - well, I was stupid. I also turned down a great deal of money.
In L.A., like, there's a lot of, like, materialism, and, you know, people who think they're better than each other because of the clothes they wear or how they dress, and in Oakland, it's not like that.
I think everybody knows my sound because I'm me, you know? But, on your fourth album, I think you've definitely gotta show growth because I definitely don't plan on being one of those cats that fade off. It's always about growing with me; I grew up over the years.
I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
I'd hate to be a sex symbol. Because you're always having to live up to an image. I haven't got time to sit around doing my nails.
I busted my tail for so long, I'm just glad it's getting recognized now as part of the WWE. Because let's face it, the WWE is the biggest company out there when it comes to wrestling. I'm just happy that I'm being recognized as somebody who works hard, I guess.
I've been quite protected from the whole 'Lost' phenomenon because I'm not one of the core cast. So I haven't had to do the press junkets that they have.
I started playing the guitar when I was 14. I'm not superstitious about guitars, but I do need strings to be old because that's part of my sound, and I don't like steel strings.
Before we took down the tree each year, Dad would always say a prayer that we would be together the next Christmas. I cling to that prayer, which serves as a reminder that it's important to be grateful in the present for the people you love because, well, you never know.
I don't believe in men who make us feel unhappy, because they're boys, not men.
I do acupuncture. Because it really helps. It is the opposite of Botox. Botox blocks, and acupuncture moves.
I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
After graduating high school, Betty attended the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, the alma mater of both her parents. My mother relocated to New York because she refused to accept the oppressive racism of the Jim Crow south.
I died. Which is fantastic, because I have died already; I have been there and come back. I am completely recovered, thank you.
My writing routine is: get son off to school and sit down at 8 A.M. I read what I wrote the day before, and then write longhand, into a notebook. I prefer paper and pen because it feels closer to my brain.
Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.
Whistleblowers are typically rendered incommunicado, either because they're in hiding, or advised by their lawyers to stay silent, or imprisoned. As a result, the public hears only about them, but never from them, which makes their demonization virtually inevitable.
In 'There's Something About Mary' and 'Dumb & Dumber,' I ended up improvising quite a bit of my scenes, and later I didn't even remember what I'd said because I just winged it. When I went and saw the movie, I was as stunned as everyone else was.
I think I felt at some point that I couldn't understand poetry or that it was beyond me or it didn't speak to my experience. I think that was because I hadn't yet found the right poems to invite me in.
I definitely want to have kids. I've grown up around lots of people who were having kids when I knew them, because a lot of them were a lot older than me. And I saw the wonderful change in them.
Some psychiatrist told me I was interested in sculpture because I dealt in flat surfaces and needed something with dimension.
Asian Americans haven't had as many opportunities as other people to build their careers in Hollywood, just because there hasn't been that much of an interest, especially in Asian American males.
I'm a strong nonbeliever in the Christmas letter where you don't really read it because it's just full of kind of meaningless information. It doesn't really resonate to the person reading it, but it means so much to the person that wrote it.
A lot of the music that you listen to now is because of the things that the Meters did, the Neville Brothers did, and they're there, the guys who invented those beats that the guys sample today. Such an enormous opportunity.
I met Nelson Mandela, and I really didn't know what to say. It was years ago at a benefit. I was just in awe of this man because of what he'd done.
It has been tough being a mother of two daughters without a co-parent because I think I was a child myself, as my mother was.
