Journalism doesn't have to be your first love... or your only love. You can come to it in desperation, because you can't think of anything better to do with your life, that it's this or the abyss. But once you get going... it helps if you love it.
The history of the past, a hundred years from now, won't be the history of the past that we learned in school because much more will have been revealed, and adjectives we can't even imagine will have been brought to bear on what we did learn in school.
A lot people ask me, 'How do I become a voice actor?' and, well, first of all, drop the 'voice' because you don't know what mechanics you'll have to employ. If you can just focus on the acting, then the rest will come.
LL Cool J was a rapper-turned-actor, and I also relate to him because he was sort of a ladies' man and had a female fan base, but yet he's a positive dude. You never read about him getting into trouble or going to jail.
I'm not a really religious person, but those moments onstage feel like some sort of religious experience because no one holds back, especially 'Stay With Me' when I finish the show. It kind of turns into an anthem when I perform it live, and it feels like there's a lot of love in the room.
The most important ethical issues and the most difficult ones are the human ones because a reporter has enormous power to hurt people.
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
I write songs about love because, above all, love is the most human thing we have together. Feelings are a part of us every day. You feel things every day, no matter where you are. So that's what I write about.
The absence of political personalities in the government will help rather than hinder a solid base of support for the government in parliament and in the political parties because it will remove one ground for disagreement.
As many times as I've seen 'The Merchant of Venice,' I always take Shylock's side. For all the hatred that guy is shown, he has a reason to hate in return. He's treated cruelly. And it's tragic that he learns to be intolerant because of what others do to him.
Black men and women were not allowed to register to vote. My own mother, my own father, my grandfather and my uncles and aunts could not register to vote because each time they attempted to register to vote, they were told they could not pass the literacy test.
'Skeleton Creek' is like nothing you've ever read before because it's a book and a movie at the same time.
I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was 'Einstein.'
I have no problem with the financial industry inviting the Trojan Horse of blockchain technology into their walled garden. Because I know how powerful the technology is.
Often it's the people who know a place least well who write about it best because they see it fresh.
When I was a kid, I had a period in my life when I was eight or nine when I was so scared of dying that I wouldn't go out of our house for a whole year. I refused to step out of the door because I thought something would happen. I had all these compulsive thoughts or whatever, and my head was really messed up.
I enjoy worldbuilding very much. I generally start with an approximation. With 'Flesh and Spirit' and 'Breath and Bone,' because I was thinking of a world on the brink of a dark age, I began with the sense of Roman Britain. But I purposely set the geography to match something other than Britain - which has been overdone.
When I go there to Afghanistan or Pakistan, the question both asked - and if it's not asked, implied - is, 'Are you staying this time?' because we left last time, in 1989 in Afghanistan, and we sanctioned Pakistan from 1990 to 2002. So I think it's a fair question.
To get to world-class, don't miss any opportunity to leverage the learning/insights/experiences of the people you meet. Because we really do become our conversations.
I think - in general, I don't think I've been involved in a single movie that turned out the way I anticipated it to turn out. Just because, as an actor, there's only so much that I can bring to a project.
Markets do not run better when manufacturing shifts to China largely because of the actions of its government. Nor do they become more efficient when Chinese companies are given special privileges in global markets, while American companies must struggle to compete with unfairly traded goods.
When I write, I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert.
To be perfectly honest, it isn't fair that people have used my personality, and the sacrifices I make because I want to, as an indication that I want to be in a political office.
The pace is different on a film set. It's slightly slower, allowing for a little more wiggle room. Sometimes there is a bit more room to explore and work on the floor. On a TV set, you really have to be ultra-prepared and ready to deliver because time is so tight. Not that you don't have to be prepared for film.
Here's the thing that I think about life - if you manage to get into a space where you don't need that much, where the overhead of your life is not that great and you're pretty happy and relaxed without that much stuff, you are really liberated because you never have to say yes to something because you want another refrigerator or car!
I have to give a lot of credit to Sandy Weill, because he gets it. He gets the power of the women's contribution to the economy.
Women often find great roles in revolution, simply because the rules fall apart and everyone has agency, anyone can act.
Piano should be the one. Yeah, because that's your basis. Everything is right there in front of you.
When one of my characters becomes aware of a magical element, it might be because the world is wider than we assume it to be, but it might also be a reminder to pay attention to what is here already, hidden only because it's been forgotten.
It's funny because I remember playing 'Grand Turismo,' and I would get yelled at by my brother for moving the controller as if it was a wheel. He was, 'It's not gonna help you.' Now you have a Wii, and you could actually move and control it.
Pope John Paul II was a great presence on the stage. Pope Benedict is a much more gentle and refined person, and I think he benefits greatly from the television close-ups because he wants to engage in a dialogue, in conversation. He wants to put forward his views in a measured, eloquent, rational way.
When I was working on 'Men of Honor' with Robert De Niro, there's a pipe that he has in the movie, and it took us about six weeks to find the right pipe for him to use and feel comfortable with. It was a great choice, because it was really about what worked with the camera at that time.
I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.
So much of the music I love is polarizing. People might either hate it or love it, but they remember it because it was different. That means it was pushing buttons and not just following trends.
The coolest thing, too, is that people that have never even seen 'One Tree Hill' tell me, 'I love your music.' And I'm like, 'Oh, do you watch the show?' And they say 'No.' And to me that's even cooler because that means I'm actually starting to get country fans.
I am happy to be playing in the Premier League because everyone knows it is the strongest league in the world. There are simply a lot of top teams.