I'm the CEO; I'm the one who should be looking out for risk.
I have a friend who says that roles choose you at the time that you need them most, and you have to believe, as an actor, if you didn't get a part that you really, really wanted, and it went to someone else, it was because it was theirs to begin with.
People always ask me how I can hit the ball so far, and I say, 'I just swing.' It's the coaches who first told me I had good bat speed. I was just swinging, and I guess it was fast. I'm pretty fast at everything.
Political life is like this - elections go back and forth. Representative democracy can only be successful if one sits down and says, 'That's it. I will connect myself,' - as I did - 'connect my existence to a political project.' Then you automatically have in your party a lot of people who say, 'If that fails, so do I'.
The real problem was not the troops; the real problem was that only the United States had the infrastructure to do the transport of troops with big planes, and then who will pay?
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
There are people who say, 'Oh, he's a crook.' But I'm not a crook.
The first time I did stand-up I was 17, and I was really a stand-up once I was 19 in New York, and now I'm 41, and I still feel like I haven't found myself onstage. Earlier in my career, I was really tight, really together, and knew who I was and I was confident.
Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.
The problem with people who live in a world of speeches and books and theories is they don't know how to fix things in the real world when they go wrong. They feign ignorance, blame others, and make another eloquent speech.
I just want to work with the big people and the people who make great music.
I used to work with mentally disabled people when I was 18 or 19, changing diapers and catheters. I was working, like, 16 hour night shifts, having to distribute meds and go capture people who would break out of the house. Sometimes they'd have seizures, and we'd have to rush them to the hospital. That was an interesting time, very humbling.
Who am I? Not the body, because it is decaying; not the mind, because the brain will decay with the body; not the personality, nor the emotions, for these also will vanish with death.
Ossie Davis was a man with great integrity, great honor and someone who I feel has done us all a great service just by being on the Earth.
If I stayed in London, I probably would have gotten more work. I've never wanted to be thought of as an 'It' girl, someone who rides on the coattails of my mother.
Men have the influence and power in business and politics. It is the mother who can make the child's bedtime earlier, take away desserts or ground the child.
I'd never directed before and this movie's too important to me to put in the hands of some guy who has never directed. Even if it's me.
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.
I work with a couple charities called Serving Those Who Serve and Rebuilding Together. Both are supportive of veterans when they come home.
I may be the only shark who hasn't been on QVC, but I have learned a lot from those folks about what it takes to get a product on store shelves.
When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'
Every character has their reasons - even the characters who do dumb things.
Blood relatives often have nothing to do with family, and similarly, family is about who you choose to make your life with.
'Dallas' hit a chord back in the late Seventies and Eighties because it was the age of greed: here you have this unapologetic character who is mean and nasty and ruthless and does it all with an evil grin. I think people related to JR back then because we all have someone we know exactly like him. Everyone in the world knows a JR.
One of my most vivid memories of the mid-1950s is of crying into a washbasin full of soapy grey baby clothes - there were no washing machines - while my handsome and adored husband was off playing football in the park on Sunday morning with all the delightful young men who had been friends to both of us at Cambridge three years earlier.
Voting rights matter. They are a major part of who we are as Americans.
For people who are really talented, what you don't say becomes extremely important. You have to judge what to say and what to leave alone so you can let the talent develop.
I never thought of myself as a movie star. I'm just a working girl. A working girl who worked her way to the top - and never fell off.
I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.
I'm in a position where whatever I do, I can get my head handed to me. I'm in a position to fail because there is a whole group of people out there who want me to fail. It's a weird vibe.
An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.
Generally, I have a strong interest in trying to help people who are maybe not as lucky as I am. I've been well rewarded in this world. I'm more worried about the next one.
Circumstances have rarely favored great men. A lowly beginning is no bar to a great career. The boy who works his way through college may have a hard time of it, but he will learn how to work his way in life, and will usually take higher rank in school and in after life than his classmate who is the son of a millionaire.
When I was 16, I knew I was gay. I loved a lot. But I lived as a straight guy, because there are people in my town who don't understand my story. I never told. I never wanted to show what was inside my heart.
As someone who spent a lot of years living in Jerusalem, one of the great perks is that when you come back, and you get into these Israel arguments in your American-Jewish clan, you can really just silence them by saying, 'I lived there.' So we used it like a bludgeon.
I've never really thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I think of an entrepreneur as someone who wants to make a lot of money. That has never been at the top of my list.
