I was raised by my great-great aunt. I was adopted within our family. My mother had me when she was, I think, 15, 16. They tried to get her to have an abortion and she refused. So, my 'mama' adopted me, which was really her great aunt, which was really my great-great aunt, who was named Viola Dickerson. I was told that my mother was my sister.
It's my job, with the position of power that I'm in and being able to be on television, I'm supposed to stand up for the people who can't stand up for themselves.
There's times, in certain songs, that I might be in my own world, and who cares about who's out there, you know? You have a job to do, so you do that job of singing that song or telling that story because that's what you're doing.
I have zero tolerance for people who don't come completely prepared. I expect contribution, I expect attendance, and I expect directors to take trips and visit the company's programs.
We used to say that he who threw the biggest tantrum won the day.
The men and women who serve in our military have won for us every hour we live in freedom, sometimes at the expense of the very hours of the lifetimes they had hoped to live.
Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen.
I shouldn't have acted. I didn't exhibit any ability. I was one of the kids in the school play who was just mouthing words, and they weren't the actual words of the song. I was pretty lame!
For every person who has ever lived there has come, at last, a spring he will never see. Glory then in the springs that are yours.
We budget quite a bit of money every year in order to assist people who are migrating here, people who are trying to enter into our society and be a part of the American dream.
He who loves, never grows old. God it a shining example.
Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists.
I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't.
No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him.
In a way, I'd rather go into an interview and be disliked, and have unpleasant things written about me, than to have a wonderful, glowing article written that is in no way a reflection of who I am.
Well no administration ever wants an independent overseer, and there are very good career people who are in charge of this investigation, but it could get hairy.
A man from a primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or by an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine he immediately realizes that it was designed.
As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other level, that can be a dangerous echo chamber.
Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.
Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.
I got to sit down with people who I admired, and have conversations with some of the greatest thinkers and artists and performers. It's a huge privilege for me to be a journalist.
I never want to discourage anyone who chooses the arts as a path because it's hard enough to make it in this business or even get ahead.
If you put on the military uniform, you're a prima facie hero. Generals are the epitome of that. They're the ones who have been most successful at the soldier's trade.
All the wrong people remember Vietnam. I think all the people who remember it should forget it, and all the people who forgot it should remember it.
History is full of examples of people who clamp down after they began to enjoy too much freedom. Freedom can lead to instability, anarchy, and confusion. So there can be a moral counter-revolution.
There are characters in movies who I call 'film characters.' They don't exist in real life. They exist to play out a scenario. They can be in fantastic films, but they are not real characters; what happens to them is not lifelike.
I talked to a lot of employers who just are, are fearful of what's coming next out of Washington. It's all the spending, it's all the debt. It's their national energy tax, they want to call it cap and trade - more mandates, higher costs, more taxes. Their healthcare bill - more mandates, higher costs, higher taxes.
Power gravitates to the man who knows how.
I grew up with Scientology - my parents at one point were clerical. It's a pragmatic philosophy, not merely a belief system. Yeah, it's had media exposure because certain luminaries do Scientology, but millions of people do it who are not celebrities. It's not a threat or some cult.
You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.
When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.
I will always have dogs in my life, and I absolutely can't be with someone who will challenge that or disagree with that stance - I will not budge on this, ever.
OK, magic boy, let's see who you really are.
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.
When I started 'This American Life', one of the reactions I got was, 'When is the adult going to show up who will host the show?' At some point, people just got used to it.
