I think life experiences are different for people who know what they want as children.
I know plenty of Hollywood kids who still struggle with being whole. Their lives are never fully their own - always in the grip of a parent who put celebrity ahead of them.
Some artists want a producer to be a kind of svengali - someone who actually creates a sound for them.
Belief in liberal freedom and democracy is always belief in it in a particular place, in a national home with histories that only those who are born in a place or who adopt its citizenship can hope to understand.
For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.
When I have a family someday, I'll probably adopt. Adoption has always been something close to my heart. There are so many kids out there who really need a family.
I'll wager there isn't a human being on earth who doesn't believe in luck, however rational they pretend to be in public life. In reality, most of human life is luck - and, of course, its darker, more prevalent opposite. One only has to live long enough to experience both.
Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.
History is a sly boots, and for a generation of blacks that cannot identify with the frustrations of Jim Crow, and for whites who cannot understand the hard deal that faces working-class blacks, it is difficult to reconcile Hughes's reputation as a poet-hero with his topical verse and uncomplicated prose.
Some people know that they are so adorable looking, all they have to do is smile and dress up and they get plenty from that. Then there are some of us who, early on, see that that doesn't work. So we joke about it.
We make artificial divisions everywhere: Democrats and Republicans, black and white, millennials and baby boomers. Even those of us who are against building walls find ourselves pointing accusing fingers at those wall-builders.
Joe Jackson was a tragic figure. He was a serene country boy who signed a confession he couldn't read. He was illiterate.
I'm covered up, but I'm still getting these comments that say I shouldn't be. But the girls who wear the bikinis, they're being told they're too revealing! Enough. It's their body, their choice.
In the '70s, the newspaper guild managed to get people paid what they were worth, but the reporters suddenly became middle class. It's much more respectable, more uptight, and everyone speaks in guarded tones. And the writing isn't as good. We always had guys who were failed poets and failed novelists who did it to eat.
It's good - it's great when somebody who is 20 years younger than you comes up and says, 'Wow, we just got turned on to you guys, and you're really great,' or something like that. I like that.
Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with illegal immigrants passing through their backyards at 3 A.M.
I try not to put myself in a box, so I'll write with anybody who wants to. I don't put limitations on my co-writes.
If we are to garner sustained U.S. domestic support for future trade agreements, we have to make sure those Americans who have suffered as a consequence of past agreements have an effective social safety net, adjustment assistance, opportunities for retraining and new job creation that enables all Americans to thrive.
My inbox is now bulging with touching emails from young women scientists who have been kind enough to write and thank me for inspiring them and helping them on their way. It has also been of great comfort to me to see many women at the top of science testifying for my record in supporting women scientists.
We've heard a lot in recent polemic about how to win the fight for the corner office. But pushing up against a glass ceiling is practically a luxury when you consider the millions of women who can feel the floor dropping beneath their feet.
I feel like theatre gives me the grounding, and keeps me alive, basically. Film gives me the thrill, and it's like a one night stand. But I do enjoy being around people who love it so much.
I thought I was a pretty good physical specimen. But there was a teenager from Brooklyn, who basically wiped the floor with me on the street. He gave me a punch that I didn't even feel. All I knew I was looking up at the sky. I tried to fight him, and I got a number of injuries after that.
That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said - one of the famous lady novelists - 'unhappy is the family that contains an author'?
I have an amazing group of people around me who are always like, 'Oh, wow, you're doing such amazing things. But don't get a big head,' and I'm like, 'Thanks, man, appreciate it.' It helps, you know?
We have to create jobs but also make sure that those who are looking for work aren't just left without any assistance whatsoever.
As prime minister, I was the Israeli leader who walked the greatest distance in his offers to the Palestinians.
I look back at 'Saturday Night Live' and I think, some people didn't like me doing 'Weekend Update.' Who cares? A lot of people did. When you're reaching that many people, you're not going to have everybody like you.
Letter writing was clearly important to Reagan. Even as president he kept dashing off letters to friends, pen pals, media people, statesmen, critics, and the kind of people who write to presidents never expecting a reply.
There's not a lot of conversation going on in my world about softening my image. I'm pretty much who I am.
People who write about technology love to huff and puff and hyperbolize. The fate of the entire world seems to hang on every move made by Microsoft or Google or Apple. Every new smart phone gets billed as a potential 'iPhone killer,' while every new product from Apple represents the dawn of a new era. It's ridiculous - and exhausting.
I think someone like Carmen Electra would be great in 'Peepshow.' Really, though, I think anyone who can sing and dance would be great.
I do respond well to a director, a teacher - someone who doesn't accept mediocrity.
As a lawyer, as a former prosecutor, and as a son and grandson of foreign-service officers who tried to represent American democracy in foreign and dangerous places, the idea that this crowd of crooked fossil-fuel types is able to take over and run our democracy like we are a banana republic - I find that repellent.
The prostheses do not run the race on their own: there is an athlete who does the work, and the prosthetics do not make a significant difference to the time.
If you ask most trainers who have ridden which pressure is greater - watching your horse or riding it - they will tell you it is harder watching it because you have no control over what happens.
My music comes from country music. Merle Haggard is God, and I do believe that. I'm not too tuned in to country music. I don't know who Brooks and Dunn are. I like Shania Twain, though!
