There was loose talk of Enron management practices and reminders of a scandal at the University of Toronto, when a big donor corporation, Eli Lilly, was said to have vetoed the appointment of an academic who doubted the effectiveness of Prozac.
Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.
My older son who is, I think, here tonight, is forty-one years old. Which is odd because so am I.
We're raising our girls to understand the real meaning of Christmas, and to know that it's most important to have Christmas in your heart. We go to our local mall and donate toys, and we say prayers for all the people in the world who might not be as lucky as we are.
You must get engaged with people who are far less privileged than you. I think you must devote your time if not your resources... Because it is very, very important from the point of view of the development of our country.
If you want to stay fit, surround yourself with a couple of chicks who are fired up, so that the one day you're not, you can feed off their energy.
It is the thing that keeps me up at night - the notion that you have individuals in the United States who are looking at computer screens and who are becoming radicalized.
I'm not like my siblings, who are musical but can turn their hands to other professions! I'd always wanted to be involved in music - I'm a great believer in doing things that fulfil you.
I see friends who are in different genres of music, and they say they're so burnt playing the same stuff every night. That's why you see a country act wanting to go out and play an old classic rock song. But what cracks me up is that they all want to be Jimmy Buffett. I can't figure that out.
The problem with being married to an athlete who is, like, 19 feet tall and can just eat, like, 17 burgers at 11 o'clock at night is, you're like, 'I'll have just three of those burgers,' and you think you're being good because he had 19 and you had three!
Jesus said, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged.' Let's stop trying to choose the political leaders who we believe are the most godly because, in reality, only God knows people's hearts. You and I don't, and we are all sinners.
We don't need a specialized gang unit. We need patrol officers who specialize in knowing their community.
I watch what I eat every day. I mean, who actually eats with their eyes closed?
We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.
Having kids sets a bomb off in your life. It really makes you examine who you are, what you believe in and what you want to be. And that is magical for creativity.
We live in a globalising world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we'll never visit.
It would be a lot cheaper for me not to have to raise tens of millions of dollars to elect progressive candidates who will raise my taxes.
I really love idiot, enlightened characters - these characters who fail to engage with the drama of their immediate circumstances; they fail to be reactive and enrolled by drama as it happens around them.
I think people who sit around and are always yearning for the next thing are not always the happiest people.
I've got to let the people who are in the business run the business. I can help them think through their decisions about products, about partners, about hiring. But in the end, the decisions are theirs, and so is the responsibility.
I don't think it's a Western thing to really talk about intrinsic motivation and the drive for autonomy, mastery and purpose. You have to not be struggling for survival. For people who don't know where their next meal is coming, notions of finding inner motivation are comical.
You know, Johnny Depp has always been a massive inspiration for me and he's somebody who has produced an incredible amount of work, and every single piece that he does is amazing.
We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world - not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.
We were always in church, and always singing, so once I realized that music was something that I had a knack for, I sort of latched onto it, and it helped give me an identity and figure out who I was as a person. It informed my way into theater, which informed my way into television.
No one is really miserable who has not tried to cheapen life.
In Washington, I am a leader on the issues that matter to my community, and I think that's what my constituents want, and also I think that's what voters want. Someone who understands them, who wants to represent them, and who works tirelessly every day on behalf of their interests and their values.
It has been my honor to support and work with President Barack Obama, a man who has brought courage and character to the presidency. President Obama's strength of character leads him to do the right thing, even when it isn't the easy thing.
There is no living African writer who has not had to, or will not have to, contend with Achebe's work. We are either resisting him - stylistically, politically, or culturally - or we are writing toward him.
Sylvia Plath, Rumi, there's a lot of spoken word poets who do a really incredible job putting their spoken work into page poetry - that's what I strive to do.
You need to rebel to see the other options and to get a much richer, fuller sense of the world. And it's only once you've worked through that and seen through that that you can come back and accept who you are. You have to try all the other options.
My role models are people who can do things; I say to myself, 'I wish I could do that.'
There have been so many false things written about me by people who don't know me.
We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists who explain their participation in negative terms: that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names - liberals, leftists, etc. These are the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism and the country's 'inhumanity to the black man.'
The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future. It is they who shape and enrich the minds of the young, who touch their hearts and souls. It is they who shape a nation's future.
Often it's the people who know a place least well who write about it best because they see it fresh.
I'm a black woman who loves hair. I enjoy changing my hair, having fun with it - just hair! I go from braids, to weaves, to wigs, to natural hair.
