I enjoy the creative side of the business side of being a restaurateur. That's my thing. The thing I'm constantly thinking about is, how do you create new, interesting situations that keep people coming back?
My family has reduced the effect of my career on my self-esteem. When I'm with them, they make me feel special regardless of how I play.
I came to America to become an architect. And somewhere along the line while I was still in school, I was lured into theater, and that's how I became interested in theater. My first play was something called 'A Banquet for the Moon.' It was a weird play.
I do not understand how anyone can, in good conscience, tell a family whose child is suffering from a life-threatening disease that politics is more important than finding a cure.
I was surprised how little I knew about the significant contributions to aviation that had happened right there in Hampton, Virginia.
I'd love to look like my mum when I am her age. She taught ballet for years, and my attitude to exercise and fitness has definitely been influenced by her. She's 84 now, and I've watched how well she has aged, and a lot of that is to do with her fantastic posture.
How do you tell troops who volunteered to fight for our freedoms that the country they fought for won't take care of them when they come back? In the time of war our troops and their families are supposed to be our number one priority.
Female artists are the perfect example of a creator: They know how to make life and art with their bodies. Life comes from their bodies, so on a very basic level, they have more to write about.
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
I prize my seamstress, I value my copyist; but my cook, who knows well how to prepare the food to sustain life, and nourish brain, bone, and muscle, fills the most important place among the helpers in my family.
Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.
It still strikes me as strange that anyone could have any moral objection to someone else's sexuality. It's like telling someone else how to clean their house.
My father - until the day that my dad died - didn't know how many points you scored in a touchdown. He could say there were nine innings in baseball, but no intricacies of the sport.
Nowadays, people always say, how come he's doing such young shows? But they never mention The Mod Squad. I was very proud of that show. It's the first time an African-American guy kissed a white girl.
Money was always on my mind when I was growing up. So I was always wondering how we were going to afford this and that. Acting seemed to be a shortcut out of the mess.
The consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, almost religious dignity.
The secret to understanding me is, I'm not trying to be anybody other than who I actually am. People want candid, refreshing leadership. And I've always tried to go with solutions. You know, I've always tried to say, here's how we get our economy growing, here's why we get our debt under control. That's what Mitt Romney is offering.
I graduated from college with a degree in ex-phys and kinesiology, because it was learning to work out, and I already knew how to work out. So, I just wanted an easy degree. I'm sorry but that's just the way it was.
Barack is at a level where he can't - no matter how much he wants to or how much we want him to - he's not going to come take out our garbage, so to speak. He can't be the garbage man and the president. He can't be the mayor and the alderman. He can't fill all those roles. So I always push for local, local activity on the political scene.
I wouldn't know how to handle serenity if somebody handed it to me on a plate.
It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense and yet not be able to think about anything else.
How do you take what you do as seriously as possible but not so seriously that it ends up inhibiting what you do?
A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one.
Once people see Bitcoin and how it works, they realise this isn't just a flash in the pan.
How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate, books that are open, without a preconceived plan.
Dream on it. Let your mind take you to places you would like to go, and then think about it and plan it and celebrate the possibilities. And don't listen to anyone who doesn't know how to dream.
My obsession with outer space is my way of being different. I make astronaut music. It takes an astronaut so long to get to space - that's how long it takes to catch up on my music.
So it's possible that someday, by understanding a little bit more about how the world works, it will come back to help us in some other way that will be surprising.
I sat in the barber's chair in David Miller's makeup shop, hours and hours of trial and error. While David poked at me with his crusty brushes, I grew more and more profane. That's how I started to find the voice of Freddy.
Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you're going to live your life.
Of course, you always think about how it will be read. I always aim for a reading in one sitting.
I became very successful at a young age... I had lots of opportunities and lots of power and had no idea how to focus it.
I'm not an example for how people should live their lives. Never in my life would I ever set out to be an example for people on how to live their lives. If you need an example for how to live, then you just shouldn't have been born. Straight up.
I wouldn't have made it past the first round of American Idol auditions. It was months before our first song was recorded. The guys were like, 'Just seeng!' And I was like, 'I don't know how to seeng! Can't I just play the triangle?'
How could I share with you how I felt when two towers that I loved, two pieces of steel and glass and concrete fell down, when actually they took with them thousands of human lives? That is the actual tragedy. But those towers were almost human for me. I was in love with them, and that's why I married them with a tight rope.
I think it would collapse my heart if I was super famous. I don't have the nerve for it, I'm too anxious. I don't know how you're not obsessed with how people perceive you, because they're real people, you know? You can convince yourself that they don't really know you, and that's true, but how can it not hurt your feelings?
