I have very fond memories of swimming in Walden Pond when we lived in Boston. You'd swim past a log and see all these turtles sunning themselves. Slightly disturbing if you thought about how many more were swimming around your toes, but also rather wonderful.
Funny, how moms can tell you what to do no matter how old or big you are.
We cannot always control everything that happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond. Many struggles come as problems and pressures that sometimes cause pain. Others come as temptations, trials, and tribulations.
I really saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella. I think that's when I really thought about how I wanted to do something else and get away from all that.
I believe in lifestyle changes, and when you think of something long term, you do it better. If I know I just have to eat this way for a week, how does that help you for the long term? It doesn't.
Humans have always used our intelligence and creativity to improve our existence. After all, we invented the wheel, discovered how to make fire, invented the printing press and found a vaccine for polio.
Writing a story is pretty all-consuming for me - it feels a lot like method acting, and for the eight or twelve or fifteen months that I'm working on a story, I'm constantly thinking about how my narrator would react to whatever tangled situation I'm in.
I remember being, like, the age of 7 and just always being in control of something or someone, a baby somewhere. I had lots of cousins and brothers, and we were all taught that's how you are, you know. Things don't just run themselves; you have to make them run.
In America there is a public library in every community. How many public libraries are there in Africa? Every day there are new books coming out and new ideas being discussed. But these new books and ideas don't reach Africa and we are being left behind.
I am Christian, and I was very vocal about that at first until people started using it against me. Now I've learned to keep it to myself. I don't think it has anything to do with my job or how present myself. I feel like it got really twisted.
The older you get, the more you realise how happenstance... has helped to determine your path through life.
Is 'The Wind in the Willows' a children's book? Is 'Alice in Wonderland?' Is 'Treasure Island?' These are masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how much more pleasure when we are grown-up.
One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?
My father valued patriotism above all other social obligations, but he had his own particular interpretation of just how true patriotism was meant to function.
I didn't know how to throw a punch - why would I? Who knows how to throw a punch? Now I do it all the time, and it makes me feel strong.
I know how to work with people. I've worked with the same people for 10 years. I'm not that kind of auteur. I hear ideas.
People should have values, so by extension, a company should. And one of the things you do is give back. So how do you give back? We give back through our work in the environment, in running the company on renewable energy. We give back in job creation.
I think it's criminal how little people in the military are paid. These are people out risking their lives, taken away from their families for long periods of time. I think they should be paid dramatically more than they're paid.
I think growing up in a big family taught me a lot of problem solving and how to share and compromise, and that's been helpful in my marriage.
I never got caught up in playing for history, seeing how many majors I could win, or rewriting the record books. Those are selfish objectives, and the guy who chokes usually does so because he dwells on what it all means to him. I was only worried about my family. And although I had my share of failures, it was never because I choked.
It's much more acceptable for men to work and father kids. There's an inherent inequality, because we want to do it all, and I don't know how we can do this all.
I like to surprise myself. I've always been attracted to projects where I don't know how they're going to turn out.
When I arrived at IBM, there were 'Team' signs all around. I asked, 'How do people get paid?' They told me, 'We pay people based on individual performance.'
I don't sense that I am someone's hero, though I'm happy when people like my work. I've learned how to be gracious about it, but I try to let it go by. I've seen how, if people start taking on those accolades, it can ruin them completely.
I grew up watching movies and being amazed at the animatronics you'd see in stuff like 'The Dark Crystal,' and all those kinds of movies. So, I'm always enthralled with how they can make it all work, behind the scenes, with the visual effects.
Even as a 10-year-old, I remember trying to explain to my mother and stepfather how upset and frustrated a messy room made me. But they just couldn't grasp it. They wanted me to be playing with baseballs and frogs while I wanted to be scouring garage sales.
I wanted to see how much of an insult it was to be called an ignoramus. I didn't know what it meant; I just Googled it.
It's difficult to explain exactly how I react to music, but if it makes me feel anything at all, then I'll have some kind of emotional relationship to it. That's what defines good music to me - if it makes me truly feel something.
When people show loyalty to you, you take care of those who are with you. It's how it goes with everything. If you have a small circle of friends, and one of those friends doesn't stay loyal to you, they don't stay your friend for very long.
Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God's eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and of joy; she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation.
I'm a firm believer that language and how we use language determines how we act, and how we act then determines our lives and other people's lives.
My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.
It's fun to see how other artists adapt my work.
I feel a real need to observe a level of propriety in what I'm handing out. Instead of me just venting or spilling my guts, I've got to consider how it's going to affect people. How it's going to affect me, as well. Because it's like a cycle.
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
Working with Ice Cube was so tight. He's cool, and I really like how he does family stuff. My guy friends couldn't believe I was chillin' with him. Dudes love Ice Cube.
