With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the Korean War and that I was going to try to fix a tiny bit of that.
It doesn't matter to me who's the most powerful or profitable country in the world. All countries want to be prosperous. What's happening is a zero-sum game between China and the U.S., where their gain is our loss.
If you want to take writing on, you should pay writing the respect it deserves, which is to say, reading it.
I didn't want to be known as a gay comic, but as a comic who happens to be gay.
I would want to travel the world and write about it. To be a famous writer.
Luckily I don't have to buy shoes anymore, because I design them! I'm off tour, so I can dive in and create the shoes that I want for my line. But okay, I did buy a pair of vintage combat boots because they were so beaten up - I had to have them.
You want the audience to be in the character's shoes. The more deeply into the character's shoes the audience is, the more they're going to care about what's going on.
I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Donald has a deep and unbounding determination and a never-give-up attitude. I have seen him fight for years to get a project done - or even started - and he does not give up! If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he is the 'guy.'
If I see somebody dancing really well, it can make me want to dance. Or it could be the music. But perhaps the thing I miss the most is that when you're dancing, everyday concerns vanish. It's a unique world.
There's a lot of buying power from the Middle East. Girls from Dubai want to be able to wear Asos, and you have people travelling all the way to the States just to go shopping.
I want my life to match my work now. I don't want to work and then travel. I want to be at one place.
I'm very proud of the Italian heritage of my great-grandparents, who came here from Italy, and how they helped be a part of the American Dream, and that's something we want to continue to make available to everybody who wants to come here.
I'm constantly thinking about design, shapes, patterns and colors, so I just want to be more of a blank canvas. But there is a comfort in knowing what you're going to wear, and that probably comes from Catholic school, where I wore a uniform for 10 years.
My mom was such a strong character. I don't want to say she was like a man, but she was tough.
I have invariably been in love when I haven't had the same reciprocated emotion at all. I don't choose to talk about my personal life because I believe that I don't want to, and I believe my personal life is personal.
Everyone desires to laugh sometimes, and I want to make that available.
It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something.
The Democrats want government to do the spending. Senator McCain wants families to do the spending.
I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.
I find that I put my body in my work when I am at a particularly difficult or joyous point because I want to feel that moment.
Everyone loves good looks, but personality is what sells for me. I want someone to have fun and go on adventures with. I do like guys with tattoos, though.
Your voice is like a very serious instrument that you have to tame if you want to be an amazing singer - Marvin Gaye or Michael Jackson.
I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate.
What humans want is not just happiness. They want justice; they want meaning.
I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems.
When I do a film, I want people to be spellbound by it.
What I want is a clash of ideas, not opinions.
I think I hid my singing talent from a lot of my friends at school because I didn't want to alienate anyone. If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off, when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique.
So we are not doing the traditional album, tour, album, tour, album, tour anymore. We're going to tour when we want to, regardless of whether we've got a record out.
I always thought, if you're gonna do TV, you want to play a straight, solid, pillar-of-the-show kind of guy.
Love is probably the strongest emotion that you can feel. It's very natural - and I wouldn't want to say easy - but natural and comfortable to write about, and there's so many different forms of it, millions of layers - you could write forever about it.
I had a lot of guilt as a single mother trying to raise a child. I had to go to work and Jeffrey was screaming that he didn't want me to. You have to give yourself permission to let go of the guilt.
I certainly didn't want to be in a punk rock band, because I had already been in a punk rock band. I wanted to be in a band that could do anything - like Led Zeppelin.
What I'd tell any kid in high school is, 'Take business classes.' I don't care what else you're gonna do; if you're gonna do art or anything, take business classes. You can say, 'Well, I don't want to get commercial,' but if you do anything to make any money, you're doing something commercial.
I want to give Michael Moore a run for his money.
