I've got nothing to complain about. I have to enjoy and be grateful. Lots of people would like to be in my shoes.
I ask myself all the time, 'Why keep doing this?' If I wasn't exploring or finding something to write about that was personal or meant something, there'd be no reason. If I was ever making a record just to make a record, or ever just like, 'Just put something out there that someone will buy,' I would quit.
I would never have changed anything in the past. I have been acting for 32 years now and I feel so lucky to be able to have done exactly what I wanted to do.
If I were an actress today at the age of 18, I would never make it, because now our young actresses all seem to be very beautiful and very talented right away.
I was tall and skinny, and at 15, I was approached to model. I figured that models got to travel, and it became my ticket to travel so much so that if an agency could not fly me to another country, I would fly on my cost so that I could see that country and also make some money.
One professor in college told me flat out I wasn't good enough to enter the creative writing program. I saved that letter and promised myself I would send it back to her when my first book came out.
Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.
A limit on the automobile population of the United States would be the best of news for our cities. The end of automania would save open spaces, encourage wiser land use, and contribute greatly to ending suburban sprawl.
Many of the vicious criminals held there have been caught on the battlefield fighting against American troops and shutting down Guantanamo Bay would just require the military to move them elsewhere.
I had been plunged into a different world. I found myself spending half my time answering weird questions on book tours in the Midwest. People would stand up and explain to me the situation in their office and ask me whether they should resign or not.
My most memorable meal was with my parents at Joel Robuchon's Restaurant Jamin in Paris. It was Christmas 1982, and the flavors - from cauliflower and caviar to crab and tomato - astounded me. It was the first time I remember thinking that I would like to really learn how to cook.
When I was just starting out, I had two choices: I could be the beautiful girl on the main man's arm as decoration, or I would have to do a little independent movie to get any depth in the female character.
Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
I would really like to play someone contemporary, as I've done lots of period pieces. I would love to play an American bimbo or a grimy Londoner. But I'm probably more suited in people's minds to playing a corseted victim.
If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.
I've always looked at my career as an athlete would look at his. I won't play forever. Some don't know when to walk away, but the smart ones do.
We finally found out the technique of separating and getting information about where every train would be at any moment. Of course, I went over budget many times, because - as you go along - some things improved, and you get better ideas.
I would say the difference between 'old Mark' and post-stroke Mark ... is that pre-stroke Mark was a major micromanager. I just don't have the time or inclination to micromanage as much as I used to.
To make a computer do something that would take a human a long period of time was always interesting.
Unfortunately a Constitutional amendment that would have empowered Congress to make desecration of the United States flag illegal failed to pass by one vote.
Why would you choose being bitter over choosing to make music? Being bitter is gross. It doesn't amount to anything.
I would rather put out two year-defining songs a year than flood the market with eight or nine songs.
When I finally held the trophy, it was just how I imagined it would be.
I left the White House in 2007. You know, I knew when I went there that it would be for a limited period of time. I was grateful that the average tenure of a white house senior aide is 18 to 20 months. I was there for nearly seven years.
I didn't know how capable I was until the people around me in acting school would say I was good.
I was sure we would never see the adoption of the Euro. Countries giving up their currencies for a common tender was, it seemed to me, completely out of tune with currency being a carrier of people's cultural identity, celebrating national heroes and events, as it had been for hundreds of years.
You're talking to somebody who two years ago couldn't figure out how to use e-mail and who now has carpal tunnel. It has totally changed in that these films would not be getting out to people the way they're getting out without the Internet.
And that's another reason to make this movie: We can put plays on film now, at a relatively small cost, and they will reach an audience they would never have reached otherwise.
YouTube is covered in comments that would be better expressed - and better spelled - via a simple thumbs-up or down.
I would love to do a movie.
I figure it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy; if I make a successful arena rock record, I'll wind up playing arenas! I wouldn't mind being back in that kind of venue because of the kinds of things you can do with production. You can make your shows more interesting, which would be fun to do.
I've never cheated on my wife, ever. But to say that it doesn't exist or it doesn't happen and saying you never deal with it would be lying.
But I would like to think that it's the actor that makes the difference in these cases. Not the director, not the guy that wrote the book, not the guy that adapted it for the screen, but the actor.
I was so sure I wanted to be a novelist. I would spend hours and hours every day writing. Little stories about nothing in particular. I recall one about someone with an illness. But my dedication wasn't really healthy, and it reached the point where I wasn't sleeping. My mum would tell me, 'You need to go outside to get some fresh air.'
I thought it would be interesting to write a song about a lonely person who is scared to see the truth that is right in from of him. I thought it would be interesting if you could watch yourself from a distance.
