I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one's tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.
When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.
Nineteen percent of doctors say that they'd be able to give their patients a lethal injection. But they also went on to say that the patient would have to be really, really behind on payments.
Read the kinds of things you want to write; read the kinds of things you would never write. Learn something from every writer you read.
The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.
I would say the secret is to be enthusiastic about everything that comes into your life. To care, to care about people. To be excited about everything that comes close to you. I love to read. And I love to write, mostly.
I didn't have cable television growing up; there were only six channels you could watch then. The only really good channel was channel 10, and they would play 'The Nanny Called Fran' every night for years. I've seen every episode 100 times. I would get my Grandma to make me leopard skin dresses on her sewing machine.
The river flows at its own sweet will, but the flood is bound in the two banks. If it were not thus bound, its freedom would be wasted.
To create something from nothing is one of the greatest feelings, and I would - I don't know, I wish it upon everybody. It's heaven.
It's a strange world, as David Lynch would say.
I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.
I think my heart is quite selfish. If I followed my heart, I would not be a good person. But I have moral principles. I have to sit down and reflect.
I used to build lofts in SoHo back when there was nothing there. I had a stoop on West Broadway between Prince and Spring. My partner and I would sit there, eat dinner, and watch the world go by.
I would be an actress for the rest of my life just because it's really relaxing. Writing is hard work, and stand-up is so stressful before you get on stage, but acting is a complete ensemble experience.
I knew that this was what I wanted to talk about on stage. There was no point being coy about it, or pretending that I wasn't gay. That was the substance of my whole act. If you took that away, there would be nothing left.
By working hard we could make an average of about $5 a week. We would have made more but had to provide our own machines, which cost us $45, we paying for them on the installment plan. We paid $5 down and $1 a month after that.
My mother inspired me to treat others as I would want to be treated regardless of age, race or financial status.
I would switch roles with Madonna for a day. Or if Audrey Hepburn was still alive, Audrey Hepburn. I love Audrey Hepburn. She's one of my idols, also.
I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit.
My sense of loneliness was not particularly great until I reached sixty. From that time on, I would have given an ex-king's ransom if I had been able, in my youth to seduce a lady into thinking of me as a handyman and provider around the house.
Back then, I could be as obnoxious as I liked and people would still come back for more, they had to, I was Benjamin Cohen, the Dot Com sensation.
I don't think I would live outside of the Northwest. I think the quality of life in Portland is really good. People move from intense, high-powered jobs, and move to Portland, work half as much and live twice as good.
A lot of bands would be aching to be in the position we are.
Christopher Reeve understood that... everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body.
I feel like all my faults go into making the person that I am. I like myself as a person. And I think taking any fault away would change who I am as a person.
As one of four daughters, I grew up with an imaginary brother - wondering what it would have been like if one of us had been a boy. There's no question that there was a phantom boy child in my imagination when I was young.
It was hysterical going to work. I would just walk in and think, 'What in hell? Am I here? What's going on? I'm going to wake up in a minute. I'm in a dream.'
Until we have created a romance of peace that would equal that of war, violence will not disappear from people's lives.
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
The worst thing would be for them to find out who I really am, because that's where I hide.
There's still a lot I need to do as a player, as a musician, as a sound creator. I have commissioned 170 pieces: that's still not enough, there are still lots and lots of composers I would like to approach. When I see a composer and I see a performer, I think to combine those forces.
I used to chop up C-Span soundbites or interviews with politicians like John Kerry or Bill Clinton into a radio-esque show hosted by Awkwafina and her producer, Mookie. I would pitch down my vocals to have male guests and would send them to a small circle of friends after they were done.
I thought if I looked back and evaluated my life, it would help me in the future.
It's inevitable that if you do okay on something like that you don't just annoy people, that it will make a difference because it seemed like such a lot of people so, yes I would have to say that it has done.
Getting the nomination is like gravy. Winning would be like whatever is better than gravy.
But if I were to sum up who Barack Obama is and how he plans to meet this moment with one word, that word would be 'responsibility.' Responsibility to each other, our families, our communities, our country, and our world.
