I was born into a world where a lot of people who came to the house were performers.
I remember when I was at the first showing of 'John Dies at the End' at Sundance, and I was talking to some of the people in the standby crowd who were outside and didn't have tickets. They were just waiting in line to see if they could get in. It was this whole gang of die-hard sci-fi wacko people, and they were just fantastic.
As a child, I was fortunate enough to be close to family members who were - and still are - great storytellers. I was a gullible country boy from Rocky Mount, Virginia, and I believed every folktale they told me, no matter how fantastic.
One my favorite things is to go to the provinces of Russia and see the 18th century wood churches with the onion dome architecture. These humble wonders of incredible imagination of architects that were obviously not living in places like Paris or London, but they've created these amazing churches.
It's funny, because '1600 Penn' was the first time I really started to read the reviews, because I am an executive producer and I wanted to see what people were enjoying and not enjoying as a means to an end, right?
In 2007, a very inspired New York University Ph.D. student counted all the models on the runway, every single one that was hired, and of the 677 models that were hired, only 27, or less than four per cent, were non-white.
My children were brought up with their grandparents, and I was brought up with my grandparents. I think the continuity of moving through life together gives people a certain pride and sense of security.
First of all, I'm in favor of making price gouging a crime, and in fact, one the reasons I didn't vote for the Republican House version was because there were too many breaks for the oil companies.
Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel.
I wish I were taller and thinner but the hair you can do something about.
My parents were divorced when I was three, and both my father and mother moved back into the homes of their parents. I spent the school year with my mother, and the summers with my dad.
There are certain realities we must speak of with our children that were not present when I was a child.
Democrats have always historically referred to our families as working families, and I have sort of changed that moniker. I think what we have is a nation of worried families - families that are concerned about job security, families who thought their pensions were secure and now have questions.
I grew up going to public school, and they were huge public schools. I went to a school that had 3,200 kids, and I had grade school classes with 40-some kids. Discipline was rigid. Most of the learning was rote. It worked.
I think it was in Moscow last year and I got changed for training the day before we played Moscow, but the fact is they actually wanted to do John's, me and John were next to each other and they did mine by mistake. John had done them I think. So yeah it is true.
I didn't learn how to swing a golf club until late in my career. And even though I won all those tournaments, I still struggled with consistency, and I relied on my strengths, which were hitting the ball long and high, and I could chip and putt with the best of 'em.
Everybody was telling me I should just stand alone on my first project, and I started to see what they were saying.
Were there no contrariety of interests, nothing would be more simple and easy than to form and preserve free institutions. The right of suffrage alone would be a sufficient guarantee. It is the conflict of opposing interests which renders it the most difficult work of man.
I was in New Zealand and met this girl. Her sister dared me to bungee jump, so I did! It was a spur-of-the-moment decision - I wanted to impress the girl, and it worked! We were in a relationship after that.
When I was in college, there were a couple years there where I was just not sure what to do, and it was actually my mom who suggested I take some journalism classes.
I never wanted to return to Hollywood because Hollywood people and the fakeness - very artificial and not dear to my heart. After I lived in the Midwest, and I learned what sincere, real people were all about, I never wanted to go back.
I was very aware of the fact we were so out of fashion when I shot 'Chicago.' And I was trepidatious as to whether it would be seen or embraced by anybody, but I've never stopped believing in the genre. There's nothing like it. It's American-born.
The actors I admired were Bogart, Cagney, Cooper, Tracy. Great personalities. Real stars.
In the theater, you didn't have any marks. Your instincts in rehearsal told you what the blocking was. On film, they reversed it. They decided ahead of time what your instincts were, before you even arrived.
The stunt team were great on 'Defiance.' They were there, every day.
For my money, the movies of the '70s were just amazing.
I remember as a little kid, I would always feel comfortable if the light in the crack of my parents' door was on at night. When it went off, that meant they were asleep. Then that terror and the fear of being by myself started to creep in.
Nobody's ever made a film in the history of cinema where they weren't expecting some return on their dough.
I've had dreams - there were three things I wanted to do during my career. I did them during my first year of Grand Prix.
The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.
We were emerging from the period of war, of uniforms, of women-soldiers built like boxers. I drew women-flowers, soft shoulders, fine waists like liana and wide skirts like corolla.
I was born in Swindon... a place that always looked west. I found that wherever I go I love to have a room with a view of the western sky. My late brother and I, when we were small, had a room at the back of the house that overlooked the sunset; and both for he and I it was kind of magical.
You're either humble or you're not. If you were a jerk before the fame, you just become a jerk with a bigger spotlight. Whoever you are really comes through.
Back in the days of the Smiths, when we first started touring England - this is, like, 1984 - there were these two girls. They were literally vicar's daughters, and they used to follow us to every gig, no matter where we went.
My mother played the piano and my father the violin, I can remember my dad teaching me how to waltz; I had my feet on his, my mother playing the piano, and my husband will tell you the lessons weren't very successful.
I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things.
