I'm a workaholic, I always try to fill my time with projects.
I don't really like doing big stand-up. Whenever I do theaters, I don't like 'em. I don't think they're right for stand-up. I've seen people in theaters, and it just doesn't work, because you're talking to the guy next to you the whole time.
I discovered 'Rite of Spring' when I was 21. As a matter of fact, not with orchestra first, because it was still a work which was not often performed. Don't forget that I was 19 in 1944, still the Occupation time. So it was performed slightly after the end of the war, in 1945.
Time is the ultimate long tail. Even with a big wad of money up front, if something sells forever, the back end is what ultimately counts.
I'm in New York part of the time and in L.A. part of the time. That's always been a goal, to be bicoastal in a real way.
I worked in information technology and academia for a long time and met many people who were better with things and ideas than with people.
I think we need to move to the moons of Mars and learn how to control robots that are on the surface. It's not the impatient way of getting there, but Mars has been there a long time.
I have a few filmmaker friends who are known for shooting super-fast, and they say that you don't have the time to over-think things and how that helps things out creatively.
Intelligence is playing a more important role in policymaker decisions than I think I've ever seen in my time in Congress or before.
Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors.
For a long time, sure, I was letting the pressure of being Rodney King get to me. It ain't easy. Even now, I walk into a place wondering, 'What people are thinking? Do they know who I am? What do they think about what happened? Do they blame me for the all those people who died?'
I feel like I need to start wearing a T-shirt saying 'This is not a photo opportunity'. People are so lovely but you do find that when you're out you spend 40% of your time posing for photographs.
It's high time for the art world to admit that the avant-garde is dead. It was killed by my hero, Andy Warhol, who incorporated into his art all the gaudy commercial imagery of capitalism (like Campbell's soup cans) that most artists had stubbornly scorned.
Today we're just growing and consuming, and I think maybe there's a sadness in that. People are longing for a time when there was a black and white and good and bad.
Architecture has a strong link with the movies in terms of time progression, sequencing, framing, all of that.
We, in the late '60s, '70s and '80s, are acting like we have just discovered freedom and liberation. But I'm sure that many women have worked for that for such a long time.
I just turned 40, and I look at so many performers and so many people who are actually always on time and always have an album out. They don't have actual lives, in my opinion. I feel like I'm so much more than being famous and meeting a musical quota. And I don't know, just the weight of the scrutiny and attention is too weird for me.
I try to think of it not as writer's block, but a time where you just need to live life and experience things so you have something to write about.
So for a long time I closed my eyes to the possibility of America having a white voice.
Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.
I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two sentences: 'How are you?' and 'I want to work with Johnny Depp.'
You don't need a foreign policy expert to tell you empty threats and hollow promises don't work. Ask any parent of a rebellious teenager. If you don't make good on the threats, you're asking for worse behavior next time.
I think maybe the only time I think of being a woman... is being on the road and making sure my musicians are fed and they sleep. 'Are you OK? Do you need some water? Are you hungry? Can I get you a cookie?' I'm not sure all the men bandleaders do that.
My mind is constantly creating and searching, but I can't make myself put the right words on paper until I'm ready. Once I'm ready, I'm a focused, disciplined writer who will put in twelve hours a day at the computer, but I also spend a lot of time away from the computer getting to that point.
There are so many different narrative traditions across the world, and each of those traditions has evolved dramatically over time. Once I understood that, I felt truly free; I could write and invent the way I wanted to because there never has been only one way to tell a good story.
My parents have been incredibly supportive from perhaps the first real independent decision I made to become a vegetarian at 11, which was certainly not consistent with their diet at the time.
Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems, Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system.
Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.
You don't come to work going, 'Oh my God, I've got all this money I have to worry about'. You come to work going, 'I need more time and more money'. Because whatever resources you're given, you're always trying to push the envelope.
Twitter is a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Tonya Verbeek is a rival of mine I always come up against in the semis or the final of the Olympics. We have been fighting each other for a long time, so she knew my wrestling, and I knew hers... I was thinking that the only thing I could do was somehow to deceive her, anticipate her and get in my tackles.
One thing I love to do when I'm working out is take my watch off, take my heart strap off, and just run - not for time, not for exertion, but just to get the blood flowing.
I don't even like to go out onto the streets sometimes because I can't get anything done. People want pictures and autographs all the time.
I always was fascinated with China, because I was born in Europe, and for us, China had this fascination and mystery. The first time I came here was in 1989. They were on bicycles, and the speed of the growth has been incredible.
The thing is, 'Discworld' had been going on for a very long time, and I've written children's books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I'd do is I'd franchise it to myself.
From the time I was very young, maybe five or six, I thought a lot about being an actress. I didn't tell my friends about my ambitions, though, especially when I got older, because I thought they would not receive them well. I never talked about what I wanted to do.
