I didn't own a cell phone for a long time. I was late in the game on that.
I had saved a few hundred photos of dodo skeletons into my 'Creative Projects' folder - it's a repository for my brain, everything that I could possibly be interested in. Any time I have an Internet connection, there's a sluice of stuff moving into there, everything from beautiful rings to cockpit photos.
Most of the time, we keep looking outside and feeling sad about what others have. Those are mere excuses.
Cage always wanted to know what my structure was, if I had one. I often did have some sense of the time structure. Then he'd make a different one for the music.
I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.
I'm glad I was born when I was. My time was the golden age of variety. If I were starting out again now, maybe things would happen for me, but it certainly would not be on a variety show with 28 musicians, 12 dancers, two major guest stars, 50 costumes a week by Bob Mackie. The networks just wouldn't spend the money today.
There's no way you can shoot low-budget stuff on lots of locations. It's just a practicality thing because every time you move, it costs time and money.
I grew up playing hockey and baseball, so I wish I had time to get back into it, but living in L.A. and North Carolina, you have to take advantage of the golf.
Hair that looks like it's been naturally sun-bleached makes you seem youthful, like you spend a lot of time outdoors. And that appeals to most people.
What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.
As any competent student of literary composition knows, the more natural and casual a voice sounds in print, the more likely it is to have been edited time and again.
Periodically over the years I've always taken periods of time away from acting.
My goal was to make first lieutenant. I never spent a lot of time worrying about what came after that.
Historically, philanthropy has been something that you do when you turn 65, and you are retired, and you have spent your life accumulating your financial resources, and now you finally have time to do it. But because of the Internet revolution, that in turn revolutionized economic growth and wealth generation.
I guess, over time, I had convinced myself that I could imagine what it would be like to lose a son or daughter. You try to imagine it so that you can write the right kind of letters or form the right words to try to comfort. But you can't even come close. It is unimaginable.
What I try to do - I mean 'try,' because you don't get there all the time - is to have impact with content. It's those moments in which you're trying to bring people beyond filmed theater. If I have an ambition, it's that.
I used to build my own PCs... and actually had one of the first water-cooled, overclocked PCs around. I ran it at over 4Ghz, and this was back in 2001... but alas, I do not have the time for that fun anymore.
I don't know if I'd call myself a prodigy, but I was a big forensics competitor in high school, and then during college I spent some time working at speech and debate camps as a coach.
I have great people who help me be on time, but I'm not an on-time person, and I'm very chaotic in my thoughts.
I'll always be working on five things at once, usually with those documents open at the same time because if I get stuck somewhere I'll jump over to something else. That's how my head has always worked.
I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.
Although it's not something I'm particularly proud of, I'm willing to admit that, in addition to whiling away the long stretches of time in the air and waiting in airport lounges reading the 'New Yorker' and 'New York Times' on my Kindle, I've picked up the occasional tabloid magazine.
Anytime I met an actor, I just attacked them and said, 'How did you do this?' Eventually, I began to realize that you went to school for it. I wasn't a bright kid, so it took me a long time to figure that out.
No woman who works full time and plays by the rules should have to raise her family in poverty.
I've said for a long time there is no military solution to the crisis in Syria. There has to be a diplomatic solution. ISIL cannot be part of it. Al-Qaeda cannot be part of it, and Assad cannot be part of it. We are dealing with issues that have been going on for centuries, and I'm not sure the administration fully appreciates that.
I've slipped enough times over the years to know the peril of a too-smooth sole, so every time I buy a new pair, I take a pair of scissors or a piece of sandpaper to the bottoms to roughen them up. In my catwalk days, I even used to spit on the soles of shoes before I ventured down the runway.
It's amazing that people still feel, 'Oh my gosh, it's a black guy.' We've been here for a long time; let's get used to it. Let's get used to other cultures.
Undoubtedly, the most important thing to remember is your time is not your own. Yes, we live in a time when people believe that you can and you should do exactly what you want, but all time belongs to God. So make sure your time is first dedicated to getting His work accomplished.
Think of it this way: performing is like sprinting while screaming for three, four minutes. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then you walk a little, shouting the whole time. And so on. Your adrenaline quickly overwhelms your conditioning.
We're living in a time when the most famous people in the world have no specific skill set and are known for living their lives in front of the world. How strange is that? The appeal makes sense to me - it's like 'The Truman Show,' getting a chance to peak into someone's bedroom or see the way someone fights with their husband.
I spend a lot of time outlining before I write the first word.
I sing to my wife; it helps me. She was my muse. I've written so many songs about her, to her, with references to her, and still do. She's a big part of my life. We were together for 33 years. It actually does me good - she's with me all that time in that way.
No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.
I'm not just a chick singer who sings high all the time.
Malcolm X found the language that communicated across the board, from college professor to floor sweeper, all at the same time, without demeaning the intellect of either.
I love serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, and I have especially enjoyed my time on the Ways and Means Committee.
