Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
Growing up, I remember thinking country music was all honky-tonks and beer and trucks - Britney Spears was my first concert.
Even reading my first bad review was an awesome experience. It was cool because you make something and not everybody's going to like it. I felt like that kind of grew me up a little bit into a professional. I was a student filmmaker, and no one writes reviews about student films.
'Think simple' as my old master used to say - meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
I suspect I'm the only politician in America who won an election in this last cycle with TV ads saying I was going to try to pass the first single-payer system in America.
My first toy was a box of transistors.
It was by a Maryland colonel in the year 1777 that the British received, in the gallant defense of an important fort, one of the first lessons of what they were to expect from American valor and patriotism.
I can remember in early elementary school when the Russians launched the first satellite. There was still so much unknown about space. People thought Mars was probably populated.
I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.
AIDS win be our first priority, but in two years' time we don't know where AIDS research will stand, so we are also thinking of activity on other diseases.
At first, when you go to premieres and award shows, you're thinking, 'How the hell am I here? All these people I've never met are here, and it's so cool!' And then, as time goes on, it's a little bit like, 'Ah... it's more like work.'
When trying to locate something, search your mind first.
I learned the first night that IHOP's not the place to order fish.
The eldest and biggest of the litter was a dog cub, and when he drew his first breath he was less than five inches long from his nose to where his tail joined his back-bone.
Too many people feel that where you start out dictates where you should end up. I was on welfare and just shy of 19 when my first daughter was born, but I was encouraged to take advantage of my ability and drive and remained in school.
To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?
When your dreams are close to coming true, it does not feel real at first.
My first year of college was tough. I thought that just being an athlete I could get by. I thought I was okay until I got kicked out, which happened twice.
Not in our make-up, to be sure - not in the pose which is preceded by the tantaras of a trumpet - do the essential traits in our character first reveal themselves. But truly in the little things the real self is exteriorised.
We all deal with issues of time. The first thing you do in the morning is look at the clock to see what time it is.
I didn't have that many friends my first few years of high school. It was very cliquey and I'm super shy, so it was hard to make friends.
Macbeth was the first play I ever read.
My first job is big sister and I take that very seriously.
What they told us about 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' when we first started was that we were guaranteed 26 episodes, so that was the longest job I've ever had. And that was basically it - we didn't know what the premise of the show was going to be and we waited, week by week, to see a script.
Somewhere in this process, I begin reading and showing my book to my audience. When I say my audience, I mean a single imaginary child who is a blend of myself as a young person, the students in my wife's classroom of first- through third-graders, and the students from two classrooms I visit regularly in the Bronx, New York.
We sat down and read it for the first time and I thanked God under my breath, because they were all so good. And my leading ladies are both exceptional. I mean, everybody in the play. I could just go on all night about them.
Yeah, I mean I've definitely had a bunch of action scripts sent to me, but again I'm a stickler for directors. If it's like an action flick with a great director then it's like 'Oh let's look at this thing,' but if it's just like a shoot-em'-up with a first time director. I don't know if that's the trajectory I want to take with what I'm doing.
Having the opportunity to fly the first flight of something like a space shuttle was the ultimate test flight.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it!
In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.
The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15.
There's a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it's being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience.
It's almost an out of body experience to see things that First Officer Jeff Skiles and I said in the cockpit together, played by actors.
In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.
