I try to make my music interesting to me first, then hopefully other people will find it interesting, too.
The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
When the scheme for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to the waters of the Ohio River first began to take form, the United States had barely emerged from the Revolutionary period.
Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.
The debt they ran up in the first year of the Obama administration is bigger than the last four years of the Bush combined.
The first time I was cooking for my wife, Stephanie, way before she was my wife, I actually put three chickens on the rotisserie and I closed the grill, which is really a bad idea. But I just wasn't thinking very straight that day. And I looked outside and I saw, like, smoke and flames.
I had my first apartment when I was 16. I got good grades, so my friends would be able to come over to 'study.' We'd party, and they'd cheat off me. Everybody won!
I was from such a large family that when I first met my wife, I told her: 'You can go work outside of the house and I'll stay home and continue making my cartoon strips. Maybe I'll make some commercials nearby, you know I'll do anything locally, but I would love to just stay at home and raise the kids like I did when I was growing up.'
The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States' independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti.
Magicians from the nineteenth century threw cards distances, but I think I'm the first one who made a thing about using them as weapons.
I was born with this. It's a hereditary genetic condition. This is something you can go your whole life without really knowing that something's wrong. I had high blood pressure, and that was the first sign.
For my part, if I consider poetry as an object, I maintain that it is born of the necessity of adding a vocal sound (speech) to the hammering of the first tribal music.
My first introduction to New Orleans was from the air, flying high over the city with a view of the land - and water - below.
It's not the first time that I speak with American journalists. I've had meetings with many different newspapers and stations, and I've ha - never had a problem with meeting with American journalists.
If Mr. Obama wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only the president has the power to make the first big move.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
The first Monopoly game I played with my brothers, I hated losing so much, I just had to beat them.
The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society - more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.
Because you basically won a close re-election, your first task is to unify the city. And it's done not with words but with actions, by reaching out, to the supporters of your opponent as well as to reassure your own supporters.
So if I have two pieces of cake, do I have twice as good an experience as the first piece of cake? One of the things I've found in life is that the first piece of cake is the best.
I've always been a headstrong girl. I had my first child at 17, and it was a mistake, but I got a beautiful child out of it.
It was at this moment that I wrote my first important paper in theoretical physics. I was 32 years old, 5 years beyond the alleged age of senility for theorists.
My years with Aretha Franklin have been very special, as were the years making records with Dionne Warwick. Other highlights include working with Janis Joplin, who was the first artist I ever signed, as well as Patti Smith and Alicia Keys.
I'd like 'Morning News' to become a great first edition electronic newspaper, so that the 'New York Times' will want to watch us.
I think first thing and the most important thing, for me, is that Boston becomes my musical home, my musical family.
I've always been blessed with confidence. I am a glass-half-full person. My first movie, 'Private Benjamin,' got turned down by every studio until the very last one, but I just kept thinking, 'Why are you people not seeing that this is a hit movie? What is wrong with you?'
To discuss a Martin Amis book, you must first discuss the orchestrated release of a Martin Amis book. In London, which rightly prides itself on the vibrancy of its literary cottage industry, Amis is the Steve Jobs of book promoters, and his product rollouts are as carefully managed as anything Apple dreams up.
President Yeltsin's instincts were decent: he encouraged the marketplace, the press flourished, and everything started to open - even the KGB archives. Yeltsin reburied Nicholas II. Free from Soviet anti-semitism, he surrounded himself with Jewish capitalists and advisers who returned to public life for the first time since the 1920s.
As a young athlete, it was first about having fun; then it was about winning.
My first job is to write a book that I believe is compelling and deserves the long sustained attention that any novel requires, and to worry about the commerce only late in the game.
Fourth of July. My birthday is July first, and my best friend's birthday is July fifth, so it's always been a favorite holiday. It's all about having a cooler full of sodas, hot dogs, and just hanging out and shooting off firecrackers, being low-key, watching the fireworks.
When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.
Making a strong first impression is as important as ever, especially when meeting face-to-face.
When we were first offered a book deal prior to Avon's, they were trying to get us to change it from the first-person story into a how-to book, and they were offering us some decent money. My agent told me; 'you should really consider this'.
I, over the years, have always felt more comfortable if I could go into a projection room and look at a film and not really know what to expect. If you read the script first, you form all kinds of preconceptions about how things look, what the location's like, what the actors are like.
