When I first went to Israel, I saw soldiers pushing Palestinians around and thought, 'I can't stand this'. Then I'd meet somebody in a bar saying what wonderful people the Palestinians are and what mamzers the Jews are, and I'd think, 'Hang on'. It should be hard to make up your mind on any serious subject.
The first story I can remember writing, that I truly set down on paper, was a Christmas story that I wrote when I was ten years old.
Here he tells us that the new birth is first of all 'not of blood'. You don't get it through the blood stream, through heredity. Your parents can give you much, but they cannot give you this.
Then in my early teens, when the home computer bubble was blowing, I had one of the first, an Acorn Atom, and used to write primitive adventures on that.
As Americans, we realize that there is no taxpayer money that wasn't first earned through the sweat and toil of one of our citizens.
I remember the early 1980s, when I first got one of these fabulous film critic jobs. The downside was sitting through 'Splatteria III: The Dismembering of the Clampett Clan' or 'The Oklahoma Meatgrinder Massacre' or some such. The headaches unleashed by watching attractive kids die week after week after week cannot be imagined.
First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.
My parents were married for sixty-five years, and I was married for about ten minutes, my first year at Yale Drama School. Something, somehow, didn't get passed on to my generation.
Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requires trust on all sides. We don't know where it will lead. But if we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping the violence.
I went to almost all of the agencies in New York when I first visited. A lot of them wanted to sign me but also kind of indirectly were telling me that I needed to change in some way. Some directly told me that I wouldn't be a model unless I changed the way that my body looked.
What a fantastic honour to be given the opportunity to write a column in the first ever 'Sunday Sun.'
The first requisite of a sound monetary system is that it put the least possible power over the quantity or quality of money in the hands of the politicians.
The first time I was in his office was when they called me in to tell me they had changed my name. I had a feeling that if I'd gone along with the name they'd chosen, I'd never be seen again. I'd be swallowed up by that name, because it was a false name: Kit Marlowe.
Nightmares of a capital city overwhelmed by tsunami, war or plague transfix us, but catastrophe is first felt locally, and there are many homes outside the city.
If somebody says no to you, or if you get cut, Michael Jordan was cut his first year, but he came back and he was the best ever. That is what you have to have. The attitude that I'm going to show everybody, I'm going to work hard to get better and better.
I moved to Harvard in 1998, and in 2000 the first kidney exchange in the United States was done at a hospital nearby. I started to think, 'Gee, there might be a way where I could help organize it, make it easier for people to find kidneys.'
First of all I would make about 80% of the people law-abiding citizens again. The policy which is carried out now makes every entrepreneur and businessman a thief against his own will.
Back then, I was an acoustically-oriented artist. Honestly, 'Poetry Man' wouldn't have been my first choice.
I've done a lot of geeky things in my life, but I think the geekiest of all was my first effort to build props and cosplay, when I was about twelve years-old.
First and foremost, you want to be truthful as a storyteller.
'The bigtime for you is just around the corner.' They told me that first in 1952 - boy, it's been a long corner. If I don't hit the bigtime in the next 25 or 30 years, I'm gonna pack in the music business and become a full-time gigolo.
I've always had a show that went seven episodes or 13 episodes or whatever. And I've never had a show that's gone past a first season. It really is a lot of work.
This little kid pointed at me and said, 'You look disgusting!' That was the first time I thought maybe I did. I decided I'd better start eating. I'm just thankful that I made it through with relatively few scars.
What's the best part of a movie? I love to know what my name is. It's just so fun. That's the first thing I ask. It's just fun because you have a different name in every movie.
Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.
My first ever stage performance was in Edinburgh in 1960.
The first time I met Leo Messi, I didn't know who he was, only that I couldn't believe the boots he was wearing. But he is like a brother to me. It was at the start of 2005, when I was with the Argentine under-17 squad and I saw him chatting with Ezequiel Garay and some other players about the boots he'd brought back from the U.S.A.
Well, I think first of all there was a failure to have real, clear information at our disposal. There was a real lack of situational awareness. We didn't have the capabilities on the ground to give us real-time, accurate assessments of the physical condition of the city.
It is, of course, the first recourse of every elitist to see social barbarism in others.
My definition of a decent society is one that first of all takes care of its losers, and protects its weak.
I want to be a dad, first and foremost. I want to be a good father. I've spent so much of my life on the move and travelling around the world that just to set up a home for my family and be a good dad is something that motivates me.
For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.
My first car was a Chevy Cavalier. My dad somehow convinced me that it was a hot sports car because it was red.
The first movie that I ever said was my favorite movie - and I've said for the longest - is 'The Producers,' Mel Brooks' original 'Producers.' The two lead performances from Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are both unstoppable performances and then supported by amazing supporting characters throughout.
Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions.
