'Celebrity' is sort of an idea. I mean, I get to do something extraordinary, but I don't think it makes me extraordinary. That's my opinion. I like to be an artist; I like to do things that are involved in the arts, but I don't think it makes me more special than a doctor, for example. A doctor is an extraordinary person.
In the past, secularists sought to challenge dogma by the use of rational argument, claiming, for example, that miracles described in the Bible are scientifically impossible.
France is a very attractive place: the health care system, for example.
Well you know I've attracted a lot of criticism by, for example, suggesting that child benefit should be taken away from higher rate taxpaying families.
Molly Shannon, for example, is someone I've always really looked up to, because her comedy is so physical and wild and unembarrassed and brave.
A chair's function is not just to provide a place to sit; it is to provide a medium for self-expression. Chairs are about status, for example. Or signalling something about oneself. That's why the words chair, seat and bench have found themselves used to describe high status professions, from academia to Parliament to the law.
The best way to deal with climate change has been obvious for years: cut greenhouse-gas emissions severely. We haven't done that. In 2010, for example, carbon emissions rose by six per cent - the largest such increase on record.
If interviewers are prejudiced against women or Hispanics, for example, a face-to-face interview will predictably result in discrimination. Reliance on tests, or on actual or past performance, can promote equality.
Over the years, I've had to learn to play. For example, when 'Lennon' was on Broadway, I learned my way around the guitar chords because originally we were all going to play the instruments without a band.
John Dos Passos, Raymond Carver, Flaubert and William Maxwell were all very influential when I first started writing. Now, the writers I'm most interested in are the writers who are most unlike me: for example, Denis Johnson.
My mother tongue, Mende, is very expressive, very figurative, and when I write, I always struggle to find the English equivalent of things that I really want to say in Mende. For example, in Mende, you wouldn't say 'night came suddenly'; you would say 'the sky rolled over and changed its sides.'
For example, when my mother died, the people who showed up just to put an apron on to cook, people who really do the right thing, so to speak, as my momma would always say to show that they care, a sense of community that we've lost so much in our country.
We're very interested in seeing what science Exxon has been using for its own purposes because they're tremendously active in offshore oil drilling in the Arctic, for example, where global warming is happening at a much more rapid rate than in more temperate zones.
I think that the more comfortable and the more you rehearse - granted, I don't like to take the air out of a tire; there is a fine line - but I think the freer you are with your dialogue, for example, the more open you are to a good idea walking up to you.
The minimum wage is not something that you want to stay on as a permanent basis. For example, if you have a minimum wage job, you don't stay there 20 or 30 years. You don't put your children through college working on minimum wage.
I've seen a lot of people - for example, Lindsay Lohan - who got into the wrong crowd. I always have my eye on what I want. And I don't want anything to distract me from that.
Team GB's success at the Beijing Olympics can, in part, be said to have been made in Manchester. For example, all the cycling medal winners trained at Manchester's velodrome, the National Cycling Centre.
I'm pleased that some economists and sociologists are beginning to talk about, for example, alternative measures of human well-being - alternative, that is, to GDP, on which the world runs.
People show surprise that I have interests outside my political career. There is subtle surprise, for example, that I would be interested in a recipe.
The first point of contact for radicalisation is almost always a personal one. Prisons and universities, for example, tend to be easily and regularly infiltrated by radical groups, who use them as forums to propagate their ideas.
I know people who support Hamas, but they never got involved in terrorist attacks, for example... they follow Hamas because they love God and they think that Hamas represents God. They don't have knowledge, they don't know the real God, and they never studied Christianity. But Hamas, as representative for Islam, it's a big problem.
Don't judge other people. For example, if you want God's anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.
For example, if I make money, I put it in real estate. I always did very well. Location, location, location.
If we are going to be able to create a new economic vision, companies will need to rethink every aspect of their operations; their bottom lines, ownership structures, demands on financial returns, how they raise capital. For example, an ethical company would say it should only take a fair share of the planet's resources and campaign on this.
There's something really powerful when I, for example, hear Bob Marley's 'Exodus' - we know where we're going. We know where we're from.
At some major events - your birth and death, for example - while you may be the center of attention, the events are managed by others and are more important to the people around you.
I look at scripts, and sometimes I apply theory to them. For 'Antiviral,' for example, I was reading Laura Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,' and it was all about the psychological process by which we fetishize the female image. It's all about scopophilia.
As I look back at the span of the Cold War in those early days, in the '50s, for example, there was a great deal of Soviet propaganda here in the United States, but it was clumsy, and it was anchored to a lot of ideological support in certain circles in America itself.
Contrary to what most people think, bank money is much more important than state money. In Greece, for example, bank money makes up 84.26% of the total money supply.
I think where it's going is toward what the music industry is like, where channels will be considered more like labels that carry the type of TV show that you like, and then you'll consume them however you can. For example, I don't really watch Showtime, but I bought 'Homeland,' and I've been watching every episode on my iPad.
Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.
You can give your Social Security check to any organization, public or private, or to individuals. You can donate it to your favorite political party. You can give the funds to a student scholarship - for your grandchildren, for example - or to somebody who has a medical need. Or you can invest your government check in free enterprise.
A lot of people, for example, live an anxious life. They don't realize they have a super-high level of anxiety. So we're gonna work on really writing down how anxious you feel at the moment you wake up. There's nothing wrong with it; the point is you learn to evaluate yourself and regulate yourself.
I don't like the fact that there are so few Russians in Hollywood, but it is understandable because of the historic relationship between America and Russia - the Cold War history, for example. It is kind of a cliche, but it's still with us.
For example, I was a White House intern the summer before I dropped out of law school. Everybody knew about it. I'd come home and go to church and everybody would say, 'Oh, my God. Demetri, you're working at the White House.'
I've always had an uneasy relationship with technology and how it insinuates itself into our lives: for example. I always prefer talking face-to-face with friends than texting or calling, and if I want to get updates on their lives, I don't go to Facebook but meet them in person.
