I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point.
In the first weeks after Hiroshima, extravagant statements by President Truman and other official spokesmen for the U.S. government transformed the inception of the atomic age into the most mythologized event in American history.
American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.
I love New York. I was in New York at the age of 13, at the School of American Ballet, walking around the subways in my little bunhead and thinking I was so cool.
My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I'm also very proud of being a very American chef.
Look, the center right coalition in American politics today is best understood as a coalition of groups and individuals that on the issue that brings them to politics what they want from the government is to be left alone.
There are actually quite high profile British TV star cameos in it that you probably wouldn't even notice, that the British wouldn't even notice, let alone the American audience.
An American, a Negro... two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
Sony is the coolest studio. They are really amazing. I think part of it comes from they're not an American corporation. They don't work by quite the same rules. And their studio heads have a lot of autonomy.
The Americans think British T.V. shows are amazing, and everybody references 'Downton Abbey', and, in my genre, 'Doctor Who', which everyone is crazy for. People are always asking me and are always disappointed that I haven't been in it.
I think there is a big difference between expressing the pain and anger that many African Americans and other people of color may feel versus language that I think now crosses the line and goes into hate.
People are always angry at America. They're absolutely certain that America either caused their problems or is deliberately not fixing their problems. But the anger is always directed at America and never at Americans.
The bungalow had more to do with how Americans live today than any other building that has gone remotely by the name of architecture in our history.
I admire the abstract expressionists and pop artists so right now I'm referencing American '60s art and at the same time referencing Japanese manga culture.
I decided to take a stab at acting. I entered the American Academy of Dramatic Art, where one teacher told me I'd never make it - I was too tall.
We can't forget what happened on May 4th, 1970, when four students gave up their lives because they had the American constitutional right of peaceful protest. They gave up their lives. And to sing that song in that spot on that anniversary was very e...
America's got a Darwin problem - and it matters. According to a 2009 Gallup poll taken on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, fewer than 40% of Americans are willing to say that they 'believe in evolution.'
It might be added, too, that it takes something more than preponderance of numbers to win a battle....
...there is no better time to examine and understand one’s selfhood than when it is dissected and hurtling through darkness.
For as soon as something becomes impossible it slipslides out of belief entirely, whether it’s true or not.
I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.
