Just because life is full of craziness doesn't mean you must go crazy. You can experience outer chaos and still find inner peace. Nothing even needs to change outside of you for you to find calm inside of you. This inner calm is available at all time...
'Fiancee' is a very fun word to say, because I never thought I would have a fiancee or be a fiancee. Sometimes when I would introduce myself and say, 'This is my girlfriend Melanie,' it wasn't always clear what I meant. Now I get to say, 'This is my ...
I started writing because it was hard to find acting jobs. I didn't like any monologues in auditions, so I started to write my own things. Since then, I have written a couple of shows. I was nominated for playwright of the year for a play I wrote cal...
For my own children, I do want for them to look back and remember that it was me in the kitchen, that I was doing the packed lunches, that we were there on the school run, that we did take a bus. I want them to remember those things, because those ar...
I got into Goldman really by acquisition because I had gone - I grew up in east New York in the Linden Projects - I did go to fancy schools, but my resume wasn't up to a Wall Street set of resumes. I went to college. I went to law school and practice...
But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way. We look for meaning. We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do. We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and...
I'm not saying that Beautiful People don't have the right to exist... I'm not saying they should be rounded up and taken to an island. I'm just saying that they are never, ever to be trusted because they can never know what it's like not to be Beauti...
When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of...
There was this really rock n' roll guy who was very obviously dragged to my concert by his girlfriend. He had tattoos all over, and he was wearing a Metallica T-shirt. He came up to me said it was one of his favorite concerts because I had reached fo...
It's no longer possible to simply build English country houses out of words, because they've already been so thoroughly described that all the applicable words have been used up, and one is forced to build them instead out of words recycled and scave...
The problem with being a journalist is you go places and you're working. You don't get to appreciate everything. But I got enough of a sampler of South Africa; I thought, 'I want to come here when I don't have to interview people for a living so that...
Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people. If you show them enough times that their arguments are bullshit, then maybe just once, one of them will say, 'Oh! Wait a minute - I was wrong.' I l...
If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before because there are ...
I usually dream of melodies. When I wake up I have them in my head. I usually come up with things in the middle of the night because that's when my mind is the quietest. I always have my tape recorder, pen and pad by my bed just in case.
Take courage. You do not yet see your own abilities because you have never been tested. You have never demonstrated to yourself or anyone all that you can do. Put your fears aside and trust that you can succeed in the challenges that lie ahead." - Ki...
Listen, if you were with me on a plane? I'm embarrassed for the people who sit next to me. I have such a regimen! I, like, pound on the face cream because your face will dry out, I get the stuff you put in your nose so no nose germs come in, I take e...
It seems like people want to blame me for everything. Whenever any issue arises, I'm said to have been involved even if I've had nothing to do with it. That's why I always focus on what I know, which is playing football, and try to be very careful wi...
I think it is because I have a habit, when I am bored or disgusted with people of stepping suddenly into my own world and shutting the door. People resent this -- I suppose it is only natural to resent a door being shut in your face. They call it sly...
You will learn more from your failures than your successes - so embrace those mistakes, as difficult as that sounds, and grow from them. When a project is successful, you're never really sure why, because so many elements come into play. However, whe...
I have to tell you, I live paycheck to paycheck like most Americans. It's very difficult for me to say, 'Hey, I can give up my paycheck,' because the reality is, I have financial obligations that I have to meet on a month-to-month basis that doesn't ...
We're all flawed, and we all make mistakes, and we all have weaknesses. And those are the kind of people I want to see onscreen, the ones that feel like real flesh-and-blood human beings and not the weird, whitewashed, Hollywood stand-ins for people ...
