There is only one sin, only one, and that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right of a husband, you rob his children of a father. When you lie you steal someone's right to t...
The contract between the author and the reader is a game. And the game . . . is one of the greatest invetions of Western civilization: the game of telling stories, inventing characters, and creating the imaginary paradise of the individual, from when...
Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been the last person to have wanted his iconization and his heroism. He was an enormously guilt-laden man. He was drenched in a sense of shame about his being featured as the preeminent leader of African-American c...
Before the Wright brothers flew, flying was fantasy. Before the civil rights movement, people getting along together and the races being equal was a fantasy. Things change because we imagine a different world, a world that is not. And I think that im...
Of course, I have a different vested interest in the gay community, because I am gay, and I would certainly enjoy the tax advantages that straight people have, and the inheritance advantages, and things like Social Security, but I've always been a ci...
I never aspired to the local political fiefdom thing that a lot of people ascribed me to. I saw myself as a guy who learned from Jesse Jackson how to do national civil rights. I wasn't really interested in who was going to be the next district leader...
You can't make yourself feel positive, but you can choose how to act, and if you choose right, it builds your confidence.
A lot of people my age who are working right now have never acted; they get a show and suddenly they're making millions. It's always those people who get it fast who have the most trouble staying grounded and being themselves.
It was a wonderful life. To have a stage play right in this room, with real people acting real parts.
When it’s not meant to make you up, it’s meant to fake you up. Just say no and act right. Be bold to say “no”.
Right now is the youngest I’ll ever be, so I suppose I’d better act immature while I still can.
People who concern themselves with the rights of other adults who engage in consensual acts involving sex, love, and/or eating croissants together are damaged and in pain.
Every judgement of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.
Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou.
The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their f...
I try to be a hard boiled sometimes. My kids see right through it. I'm acting. It's always, 'When I say you'll be back at 11, that means 11, not 11.15. Do you hear me!?' Then, 'Yeah, Dad.'
Cooking a piece of fish and cooking it right. Knowing the fish, knowing the properties of the fish. That's a hard thing to do rather than covering it with a lot of sauces and foams or other cooking methods that might be high wire acts and look good o...
Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, a...
Right now, I'm thinking in terms of just having a good band, man. Having a good act for the stage. Being a good performer, you know? Connected to that is future recordings, and future tunes, that kind of stuff.
In life, you have to keep certain parts of yourself in check because you want to be a decent human being. But one of the guilty pleasures of acting is that sometimes you get to let a little something out that you don't in life because it's not right.
Corporations are created by the people, acting through their governments. We grant them corporate charters that confer certain legal rights and privileges, like the ability to enter into contracts, limited liability and perpetual life.
