I kept looking to do songs that were written years ago and would live or outlive all of us, and the one thing they had in common was Sinatra.
In common with many who have a brain injury, I initially lost my confidence and felt very vulnerable, as if a protective layer of skin had been stripped away.
Stage fright is very common and could be overcomed through step by step processes, but stuttering is a fright that takes time to conquer.
Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.
From the first day we have been fighting the wrong enemy; our common enemy is religion which dictates upon us division and partition.
It is common, and encouraged by many journals, for research to be judged by the impact factor of the journal that publishes it. But as a journal's score is an average, it says little about the quality of any individual piece of research.
Ridicule is a weak weapon when pointed at a strong mind; but common people are cowards and dread an empty laugh.
We had to address information technology in the ways we had not before and give the agents the tools that they need to do their job more efficiently and more expeditiously.
I think a common misperception about attuning and tending to a child's needs so constantly is that they don't grow in their independence, but I think that the opposite is true.
In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color.
The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.
My whole drive is to make sure that music is a common space where we search for beauty and share it. It needs to be louder than any conversation. That's where we have to go as a human race.
For me, my awkward phase corresponded to an interest in rock n' roll. From experience, I'm guessing an insecure childhood is probably quite a common thing among people who start a rock band.
To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.
I have the ordinary experience of being anonymous when I'm in an airplane talking to air-traffic control, and they don't know who they're talking to. I have a lot of common experiences.
I believe that the 'dark night of the soul' is a common spiritual experience. I believe, too, that the answer is continued seeking and perseverance. It helps to know that others have endured a loss of faith.
Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.
I think things like food, the food of the south is sort of the common tie that binds us all, Black and White, the sense memories. It's a very particular part of the country.
One of the reasons I wanted to leave my position at Common Cause and return to politics was to regain the freedom to speak out politically - to not be constrained by a non-partisan organization.
Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship.
A common allegiance to form of expression that is identified with no single national unit is likely to prove one of the most potent symbols of the freedom of the human spirit that the world has yet known.
