I don't look at things goin', 'Oh, is this gonna make me rich? Is this gonna make me a star? Am I gonna win awards?' If all that stuff happens, great. Who cares? I still have to wake up in the morning and go to work and be happy to do it.
One of the things you get to do as a writer is that you get to learn new stuff all the time, and I hope that I'm a better writer when I'm 70 than I was when I was 30. That's one of the great things about a literary career.
For me, it's about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That's what's big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I'm in a position to do what I want to do, however I want ...
I love a great melody and wonderful lyrics that speak from the heart, and my music has that and speaks about it; but there's just something that was really raw and energetic about the early House music. It's hard to describe. It's like you had to go ...
Something like Deckard Cain is great; it doesn't ruin your voice. But games that involve violence or battle or mutating and stuff like that really does take a toll on your voice. And I've even had to start to go to a voice guru kind of guy to do exer...
My view is that musicals are love stories with great final scenes. It's just that simple. Musicals are also conflicts between two worlds. And by those criteria, 'The Color Purple' is actually exactly the kind of story that makes for a great musical. ...
At the end of the day, my life isn't about other people's work. I've got to stop giving stuff away. I've got my own stories to tell, and a great need to tell them. I've got these images, these thoughts in my head, and I need to find a way to cope wit...
One of the great joys of being a slip fielder who takes a catch is you are able to contribute to the bowler's success. Yes, you are putting yourself in the firing line if you stuff it up, but you must want to be in that position to make a difference,...
When people connect to my work, it makes me feel great. A lot of that stuff is really deep, and when I play something and people feel what I feel, and use it in important situations in their lives, like at weddings or funerals, that's so powerful. It...
If anything good came out of 9/11, to me, was that people were so cynical about the world - all you hear about on the news is all the bad stuff everyday, but what was refreshing to me was after that, you saw how many good people there are out there. ...
When it's open and honest, that's when the real nature of who you are as a vocalist or as a performer, all of that stuff can finally start to become what it's supposed to be. Like a settling into yourself. It's not even a musical thing, it's a whole ...
I think the hedge-fund industry has taken a reputational turn for the worse, this dog-eat-dog stuff. I'm not just talking about Herbalife or J. C. Penney, but in other situations where the media really focuses on who's long and who's short. I don't t...
I think technology has changed America, not any one organization. Technology is taking the power away from the few. There'll be a lot more choices, and good people who are doing serious stuff will survive and there'll be a lot more voices, and that i...
Television isn't inherently good or bad. You go to a bookstore, there are how many thousands of books, but how many of those do you want? Five? Television's the same way. If you're going to show people stuff, television is the way to go. Words and pi...
I don't seem to require a lot of sleep. I just - if I get four, five good hours, I'm fine. But sleeping is sort of dull. There's a lot of other good stuff that you can do without just lying down and closing your eyes.
Sunday night is curry night. I always order a spinach paneer and a chicken tikka. There's usually something good on TV like 'Mr Selfridge' or 'Downton Abbey,' so I'll watch them before I have to think about blowdrying my hair and all the other boring...
As a physician and as a pilot, I think it lets me be a pretty good translator having one foot in the medical world and one foot in the flying world. Sometimes when the medical guys come in and speak medical stuff to the pilots, the pilots really don'...
There's a lot of people who don't want anything from me but to laugh and have a good time. You see them at the show and they like - they dress up to come see your show and stuff. And they pack these auditoriums and it's a lot of fun, man. It's like, ...
I don't really care about audio quality. If people saw some of the ways that I record stuff, they'd see I don't care in that respect. I obviously care about things sounding good, but I think quality exists through other things like emotionally connec...
You have to take your ego out of it and say, do I want people to be obsequious to me or do I want to write good books? If it's the latter, you have to take criticism. It's annoying, but that's how to do good stuff; listen to other people.
I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean, how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of...