Tiger Woods, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky, a pitcher just before a game, I would imagine they all have nervous energy. But as you perform, the nervous energy dissipates and you start to relax and you start to do what you do best.
I'm never happy with what I've written. You imagine, before you start, there's a cathedral, and the moment it starts on the page, it's a garden shed. And then you just try to make it the best shed you can.
To start telling people that you're beautiful, or just feel beautiful, just start acting like you are the most beautiful woman in the world. And it really improves everything! Because your sort of psyche responds to it - like this is truthful!
Oddly, when I started to make the record, I wasn't aware I was making a record. I just was sort of disgusted with the whole thing and sequestered myself in the basement and started playing the piano just for something to do.
And after I started working for the Bureau, most of my translation duties included translations of documents and investigations that actually started way before 9/11.
Every story I write starts with a dilemma or a theme. Once I am convinced that this is the issue that is perturbing my thoughts, I start to look for characters capable of representing it.
Raise and Praise; it keeps the devil away! Feeling down? Start praising even if it is a sacrifice of praise. You will soon start feeling better because the devil will not stick around & praise God with you!
If you look not just at the Arab Spring, but at what I call the 'Youth Spring' that has started in Europe, young people are starting to find a voice, and they are not looking to the traditional media to reflect that.
The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.
I think that at the start of a game, you're always playing to win, and then maybe if you're ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.
The Internet community started forming right when 'Buffy' started airing, and the notion of a show creator being anything other than a name people recognize on the screen was completely new.
It's not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.
Some people think it's because '24' was jump-started by what happened on 9/11. That was never why we made the show. We started production six months prior to 9/11, and we'd already done ten episodes.
I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing.
I think the main thing is to find something you care about. A cause. I think it starts with others. Who do you look up to? Who do you want to help? Start in your own community.
I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point--race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything.
When I first came over to the States, I started writing, I think, as a way to help myself learn English. I would start stapling together little booklets for myself.
Basically, the start of my thinking process is: 'OK, if you didn't have to worry about re-election, what would you be doing?' That's kind of how I'm starting to think.
I did some theatre. I had some smaller roles in a couple TV shows and films. I used to think I did a lot of acting, but my 'career' started when I started 'Homeland'.
As an athlete, you're brought up with that mentality that you finish everything you start. If you're going to start a meal, you're going to finish it until the plate is clean. I had to change that mentality to one of where, 'I eat until I'm full and ...
I know my family and I would always go up to the mountains just for fun. We always skied. Then, all of a sudden, my brother started snow boarding. Older brother thing, I had to do what he was doing. So I started snow boarding.
