I wanted to be a classical actress. I plodded along. I went to junior college in San Francisco, I was in a Repertory Company. My hero was Eva Le Gallienne, who was a great theater actress at the turn of the century who created her own company, and sh...
I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.
I'm not personally connected to the Internet, although nearly everyone that I know is, and many of them have a great time and no problems with it. And on the surface you can see that the Internet could go an awful long way to educating, enlightening,...
I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools tryi...
In one day, I have times where I'm feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I'm the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.
My career was exploding at the same time that social media itself was expanding. But when my online videos were taking off, I didn't think, 'Oh, great! I'm going to be able to parlay this into a career!' I just wanted to be a comedian. I just wanted ...
There is a difference between a great producer and somebody who is a big advocate of your music. Just because you're a big advocate for a band doesn't mean you need to be in the studio with them, and at the same time - we don't need to get into this ...
I think we lost a great deal of sympathy and support with the way in which the crisis was handled, most importantly I think when we appeared to be grasping for too much at one time instead of identifying our priorities in a much more responsible fash...
The great thing about having spent all this time on film sets is that I've been able to watch directors and how they work. I now know that this is what I want to do as well: to tell stories visually. But it's definitely my vision that I want to put a...
There's great value to knitting or digging up your garden or chopping up vegetables for soup, because you're taking some time away from turning the pages, answering your emails, talking to people on the phone, and you're letting your brain process wh...
I always tell the fans, 'Screw it! Like what you like. Listen to what you want.' Insisting that one type of music is better than the next is snobbery, and I have no time for that. Check out all the music that's out there. There's great stuff you're p...
After we'd filmed one series of 'Kiss Me Kate,' everyone was saying: 'The guy's got great comic timing,' - that was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not a comedian, I don't want to depend on a singular box of tricks. I like story and characters, to tak...
You know, piloting really isn't my hobby. And, it's probably not something I'd do in my spare time if I could do whatever I wanted to do. But, I'll tell you: if you've got to make a living, it's a great way to make a living!
With a novel, no matter where I am in it, I'm fretting about it. Every time I write a book, it starts with great forward momentum. Then there seems to be a period where it slows down a bit, and other things intervene. Then I gain momentum.
As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived.
I think positive. I always think we're going to score. Two minutes is a lot of time if you have timeouts and you're throwing every down. You have to make the right decisions. I've always had great receivers, which helps. It's not just me doing it.
That's one of the great oddities of baseball: Success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lose more than 70 games during th...
What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.
I don't like flirting, and when I love someone, I always give everything, maybe too much. And then you have to work at it all the time. I mean, the first months are always great, but afterwards it becomes hard work. It's not as passionate and crazy.
The great temptation of Big Data is that we can stop worrying about comprehension and focus on preventive action instead. Instead of wasting precious public resources on understanding the 'why' - i.e., exploring the reasons as to why terrorists becom...
If your goal is to make money, becoming an entrepreneur is a sucker's bet. Sure, some entrepreneurs make a lot of money, but if you calculate the amount of stress-inducing work and time it takes and multiply that by the low likelihood of success and ...
