Layers are not difficult for me. You have the luxury of takes, so if you feel like, say, you did not take in the fact that your aunt is across the way in one take, you do it again and try to add that piece.
We have had for breakfast, toasts, cakes, a yorkshire pie, a piece of beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee, ham and eggs...
My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?
The greatest compliment that anyone can pay me is that after I say something, they remember it. I'll go over a piece of copy until I've gotten the essence of what the writer had in mind - every nuance.
It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible, and which are not. �...
Be cautious of playing your Queen in front of your King and in subjecting yourself to a discovered check. It is better when check is given to your King to interpose a man that attacks the checking Piece than with one that does not.
When some guy shows up with a shopping bag full of records and CD's and wants me to sign every one plus fifteen pieces of blank paper I wonder what the hell is he doing with all of that?
I've tried everything. I've done therapy, I've done colonics. I went to a psychic who had me running around town buying pieces of ribbon to fill the colors in my aura. Did the Prozac thing.
There are people who'll dismiss me as 'just' a singer. That's how it is, how it's always been, but just because I'm not hunched over a piece of paper with a pen in my hand doesn't mean I'm not putting in the graft.
But bread is different. I come from Czechoslovakia, where we eat lots of it, so it's hard to say no. I can't even have one piece, because when I start, I don't stop.
On 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' it takes almost a year to get 10 shows written. It always reminds me of my old yeshiva days, where you used to sit over a piece of Talmud and analyze everything that was going on.
I have to admit, in January and February I was in an absolute fuzz. I had no one on board. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing, but we didn't have all the pieces put together.
I know that doesn't sound very radical and webby of me to say that but I think the New York Times is important. I also think there's an occasional piece that will pop out.
I have a few pieces that I got for my birthdays or that I bought for myself: I acquire things that speak to me and put them on my wall. When I see things I like, I just know.
When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of 'variation' much as if measure lengths were concrete musical 'material.'
One of the members of the group, I can't remember which one, found out we were making $3 - $5,000 a night. We were getting a hundred dollars a week a piece. Everybody got upset about it.
I'm not really frightened by experimenting - that's the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.
The worst story I ever wrote was after the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. My co-author and I wrote a piece for 'Fortune' saying everything's going to be different now.
Because there are so many shows on and because I've been so hands-on - I've had a piece on almost every single week - I don't know how to cut back on that. You really can't.
As I'm writing, certain things become clear to me and certain things begin to feel right and make sense. The pieces start to fall into place.
