Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren't about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you ca...
I want to walk the red carpet at the Oscars. I am in awe of the ceremony, and winning an Oscar would be the most magical moment of my life. I want to make that speech and hold that trophy and say, 'This is for you, India.' That's the line I have rehe...
Our problems stem from our childhood. Ray was, for so long, the only boy. Then I arrive and take all his limelight away from him. That must have quite a profound effect. I sometimes think that Ray was only happy for three-and-a-half years in his life...
I'm constantly trying to work on the person that I am and work on my shortcomings, and I guess I want people to know that it's ok to be a work in progress, as long as you keep trying to figure it out. But that search and that discovery is what makes ...
When I made my way across childhood to the tinny AM radio, it was dark. Lights out. I listened intently. More intently than I ever had before. Something was speaking to my unformed-ness like a long lost friend. Something that I had never met but forg...
A breeding sow spends most of her life in a tiny cage. It's usually about seven feet long and two feet wide. She cannot turn around. She cannot scratch herself. She must urinate and defecate where she stands. Simply put, I believe she is tortured, da...
For a really long time in my life, I fought against how I look. Because I was raised Catholic in school, where everyone had to wear a suit and tie. I hated everything that stood for. And I realized when I walked down the street, everyone would see th...
I was writing this really long joke about the smell of poop, and I was like, 'What am I doing with my life?' I started to think about why I was a comedian, and then I came up with a reason for existence, which is: inserting absurdity or stupidity int...
Everything in high school seems like the most important thing that's ever happened in your life. It's not. You'll get out of high school and you never see those people again. All the people who torment and press you won't make a difference in your li...
As long as women are in the work force making their own money and decisions, men are going to have to realize that this way of life is here to stay - because it takes two incomes to make it and more now. The sooner you address your style of saving an...
There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, lo...
My life used to be like that game of freeze tag we played as kids. Once tagged, you had to freeze in the position you were in. Whenever something happened, I'd freeze like a statue, too afraid of moving the wrong way, of making the wrong decision. Th...
The first single I released, 'Anything Goes,' is probably one of the best-written songs I've heard in a long time. It takes somebody knowing who you are. Sometimes writers know who an artist is and what they want to say and how they sing. I will neve...
The first year I was in New York, I met Martha Graham. She said, 'Well, Mr. Wilson, what do you want to do in life?' I was 21 years old, and I said, 'I have no idea.' And she said, 'If you work long enough and hard enough, you'll find something.'
I love sitting through long things. I mean, 'Gone With the Wind' I will sit through; I love sitting somewhere for four hours, for anything. I love being on a train. I love sitting down for four hours. I think it's the most wonderful thing to be able ...
I love macaroni and cheese. I could eat it every meal of the day. It used to be sushi, but these days I cannot stop eating mac and cheese. I haven't had it from a box in a long time, but I'll make it homemade style with four types of cheeses, lots of...
I kind of feel like I've been eating professionally for a long time. I've tasted everything. If there's a sausage, you know what? I know exactly what it tastes like. I love them all. But right now it's more important for me to not have all that greas...
Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally married person who wants to escape doomed love - may soon discover that a significant portion of your marriage contract belongs to the State, and that...
It's so easy to use tired, shopworn figures of speech. I love using long, fancy words but have learned - mostly from writing my biography of Winston Churchill - that short, strong words work better. I am ever-vigilant against the passive and against ...
I love singing, but I feel very naked and very vulnerable when I'm singing sometimes. With acting, I always think that it doesn't matter what you are as long as you're truthful in that moment. But with singing, you always have to hit the note. It's n...
We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 per...
