I learned to work on a computer years before I was placed under house arrest. Fortunately I had two laptops when I was under house arrest - one an Apple and one a different operating system. I was very proud of that because I know how to use both sys...
I play games on-set at work. Sometimes I can't remember people's names, so I start throwing out clues. Like if I can't think of George Clooney, I'll say, 'You know, drop-dead gorgeous, was on a big TV show... ' Until someone says his name, I can't fi...
I like taking a path into new country, and I always take the darker path. Not because it's dark, but because there's a secret there that you can share when you get out. That's what I liked as a kid. That's how I approach my work. With a face like min...
My school friends are really understanding and still want to hang out with me. Ever since I was in sixth grade, I was at the gym every day to work out while my friends were getting their nails done or going to the mall. I used to feel left out, but I...
I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself.
I remember how a man once got in touch with me to tell me that he was so engrossed in my book that he had to take a day off from work just so that he could finish reading it. Such kind of responses from my readers is extremely endearing, and it keeps...
I am announcing my resignation from Congress so my colleagues can get back to work, my neighbors can choose a new representative and most importantly that my wife and I can continue to heal from the damage I have caused.
I don't write for a particular audience. I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted...
I enjoy acting now more than I ever have. I've had lots of difficult times when I was younger, but that was all tied up with thwarted ambition. It's hard being a young actor, because you don't realise until later that it's only ever about doing the w...
Software options proliferate extremely easily - too easily, in fact - because too many options create tools that can't ever be used intuitively. Intuitive actions confine the detail work to a dedicated part of the brain, leaving the rest of one's min...
I was still closeted, but from the day I decided to run for office, knowing that I was gay, I decided that I would, of course, still be closeted but that I would work very hard for gay rights. It would be totally dishonorable, being gay, not to do th...
Outlook 2003 did create the idea of search folders and the whole Longhorn philosophy. You can see it at work in search folders, where instead of having to drop things into individual folders, and things exist only in one folder, you create these sear...
I didn't finish college; my parents didn't graduate college - we didn't have a pot to piss in. I'm from Newark, New Jersey. I had to work. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be an artist without having a job.
I feel empathy for people who are trapped in a prison of self-consciousness in an uncomfortable way. We can be free, but we're so held back. So perhaps that's why I feel a duty to make my work. I feel liberated when I'm doing it, and I want other peo...
I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting. The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro ...
Mother Teresa's detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans' destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless. In the context of lost causes, Mother Teresa took on battles she knew she could win. Taken together, it seems to m...
The ordinary American - as far as I can tell - knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in ...
In my own work, I don't have favorite characters, but I have characters that I relate to the most. And I relate the most to Simon from 'The Mortal Instruments,' and also Tessa from 'The Infernal Devices.' They're more sort of bookish and shy characte...
I believe that writer's block is a symptom. It's not a disease, it's the symptom of a disease. So what I try to do is kind of do it like 'House'; write down the symptom and write down the other symptoms. Try to work backwards to figure out what the p...
I know we can fix our problems. When there are people in the room who care more about doing the job they were elected to do than they worry about winning reelection, it is possible to work together, achieve principal compromise, and get results for t...
It's very important to understand that we never do the same thing twice; each of our projects is unique. We'll never do another 'Gates.' Each project is a unique image. We do not know in advance how the work will look. I do preparatory drawings, but ...
