What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't j...
People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a p...
From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.
I think there's a lot projected on beautiful women, period. At least, maybe this is just my fear, but I do sometimes feel dismissed before I've even been allowed to participate. I have moments of feeling really wounded. But I am pretty optimistic, an...
We fear that this moment will end, that we won't get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by...
I always work only with friends, but it must be about them and myself. Because I film only very personal moments, nothing preplanned, staged or written, it has to be real and spontaneous. Some of them have become famous, some are not yet famous, some...
We can have skills training in mindfulness so that we are using our attention to perceive something in the present moment. This perception is not so latent by fears or projections into the future, or old habits, and then I can actually stir loving-ki...
No matter how popular you are as a stand-up - you can go out and fill a 10,000-seat arena and be smart and funny - it's delicate to host an awards show and know where your place is and know that it's not about you, that it's about the people who are ...
The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is - and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as mad as a rat. She wouldn't even give me her telephone number - and she wrote in her diary: '...
I always wanted my kids to like me and think I was funny, so I made up this story about a kid named Jake and his racecar that he had built from scratch, fully loaded with whatever fantastical gadget he or I wanted him to have at the moment. I loved m...
It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before ...
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...
There is a universal, intelligent, life force that exists within everyone and everything. It resides within each one of us as a deep wisdom, an inner knowing. We can access this wonderful source of knowledge and wisdom through our intuition, an inner...
Life is suffering. We have desires and expectations and egos, and we compare the reality we have, which is miraculous and wondrous, with this reality we desire. That somehow distances us from actually taking part fully with the reality we do have, an...
I think I went through my phase of feeling sort of invisible when I left my small hometown in Canada and moved to the big city of Vancouver. I kind of had to decide right there in that moment what I was going to do with the rest of my life and make a...
I think that there is a sharp contrast for most people between life at university, where they meet lots of people, and the moment when they enter the workforce, when they basically no longer meet anyone. Life becomes dull. So as a result people get m...
I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone in my life. Now I tell people - don't tell anyone your idea until you have invested enough of yourself in it that you are not going to turn back. When a person has an idea at that conception moment it is...
I don't think the job of the antiracist is to convert the far-out heathen racist, or give them their 'come to Jesus' moment, as it's called. They'll either have those or they won't, and usually, when they have them, it's not because of something some...
We're losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person's mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point. Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises wha...
Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability.
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...
