One of the great virtues, apart from the pleasure of performing these works, is that it's opened up an entirely new, expansive repertoire of American Jewish music.
One of the most treasured books that I own is Donald Allen's 'The New American Poetry, 1945-1960.' It was a totem of great importance and potency to my group of writer friends in college from 1960 to 1964.
Obama's a great speaker. Because of his speaking ability and his appearance, a lot of guys got on board. Being the first African American, a lot guys got on board.
I tend to be a great optimist when it comes to the United States and the American way of life, I think precisely because I wasn't born into it.
I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he's an American child.
I think what happened during the Great Depression was that African Americans understood that Republicans championed citizenship and voting rights but they became impatient for economic emancipation.
The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace.
Now, of course, the great thing about the solar system as a frontier is that there are no Indians, so you can have all the glory of the myth of the American westward expansion without any of the guilt.
It's just an American tradition to make sure people don't leave hungry. The worst thing is to have them say, 'Great dinner, but now I have to go get a burger.'
I just think Australia tends to make very good movies, so if someone hands me an Australian or an American film script I would guess the Australian film would be more intriguing.
I'd say the majority of my friends are Australians, although I have some good American friends, but I think with Aussies, we just get it. We don't take each other too seriously, which is a relief.
A great deal of American T.V. viewed on Hulu, which is superb - '30 Rock', for instance, is on very good form.
If I have a name out there from this thing called 'American Idol,' I don't understand why anyone wouldn't use it for good. That's the way the world should work.
For fiction, I'm not particularly nationalistic. I'm not like the Hugo Chavez of Latin American letters, you know? I want people to read good work.
And so there are so many good things going on all across Iraq and unfortunately that's not what the American people see on TV or they don't read a lot about it in the newspapers.
It is vitally important that we implement immigration reform. We need a bill that strengthens our borders and protects this nation, but that also makes it simpler for good people to become Americans.
That's probably when I get the most angry at American movies, when they just so cynically manipulate the audience without even trying to give a good story.
What might be good for ratings can be bad for the country. The hard-core partisans are self-segregating themselves into separate political realities. But the majority of Americans are starting to wake up to the game.
There is nothing wrong where we reach a point where maybe everybody could claim a victory. I think it would be good for the American people, which should be our first priority.
Long before 'American Idol', people used to call me a diva. And I be like, 'Hold on, are you calling me something else on the sly? You gonna call me a diva, call me a good diva.'
Americans enjoy uniformity in a way that the British don't; they wanted everybody of a sort of nice chorus line height and here I was, this person who was a good three inches taller than anyone else on the end of the line.
