I just hate meetings. Though it's true that once you've made a lot of money, people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don't want to seize every opportunity to do so.
Honestly, when I had the idea to make 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and I was going out and raising the money, and I said, 'I want to make a movie about Al Gore's slide show, will you give me a million dollars?' People thought I was insane, looked at me c...
Keynesian modelling relies on marginal propensity to consume and marginal propensity to invest. The idea that if we give more money to the poor, they have a propensity to consume that's much higher than the wealthy, though I wish they would talk to m...
International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don't have to l...
Black holes provide theoreticians with an important theoretical laboratory to test ideas. Conditions within a black hole are so extreme, that by analyzing aspects of black holes we see space and time in an exotic environment, one that has shed import...
When we human beings hypothesize that a law of nature holds - even temporarily or situationally - we are creating an idea, but we are also making a hypothesis about how nature behaves, whose truth or usefulness has nothing to do with what we know or ...
Ronald Reagan in foreign affairs, I think, was someone who had certain, very general ideas, general propositions by which he lives: To combat communism, to build up the American military power to assure our national security against any conceivable t...
I was fooled a bit during 'Laguna Beach.' I was 17, 18 years old, and I thought they just wanted to shoot a documentary, and that it probably wouldn't end up anywhere, anyway. Little did we know about the power of editing. I had no idea that it was g...
The viral power of online media has proven how fast creative ideas can be spread and adopted, using tools like cellphones, digital cameras, micro-credit, mobile banking, Facebook, and Twitter. A perfect example? The way the Green Movement in Iran cau...
I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Christianity, you must be some kind of Sunday-school te...
I was writing short films and I was going through this really, really, really terrible end of a relationship that I didn't want to be going through. It was too much for me to process and all of a sudden I had this idea for my first feature film and I...
When I was pregnant, I had the romantic idea that after the baby was born I would not only take up reading in earnest again, but also write a novel while my daughter slept in her Moses basket. Of course, I barely had time to keep up with my magazines...
I've always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.
People's mouse clicks decide what businesses, services, and content succeed. Users have equal access to tiny businesses with viral ideas and blue-chip companies, allowing these enterprises to compete on their own merits. It's how so many small start-...
At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, af...
When you get quick fame and success and exposure, it makes you feel dizzy, and I didn't want to lose my balance 'cause that's something I've been struggling with for so many years. I'm not fond of the idea of making it in Hollywood. That's not my aim...
White folks, no matter how well-meaning or open-minded, have no true idea what it's like to be black in America. That's not a slam against white people or an accusation of latent bigotry. But the fact is that we all live in an Anglo-dominated society...
Virtual worlds are going to be a major disruptive element for mainstream society. The idea is that you might interact with other people in a manner that is virtually face-to-face. Each person could be anywhere in the world, but they interface with th...
America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society - in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration ...
But I love the idea - whether it's in my work or where I live - exploring new frontier, and I like putting myself in strange places and trying to survive and figure things out and gather up an infrastructure. I like knowing that I could figure out a ...
I think it sits quite happily with me, the condition of being an actor. I see some people getting quite eaten up with it, with the insecurities. There are times when I long for continuity and stability, but I also love the idea of not knowing what I'...
