I was actually picked on as a kid. I guess in high school it started to change for me. I guess being picked on made a lasting impression on me so I never - whenever somebody calls me handsome or anything like that, I never take it for granted. I appr...
There are myriad government programs out there to help small businesses. Few people use them effectively. The maze of information makes it difficult for any one person to understand it all, which often leads politicians, and citizens, too, to call fo...
Many Lexington natives believe they live in a special place, one impossible to leave. I'm not so sure about that - or it's more accurate to say I think a more general truth exists beneath it: the place you first call home stays with you always, wheth...
I've always really just liked football, and I've always devoted a lot of time to it. When I was a kid, my friends would call me to go out with them, but I would stay home because I had practice the next day. I like going out, but you have to know whe...
I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word 'home' has only one meaning: Iran. I suppose it's that way for everyone: Home is the place where one is b...
I remember when TiVO first came out I was all about TiVo. I came home and that thing was frozen, and I thought 'This is awful. This is the end of the world'. Then I unplugged it, and I plugged it back in, and still frozen. It was paralyzing. I called...
My days in hostel were tough. I was ragged by my seniors. We were asked to wash their dirty clothes, do their odd jobs, etc. When it came to eating, we would be often given burnt rotis and milk that had awful odour. But, never once did I call home. I...
'Northern Exposure.' I loved that show; I loved the way it was able to have episodes where somebody finds a woolly mammoth, he calls the museum in New York, they send a guy out, and the mammoth's gone because someone ate it. To me, that was everythin...
In chess, computers show that what we call 'strategy' is reducible to tactics, ultimately. It only looks creative to us. They are still just glorified cash registers. This should make us feel uncomfortable, whether or not we think computers will ever...
There was a time in L.A. when I drove to 7-Eleven to go grocery shopping, and I locked my keys in my car, which wasn't insured. My wallet was in there, and I couldn't call AAA, because I only had $7 in my bank account. It was one of those moments whe...
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.
When I was a teenager, I was an umpire for a competitive league for 8- to 9-year-olds. I was really bad at it because I didn't know all the rules, and all these kids were better athletes than me. I made a bad call, and this dad snapped on me. Then he...
I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called 'Rock Star,' which was really awesome. We were doing a son...
One of my dad's friends from the music industry came over to our house one time and heard me sing, and he said, 'She should audition for this role I have!' So I did! It was a movie called 'The Gospel,' which I did when I was five. That was when I was...
But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the cri...
My dad in particular I tend to use - I call him 'The Brain.' If he's accessible, I'd rather put it through his brain. My wife, Melissa, maintains that the closer he is in proximity to me, the less I think for myself. And I think she's actually correc...
When I got a call to do the voice of Johnny in an episode of 'American Dad' titled 'I Can't Stan You,' it was a great opportunity to be a part of a really funny cutting-edge show on television. I really got into the character, and I was able to do so...
I was 10, and I played Jim Hawkins in 'Treasure Island' at school, and this great Liverpudlian actor called Andrew Schofield - he was Johnny Rotten in 'Sid And Nancy' - came to watch it, and he had a word with my mum and dad afterwards and told them ...
In 1965, I went to what was called the worst Bihar famine in India, and I saw starvation, death, people dying of hunger, for the first time. It changed my life. I came back home, told my mother, 'I'd like to live and work in a village.' Mother went i...
I was destined to work with dying patients. I had no choice when I encountered my first AIDS patient. I felt called to travel some 250,000 miles each year to hold workshops that helped people cope with the most painful aspects of life, death and the ...
A lot of the stuff that's happening now, I can trace back to 'Death of a Salesman.' Francine Maisler, the casting director, saw 'Death of a Salesman' and called me in for 'Unbroken.' The casting director of 'Normal Heart' had seen 'Salesman' too. I l...
