I haven't lived in Sweden since I was a teenager. We lived in southern Sweden, about two hours north of Copenhagen, where my family's home base has been since 1970. Our parents bought a schoolhouse in preparation for self-sufficient living. They want...
I don't think anyone who has been to Africa comes away untouched by the place. You see a lot of beauty and optimism, but you also come away with an awareness of the huge gulf between what most of us have and what most of them have to make do with. Th...
Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is s...
I work in a business environment forty hours a week, and writing is what I do to unwind. It allows me to transport myself to a happy place where I can indulge my hopes, beliefs, aspirations and fantasies. It also allows me to live and breathe a topic...
Every night, half an hour before curtain up, the bells of St. Malachy's, the Actors' Chapel on New York's 49th Street, peal the tune of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' If you walk the streets of the theatre district before a show and see th...
Here's an irony of the history of conservatism's relationship with business and business's relationship with conservatism: 'Wall Street' used to be the right-wing industrialists of the forties and fifties' greatest term of derision. (Wall Street was ...
I'm not averse to making a lot of money. But where does that end? I hang out with people with hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that the standard by which I should measure myself? Where does that take you if you're in my business? I think it takes ...
You travel with the hope that something unexpected will happen. It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well where I'm going, or when I've lived in a place so ...
What's been nice is that I've been able to direct from a very idealistic place. I've never had to make my living as a director, which gave me a chance to choose material I feel passionate about. The directing allows me to not have to grab any acting ...
I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance, and I've had them leap out of a lavatory while I...
If you put a woman in prison for four years when she's young and make her pay her time in a horrible place and she wants to come out and work, and become a mother and be a contributor to society and pay taxes and you never give her that chance. There...
I always say that polo, for you to pursue a career, mainly any sport, you have to be born in the right place. If you're born in Hawaii, you surf. If you're born in Austria, you probably will ski. If you're born in Argentina, you most likely ride hors...
When you're picking up and moving, it does create... well, I can sleep anywhere, which is really useful, it turns out, on movie sets. But what it really does is teach you how to adapt and change and fit into a new group or school, and that really is ...
I used to write travel essays, and I was struck by how the fact of writing about a place would change my relationship with it. I would make completely different choices, do things I wouldn't have normally, because I had to fill this narrative shape.
We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for people have been th...
No one is better placed or more philosophically suited than Obama to construct the new counter narrative as we go forward in our new New Deal. But many masters of the old universe, including quite possibly his chief economic adviser, can't recognize ...
Not only have I made films about the subject, but I've largely funded them on my own, so I'm fully committed to doing whatever I can to change the audience's respect and appreciation for the ocean. In 100 years I want whales, dolphins and sharks to s...
If you'd like to watch less television, try putting the remote away in a very inconvenient place and making yourself put it away every time you use it. If it's a big pain to turn on the TV and to change channels, you might find yourself drifting to o...
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contem...
I find motion, literally, is where ideas come from. It's almost like a built-in rhythm section. The contents of the songs are about change, and a lot of that stuff happens when you're on tour, and you wake up and you're in a different place and you s...
I'm confident in who I am. I've come to a place in my life where I've accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That's just the way I've always tried to be. It didn't change when I became a sta...
