Myths grow all the time. If I was to listen to the number of times I've thrown teacups then we've gone through some crockery in this place. It's completely exaggerated, but I don't like people arguing back with me.
I remember I had a fight with my friend when I touched a boy for the first time and I didn't tell her. She got mad with me, not because I didn't tell her but because I'd done it in the first place.
My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.
If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft.
Once I could drive, I spent all my time in the city going to metal shows. I missed the first couple of Metallica shows because I was lame. By the time I got into them, they were playing places like the Kabuki.
People just don't sit down and just watch TV at night. Between cellphones, television, video games, the Internet and instant messaging, people are just spending their time in different places.
Since women ask me about male motives all the time, I can offer a bit of advice. If you feel like you're going to get hurt then you shouldn't be there in the first place. That's the way I look at relationships.
Every bit of our lives revolves around how we get from one place to another and how long it's going to take to get there and what time of day you have to leave to do it.
A period of time is as much an organising principle for a work of fiction as a sense of place. You can do geography, as Faulkner did, or you can dwell on a particular period. It provides the same framework.
I'm really looking forward to playing in Copenhagen again. Last time I stayed as long as I could, took pictures, signed autographs, and hung out until they through me out of the place!
I said a long time ago that Foursquare can make cities better. You have these augmented realities like Foursquare and Twitter and Facebook that provide these virtual nodes and instant feedback from anywhere, adding annotation around a physical places...
The very first time I did standup, I went to an open mike on the Lower East Side at a place that doesn't exist anymore. And it was one of those open mikes that wasn't really just for comedy.
And so, little by little, I gradually divested myself of pretty nearly all of the guest conducting I used to do, because I was at the same time working in the places like the Met, where I could work in this sort of depth.
Directors didn't know what to do with me in college. I didn't really sound like a belter. I didn't look like a soprano. But in New York, I was in the right place at the right time, where my unusualness fit the bill.
By relying on the statistical information rather than a gut feeling, you allow the data to lead you to be in the right place at the right time. To remain as emotionally free from the hurly burley of the here and now is one of the only ways to succeed...
The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say - or their beliefs - or sex.
I think any journalist who spends time in a place realizes that there are lots of stories around beyond their primary story. You meet so many interesting people and have all kinds of experiences.
Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career.
I've always set my stories in places I know well. It frees me up to spend more imaginative time on the characters if I'm not worrying about the logistics.
Lanai at one time grew 98% of the world's pineapples. But the world's pineapples are now grown in two places, Costa Rica and Panama, because no one wants to spend $45 for a pineapple from the United States.
The first time I ever got up on a stage, I did a comedy poem. I don't know how I got there in the first place because I was very, very shy.
