The Tea Party people say they're angry about socialism, but maybe they're really angry about capitalism. If there's a sense of being looked down upon, it's that sense of failure that's built into a system that assures everyone they can make it to the...
Cheerfully fessing up to our failures turns crazy mind off, humility and compassion on. I learned this in a karate dojo that had a strange tradition. Everyone there loved recounting failure stories, and after an evening of smacking one another, we'd ...
'You have chickens?' That's what nearly everyone asks next, after they find out about our family pets. They just need to make sure they heard me correctly. Perhaps it's because I don't come across to most as a rural-loving farm girl.
Back in the old days, when I was a child, we sat around the family table at dinner time and exchanged our daily experiences. It wasn't very organized, but everyone was recognized and all the news that had to be told was told by each family member. We...
Headwise, I always kind of knew that everyone goes grey in our family very early - and I was like, it works for me. I started growing my beard, and it changes the shape of your skull and your face, and I started seeing my mother's side of the family ...
My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn't have any money, because Africa was the 'dark continent', and because I was a girl.
The piano has disappeared from working-class family life, which is a shame. It's associated with the middle classes now. Everyone in my family sang and played piano, but my parents were delighted and amazed when I became the first professional perfor...
I come from a coffee-loving family, and you can always tell when my sister and I have been around, because both of us collect all the dead coffee from everyone's morning cup, pour it over ice, and drink it. This is a disgusting habit.
There isn't a lot of work in Australia. I think that's why everyone comes over to America to find jobs and pilots and things, because there's not enough work to justify staying there, unfortunately. Like, I wish there was. I would love to stay home a...
I think if you put people in front of some huge temptation where it's possible to grab as much as they can for themselves, almost everyone will. The beauty of commerce is that it mutes that. The chap behind the counter in the corner shop has no inter...
I know this president. And I can tell you that he cares deeply about the next generation of young women in this country - his daughters, and everyone's daughters. President Obama had the courage to stand with Sandra Fluke. Without hesitation, he defe...
I think people who are not rich can be extremely happy. And I think the chances to be happy in this new world - with many more opportunities to be creative, to be online, to educate yourself - there'll be a lot more chances to be happy. It's not to s...
I'm sorry to bang on about it because I know everyone is, but Bryan Cranston in 'Breaking Bad' is remarkable. To see him switch from 'Malcolm in the Middle' to suddenly become Walter White is incredible. It's a) nice to see an actor given that chance...
Because everyone in the world has the power to edit, Wikipedia has long been plagued by the so-called edit war. This is like a house where the husband wants it warm and the wife wants it cool and they sneak back and forth adjusting the thermostat at ...
So you wake up this morning and find you're president of the United States. Pretty cool, no? Helicopters and a 747 at your disposal; courtside seats at any NBA playoff game of your choice; everyone stands up and the band plays when you come into the ...
I think, as most of us do, I put such high expectations on myself that this spills over onto other people. And not everyone is wired this way. Some people can shrug expectations off their shoulders like a cardigan, remaining cool and breezy. Others w...
Mysterious can be cool, if you're in Hollywood and everyone's happy. But it can be really bad if people perceive that the financial interests are adversarial, that there's money versus people. A lot of Goldman Sachs people went into government, so at...
I was in a really crummy pop-punk band. I think we did a whole bunch of Blink-182 covers, and we were on the fringe of losers and jocks. So we invited all the cool kids to come watch us play in our bass player's brother's bedroom. And it was terrible...
When you have girl children, they torture you! If at any moment of the day I ever think I'm remotely cool at all, which is hardly ever, I have two daughters who make sure that never happens. They say, 'Mom, you didn't really wear that?' And I say, 'Y...
I wrote 'Thelma & Louise' in 1988, and we shot it in 1990. Everyone kept saying, 'This is so groundbreaking... this is going to change the landscape,' but I don't see that result at all. When we saw some female studio executives, we were hopeful that...
I've had to change careers several times. Sometimes because my interests changed. Sometimes because all bridges have been burned beyond recognition, sometimes because I desperately needed money. And sometimes just because I hated everyone in my old c...
