The people who were in college in the '50s were my first real audience, and their kids, the people who found my records in the cabinet during their 'Mad 'magazine years picked me up also.
I try to keep my ear to the streets without sacrificing who I am as an artist. If a song needs a drum machine I'll use a drum machine. If it needs a drummer, I'll use a real drummer.
There's no secret about my ambition, I do not want to go into the House of Commons. My only real political interest is in London and if one day I'm in a position to run for mayor, then terrific.
Today, if you do put out a record on a label, traditionally, most people are going to hear it via a leak that happens two weeks - if not two months - before it comes out. There's no real way around that.
I grew up - for a while, the only show I could watch if I hadn't finished my homework was 'The Simpsons,' because I think my parents saw that there was some real-life lessons to take from that.
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.
You can demonize Goldman Sachs all you want, and I'm sure there are reasons to do it. But the real pressure is all of us pressuring the companies for stock returns, and that leads to all kinds of decisions.
You can let go of all that stuff you thought was real when you know it's just a game. What a relief, what a state of grace that brings.
I have written in my life many critical poems, but viewed in retrospect, they were merely a human harmless reflection, and not a true likeness of the real society of today.
When your whole system, your whole civilized system goes down, this is pretty much what you get left with. We have no communications, no running water, no electricity, no real help.
When I started to write realistic, real fiction, the voices that were the strongest for me - the characters that I heard, the people that I knew - were the ones from my childhood.
The real Stephen Colbert is a practicing Catholic. He teaches Sunday school. He can recite chapter and verse of chapter and verse - from both the King James Bible and 'The Lord of the Rings.'
I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have.
Unfortunately because of the variety of outlets for people to speak their minds on the Internet and that kind of thing, it's made the media in general more opinionated and there's more of a 'gotcha mentality' than real reporting.
I just try to keep the same people I've had around me from Day One. Keep it a real small circle because if you do that, not too much is going to go bad for you.
I'd rather have a real South Dakotan who has lived in this state and made her living here instead of someone with a fancy East Coast law degree any day.
We all have the best laid plans for our children, and they go and ruin it all by growing up any way they want to. What the hell was it all for, then? (Real Life and Liars)
While closing our innovation gaps won't solve all our problems, we have some very real opportunities to improve the quality of care that's delivered to millions of Americans.
My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!
Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world - if you build a solution to a problem lots of people have, it's so easy to sell your product to the world.
Buddhist mindfulness is about the present, but I also think it's about being real. Being awake to everything. Feeling like nothing can hurt you if you can look it straight on.
