The weird thing about this business - and I'm sure this operates in many other things, but it's very present and acute in this business - is that a lot of people don't realize that they have power. Particularly actors.
My goal in the beginning was to buy my mother a house. Now I realize, okay, if I really focus and become a key player in business, then I can build an empire.
Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies.
The work that must be done for each woman to reconnect with her psyche and to give herself a chance to live her own life is essentially the same. The realization of the equality of all races, the equality of all beings is essential.
Just to be around that, to feel a part of it and be able to integrate the experience while I was with the Messengers, of going and playing gigs with other drummers, gave me the chance to realize that it was not just me that was making it happen.
After the brain tumor happened, I realized I love acting, I've always loved it, I may never get a chance to do it again.
I love contrast in music. Being inspired by classical, actually - in high school especially - classical and metal both, I remember having this cool realization that they are really similar. It's just different instrumentation.
Being on Oprah? You realize that there are a couple of types of audience members. There are like the cult people in the audience who are just crying before she gets on. And then there are the people who are playing it cool. I definitely was somewhere...
All I know is that I've ruled out wearing fairy wings. When I was nine I wanted to get married in fairy wings, and now I realize that's not cool anymore.
As a kid, I loved going to lots of thrift stores with my parents. There was a period where I thought it was embarrassing, and then I started to get older - I realized they were really cool.
Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.
When I got the money, the whole burden descended on me, and the realization of what I had done. And it led me then to make the further step, a change of loyalties.
I think as you get older, you realize there's always going to be critics. Critics are going to win every time because they can change their critique based on the stats and their own personal feelings.
When you have a tough loss, go through it and agonize. I had one loss that I still want to change, but at the same time I realize it is an important part of who I am.
Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you.
I understand why so many Americans were angry when I was first discovered in Afghanistan. I realize many still are, but I hope in time that feeling will change.
Music moves society more than most people realize. In my opinion, it's a soft manipulator of influence and change.
Prior to SunRun, I was headed toward a career in venture capital and then realized I wanted to apply my knowledge of finance more directly to helping change the world.
Before, Indian people had been so defeated, they were always looking for outsiders, for the government, to somehow come in and fix things. But now, they seem to realize that they're the only ones who can save themselves.
Anyone who saw Nagasaki would suddenly realize that they'd been kept in the dark by the United States government as to what atomic bombs can do.
The mentality in Washington is, 'Look what our government - what our government can do for the American people.' We've got to get away from that mentality, and realize it's too expensive. We can't afford it.
