I'm probably one of the worst actors as far as preparation goes, because I actually don't prepare. I find it easier to read the script and whatever hits me in my stomach, like deep down, I just go with it. And the director kind of molds me whether to...
When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.
What I have said to my team is that at a point such as this, with 40% adjustment in our currency, it means that Malawians are paying the price. While that is going on, they need to see, us, the commitment on our part, particularly right at the top. T...
And I've tried to give us a higher profile. Typically, at a board meeting, we'd pass resolutions about the civil-rights issue of the day, but we'd never tell anyone. So I've instituted a policy of announcing our resolutions at the end of our meetings...
I was never confident about finishing a book, but friends encouraged me. When I finished my first book, it was accepted by a publisher right away and became an instant bestseller. One male critic called it the most shocking book he ever read.
When I was at drama school in the U.K., I was there for two and a half years, and we did one week of television and film. It's right before you leave. It's like, 'We've taught you Chekhov and Shakespeare; you are likely to be in a washing-up soap-liq...
The rise of African nations concurrent with the spread of the Nation of Islam and the civil rights movement gave black America a burst of pride over and above anything they had had since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvey.
That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the ra...
I know I'm not a coal miner, but I do long hours and I never complain, and there is nowhere else I'd rather be. So, yeah, that's how I'd define myself. I want to do it right, and prove people wrong once and for all about the myth of child stars.
I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, 'Oh, that's the hook right there,' I'll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.
There's something about Barack Obama that induces Americans to imagine what they cannot see. The Right envisions a vile socialist, while many on the Left picture an inspired liberal, politically restrained in his first term but now free to pursue his...
You can't put the Hollywood sign in a movie without paying them. That is a landmark in L.A. I'm sorry, remove it from our skyline, then. You know? How dare they. That should be public domain, right? But it's privately owned, and they enforce that. Th...
We learned a verse of this and that and we were having fun with the songs. Tommy would make up stories to go along with them and I would yell at him, 'Hey, stupid, that's not right,' and he was like a silly kid trying to impress.
...life - whatever else it is - is short... maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open.
My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.
We are built to desire free will and to choose our own destiny. It's not about being right or wrong; it's about the celebration of life, your free will. The human spirit must constantly be fed. It is what makes us survive.
They don't know how the world is shaped. And so they give it a shape, and try to make everything fit it. They separate the right from the left, the man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They only want to count to two.
I think I have the right to know what Steve Forbes paid in taxes - I don't think there should be a law. I think there should be a presumption. I wouldn't vote for a guy who wouldn't reveal what he paid in taxes. That kind of thing.
The very old and the very young have something in common that makes it right that they should be left alone together. Dawn and sunset see stars shining in a blue sky; but morning and midday and afternoon do not, poor things.
I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.
As someone who struggles with anxiety and cowardice, as we all do, I’m profoundly inspired by. . . . full-on commitment to wonder, to wonder as a response to anguish or difficulty. It makes everything a puzzle, right? A catastrophe is nothing but a...
