I often thought I was in the wrong business. I was pretty seriously thinking of tossing it in before I shot Shine. I do not know why. I was pretty restless, I had been through a bad period of stress induced anxiety - panic attacks - and I was not sur...
Over the years I always did some water colors, and I did a series of pictures of drawings. I always did it during a period of time that was slow in the photo business, but in essence it was always frustrating because I'd get started, and then it woul...
One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil,...
There was a period in my life when I would say no, and I didn't know why I was saying no. In most cases, it was out of fear, just trying to be safe. Because 'no' will keep you safe. 'No' won't draw attention to you. But all the cool things are on the...
If you judge by what people do to improve their health, they value their lives highly. So adding to your period of vitality is something that most people would certainly do. If there was a pill that would do that, it's clear that everyone would take ...
Every hope of successive generations of scholars that order might be constructed from the chaotic mess of medical nomenclature has been frustrated. Even diseases recognized in the same historical period have been given names based on characteristics ...
You can't sit down and write 300 compositions in a three-month period and think that you're doing it all by yourself. Obviously, there's something going on here. And whether you want to call it channeling or being connected to a creative force or kno...
Just as our solar system has a certain idiosyncratic assortment of planets and moons, different from any neighboring system yet categorically equivalent, so each distinct period of human history might have special qualities and individuals, character...
I started with the book 'Boardwalk Empire' and then immersed myself in the history of Atlantic City, World War I, the temperance movement, Prohibition, pop culture. I even read the news and magazines of the period just to soak in it. That was before ...
I love to have real people of history interact with my fictional characters. History gives me the plot. I research the period meticulously, and then I blend in a romantic and sensual love story to give it balance. The heavier the history, the more ro...
I have always been drawn to the Restoration period of Charles II. I have a soft spot for Charles Stuart, who was always loving and kind to the opposite sex. The members of his court were fascinating, and Barbara Castlemaine was one of the greatest co...
Going through the grief period of my dad and losing him - that was the worst thing because you know when you get that call. When you are seven, eight years old, you have that almost vision in your mind of what that's going to be like and what your go...
I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whol...
My theory is that literature is essential to society in the way that dreams are essential to our lives. We can't live without dreaming - as we can't live without sleep. We are 'conscious' beings for only a limited period of time, then we sink back in...
I do think that a school day that matches the work day makes a lot of difference for working families, but the big driver of this effort is education. Period. We have a lot of students not gaining the skills they need, and it is pretty clear that sch...
IT is mere coincidence that Cooper was born in the year which produced The Power of Sympathy and that when he died Uncle Tom's Cabin was passing through its serial stage, and yet the limits of his life mark almost exactly the first great period of Am...
One of the things that always fascinated me about the Renaissance was that it was a time both of great scientific discovery and also of superstition and belief in magic. And so it was a period in which Galileo invented the telescope, but also a time ...
We never thought we were writing for posterity, because at the time everyone assumed that all the great standards had already been written by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein... The songs we were writing were supposed to be tempora...
I have plenty of dream roles because there is so much I want to do, but my dream year would be to be in a single-camera comedy and then, on my hiatus, film a little low-budget indie drama. That would be a dream 12-month period. A dream role depends o...
If you're in a diabetic or prediabetic state, it's good to have medication to go on for a period of time. But simply by making the changes - get your sleep, 35 grams of fiber and a half-hour walk - your cholesterol will come down, your sugar will com...
Actually, with 'Truth of Touch' I wasn't even intending on making an album. I was just having fun. I had about a six-month period of down time, and I'm not very good at sitting around. So I kind of started going into the studio and having fun with ne...
