Throughout my years of public service, I've listened to the voices of the gay and lesbian community, whether through whispered confidences or public declarations. I understand what it truly means to say that all people should be treated equally, and ...
I am on a mission to spread more love on this planet. It is shocking to me to see how little attention to spreading love there is. I will not rest until I am the AMBASSADOR FOR LOVE for the United Nations. It is time to give love its voice, its place...
We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other. When Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people ...
Why did Google, for example, recently decide to offer free 411 service? I haven't talked to people at Google, but it's pretty clear to me why. It's because of speech recognition. It has nothing to do with 411 service: it has to do with getting a data...
There are two kinds of people,’ she’d said. ‘Those who coast through life like ducks in a row, following one after the other, and those who ride the waves.’” Tears spilled down my cheeks, and my voice cracked. “‘Ride the waves, baby, an...
Only two things change when you get older: the energy in your voice and the time of night you feel it's appropriate to call someone. In your 20s, people call at 2 a.m. and yell, 'Are you up?' into the answering machine. Now, someone calls after 8 p.m...
I was the singing voice of a cartoon character. I did dog food commercials. I did a lot of commercials, actually, and helped pay my rent and my classes. Then I'd get one good line or two good scenes. I was building my career and building my own exper...
I have such happy memories of performing in a choir and I don't think I'd have got where I am today without all that experience. So my advice to young singers is to either join your school or church's choir or find one in your local area. Choral musi...
I have a very personal feeling about how special America is, and I know how precious freedom is. It is a sacred gift, sanctified by those who have lived it and those who have died defending it. My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what s...
If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations ha...
Any kind of creativity is not settling down into a happy little space. I don't try to be mellow or anything. I think I have quite... my voice is what it is, no matter what I'm singing, it's always going to sound like me. There's not too far I could g...
I used to be really nervous when I sang. Like, when I was a kid starting young, 18 and 19, and my dad really had to sort of push me to start singing in front of people. Ever since I got out there and really started doing it, the only thing I've ever ...
I didn't want to be short. I've tried to pretend that being a short guy didn't matter. I tried to make up for being short by affecting a strut, by adopting the voice of a much bigger man, by spending more money than I made, by tipping double or tripl...
I am involved with 'Write Girl,' which is such a great organization, because they go into inner city schools and work with underprivileged girls to pair them up with other writers. And it gets them learning to express themselves and become familiar w...
When I write stuff and I help cast it, I turn away good people all the time. I may turn them down because this one's too tall and that one doesn't have a high enough voice or this one looks to old to match up with that one - there's a billion reasons...
When I read James Joyce, I'm not really interested in the Dublin of 1904. I'm interested in being in the presence of a voice and a sensibility underpinned by an authenticity which, I think, if you're a good writer, you can extract from the specific d...
A lot of music fans are still interested in insightful perspectives on music - maybe even more interested than ever, since everyone needs help making sense of the incredible variety of sounds that have sprung up in the wake of the Internet revolution...
Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautif...
Thomas, my 15-year-old, is effectively my editor, I've always trusted his voice, more than anybody, on the strip for years. He has one of those ears that's just tuned to the rhythm of humor, so if he says something's not funny, my stomach just hurts ...
I go into the Hebrew Scriptures frequently, looking for different ways in which minority voices have expressed the reality of God, and I find them. God is the wind in the Hebrew tradition, the life-giving, animating wind that gets identified with spi...
I really like playing other people. There is no other feeling like it, to have a different voice come out of you and to have a different life for a couple of hours. I like being myself. But maybe it's like you ride a bike every day and someone says, ...
