But if you really love to write and you really love to tell stories and you really love to draw, you just have to keep doing it no matter what anybody says.
When the news wants to tell you something is important, they put dramatic theme music behind it. They scare you into watching the story.
I can travel with music. I close my eyes, and I can travel all over the world with music. And one after another, stories come to me, and I just record them.
Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience.
I always tell people I write songs, but I'm a writer. It's a difference. I can write songs to music, but I can write a story. I can see ideas spark in me.
I've always been drawn to stories and telling them; whether it was through being a part of theater when I was a little kid, or film, or with music, there's just been an innate desire to feel that connection.
I was too restless as a boy to sit through an entire mass. It was akin to aversion training. I looked at it like a puppet show with a totally predictable story line. The only aspect I really liked was the music.
It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.
One of the things that helps me tell a story through music is to create a character. I have to have a muse, whether it's Frida Kahlo, Martha Graham, Marlene Dietrich, or Pippi Longstocking.
When I was very little my mother would read to me in bed. She gave me a fascination for stories, and for the music in words.
I believe that filmmakers have to internalize the story and subtext so well that all of the departments can start to speak to each other - that music can speak to cinematography can speak to writing and back again.
Jewish comedy doesn't come out of nothing. Jewish music doesn't come out of nothing... I don't want to be part of a story where Jews are just victims or bullies - and I'm not saying that's what the Israelis are.
I was proud to share the stories of my friends at Georgetown Law who have suffered dire medical consequences because our student insurance does not cover contraception for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.
You know the stories of a woman saying to Churchill, 'Sir, you're drunk,' and he said to her, 'And you're ugly, but in the morning I'll be sober.' I was really excited to do that scene, but I did get slapped.
The first information I consume in the morning is probably 'The New York Times' and then my Twitter feed. I think Twitter is a really fascinating, easy way to stay on top of what stories are out there.
The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other mens lives.
The big moment for me was making 'All the President's Men'. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story?
My mom has a tape from when I was, like, 2 years old, talking with my grandma, telling her a story that's really elaborate about werewolves and wolves.
I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing 'Maria' from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.
I'd been writing stories since I was a child. I wrote little books for my mom and bound them myself with needle and thread. Mostly, they were about my pets.
I've always thought of, of a relationship with an actor to an audience as a marriage, you know. And a story, you know. And there are ups and downs, and you work through them, and you work with them.
