In 2001, I moved from Philly to Atlanta, where I lived for six years. I had never lived anywhere but Philly, and you can imagine the culture shock; the Civil War seeps into daily life and conversation down South in a way it never does up North.
I say all the time I think there should be some courses in the regular schooling system that isn't, even like about credit, things that matter later in life. I learned the harder way: 'Look, I got a $500 credit card in the mail, let's go shopping!'
Remember that you don't choose love; love chooses you. All you really can do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing then reach out and give it away.
Breaking up is the hardest thing we do. It's the most important thing we do, in a way. You've got to embrace rejection, or you'll maintain a very limited life. It'll be very nice and neat - and very, very small.
I'm into clothes, but in a way that's related to wanting to walk into a film noir movie. You know, I love to go to vintage stores, but mostly it's stuff that I don't have anywhere to wear... I don't have the life that goes with the clothes.
I once knew a house rather like The Land of Smiles - an old house occupied by a varied collection of young people, mainly students. However none of these people were true models for the characters in the book, though their way of life may have been.
I'd love to go and I'd love to play for my country and go to a World Cup again. I've got to accept I'm not in the current squad and just think, 'If I get it, it's a bonus and I'll give it everything.' But it's hard to do when you've been thinking a d...
There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.
Since I've been in an actor, I've lived in Italy, in London, in Stockholm - I had the fortune of working in different locations. If you live someplace long enough, you acquire slightly different systems of thought, and it influences your outlook on l...
I read The Bell Jar, and then I read her memoir and her diaries, and a third book, an outside opinion. Just the way she made the pillows so neat on the oven door. It just seems to be the opposite of, if you're going to take your life, in a horrible r...
There's no way I can represent for everyone. I can't represent for all women or all big women or all black women. It's important for people not to make celebrities their source of who they should be in life. I can't take on the pressure of being perf...
I lived in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s. It was, for a Westerner, pretty idyllic. There were the religious police; there were the rules; there were the prayer times. But it was as if we were existing in two separate universes. The Westerners were j...
I think that we all stand on the dartboard of life. Roughly 30,000 people a year are going to catch a dart labeled pancreatic cancer, and that's unfortunate. It's not what I would have chosen. But I in no way feel like I deserved it.
There is something at work that's bigger than us. It's about having a trust in life and being at peace that things are happening the way they should. You do what you do as well as you can do it, and then you don't worry or agonize about the outcome.
Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves - so how can we know anyone e...
After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in the way life is thrust at you. So I started making films.
I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wro...
The industrial way we fish for seafood is harming the marine habitats that all ocean life depends upon. Indiscriminate commercial fishing practices that include miles of driftnets, long lines with thousands of lethal hooks and bottom trawls are ruini...
You don't have to travel, but I find extended travel to be a helpful tool for reexamining yourself and the constraints you've artificially placed on your life. It's easy to believe everything has to be done one way if you're always in one place aroun...
Ordinarily during the stage of your life when you're going through your adolescence and you're completely awkward and uncomfortable, the rest of the world isn't watching you with bated breath. It's different when you're an actor and you choose to wor...
One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.
