The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about...
A lot of people say television holds up a mirror to life, and that's why you see all the drug busts and the killings and the seamier side of life. I personally take the view that it's not sufficient to portray only negative role models. It's not enou...
With an undefended heart, we can fall in love with life over and over every day. We can become children of wonder, grateful to be walking on earth, grateful to belong with each other and to all of creation. We can find our true refuge in every moment...
When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early 'Saturday Night Live' guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.
What, of course, we want in a university is for people to learn the skills they're going to need outside the classroom. So, having a system that had more emphasis on inquiry and exploration but also on learning and practising specific skills would fi...
Young children seem to be learning who to share this toy with and figure out how it works, while adolescents seem to be exploring some very deep and profound questions: 'How should this society work? How should relationships among people work?' The e...
I'm always going to be making costumes. It's one of the ways I relax my brain. In addition to the pleasure of having the piece, there is a deep and abiding pleasure for me assembling something in my head - learning to know something in its totality i...
Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But b...
Learning lessons is a little like reaching maturity. You're not suddenly more happy, wealthy, or powerful, but you understand the world around you better, and you're at peace with yourself. Learning life's lessons is not about making your life perfec...
My advice to an aspiring actor would be to never stop learning or working for what you want. Nothing comes easy, ever, if you want something, you have to work for it. By working for it I mean work on your craft, learn from people who have something t...
This much I have learned: human beings come with very different sets of wiring, different interests, different temperaments, different learning styles, different gifts, different temptations. These differences are tremendously important in the spirit...
The bulk of my learning - if I may call it such - has come within the past three months, after I became a part of the fragile body of patients who make up an AIDS hospice. Here, surrounded by teams of supportive nurses, attentive doctors, and interns...
You can always tell gifted and highly intelligent people as they always turn to the past. Any young person who knows anything that happened before 1980, or 1990, or 2000 for that matter, is immediately someone who is intelligent, probably creative, m...
It's hard to imagine anything more interesting than learning how we're woven into the enormous tapestry of existence. Where did our universe come from? How special is our world, and how special are we? We allocate tens of billions of dollars annually...
I became obsessed with making more and more tiny things. I think I was trying to find a way of compensating for my embarrassment at having learning difficulties: people had made me feel small so I wanted to show them how significant 'small' could be.
You know, I still love the innocent parts of the game. I love hitting tennis balls. I love seeing the young guys do well. I'll still have a lot of friends to watch. I'll miss the relationships probably the most. As time passes, I'll probably miss the...
There isn't any one material that's mine. It all depends on the context. For example, I did a house that had the most exquisite marble applications. That sounds ostentatious, but it wasn't, given the context. The color white I subscribe to extensivel...
A standard sitcom... is a very standard idea, like these people falling in love and living with each other, and all these people living with each other. It's like, okay, we hooked them up in episode 15, how do we bust that, how do we find a new kerne...
I say to people who care for people who are dying, if you really love that person and want to help them, be with them when their end comes close. Sit with them - you don't even have to talk. You don't have to do anything but really be there with them...
It's one thing if you live in London and you're rooting for Chelsea or you're in New York and you love the Giants or Jets and no matter who's on the team you're into it. It's different in tennis; you're sort of your own guy, so you have to reach out ...
For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.
