How one can live without being able to judge oneself, criticize what one has accomplished, and still enjoy what one does, is unimaginable to me.
Everyone here says in a surprised manner that I have grown... they are so stupid and do not notice that I am standing up straighter!
Like most parents, I think, my children have been the source of some of my most intense joys and despairs, my deepest moral dilemmas and greatest moral achievements.
It turns out that popularity is scary. I don't feel comfortable receiving so much attention from people; perhaps that's because I'm just a kampong boy.
I loved Stephen Wright, and I loved Mitch Hedberg, but they seemed like geniuses you could never emulate. You'd just be ripping them off.
I do not feel certain until I have confronted my initial solution with other solutions - although in fact the first solution often proves to be the right one.
In a way, the sense of quality has improved, the status symbol of the small things is gone, and it is acceptable to use stainless steel, even if the neighbour uses silver.
All the knowing ones were consulted as to the issue, and they all agreed, to a man, in one of two opinions: either that Bob would flog Billy, or Billy would flog Bob.
This is the world. Half of it is lit by the sun and the other half remains in darkness. It is the same with life. There is good and bad and it's our duty to remain in the light, be good.
People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way - quite suddenly - to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.
I think when you look at architectural photography it doesn't help to have piles of old clothes lying on the floor. Architectural photography sets up an artifice.
I have been talking nonstop about the symbolism of an edible landscape at the White House. I think it says everything about stewardship of the land and about the nourishment of a nation.
Everything tastes better with butter. Meat that has fat in it is tender in a certain way, flavorful in a certain way. It's hard to deny the flavor quotient there.
In Berkeley, we built the garden and a kitchen classroom. We've been working on it for 12 years. We've learned a lot from it. If kids grow it and cook it, they eat it.
I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn't exist.
I hate rats. I had a pet rat to try and overcome it. I even gave him mouth-to mouth resuscitation when he had a heart attack. But I couldn't conquer it.
Throughout my years championing for civil rights, analyzing politics and advocating on behalf of the voiceless, I am disturbed the most when harmless children suffer because of politics or detrimental policies.
A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.
I'm not a political person. When I start to get into it, it just upsets me. I feel so powerless when it comes to politics. So I've just decided to be non-political and very, very pro-soldier.
We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics.
I deliver very traditionally, and people aren't threatened. I think if I cursed or seemed wilder, I couldn't get away with the amount of very opinionated politics I get away with.
