I've stayed calm when I'm winning and I've stayed calm when I've lost. Tennis is a sport where we have a lot of tournaments every week, so you can't celebrate a lot when you have big victories, and you cannot get too down when you're losing, as in a ...
I was writing full time after quitting a job as a high school English teacher, and I hadn't been able to sell anything, and my bank account was down to zero, and all of my friends were like 'What are you doing in the basement, when are you going to g...
How could I share with you how I felt when two towers that I loved, two pieces of steel and glass and concrete fell down, when actually they took with them thousands of human lives? That is the actual tragedy. But those towers were almost human for m...
I am fascinated by the places that music comes from, like fife-and-drum blues from southern Mississippi or Cajun music out of Lafayette, Louisiana, shape-note singing, old harp singing from the mountains - I love that stuff. It's like the beginning o...
I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go g...
I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 ...
I went whale-watching, and I was really looking forward to that, but when you see it on TV and you see other programs do it, you're seeing close-ups of these massive creatures, and the music that's added gives you a certain feeling. But in reality, y...
I definitely shut down sometimes. I always just go into my own little cocoon and write, and I surround myself with as much music as possible. The last girlfriend I had, when we broke up, I remember being in a room for days on days on days with my mus...
I'm active even on bad days; it's tough to pin me down. People ask me if I'm a morning or night person. I'm an all-the-time person. I like drinking coffee, but I do it with lots of milk because my energy levels are high even without caffeine. You cou...
When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa...
I made an awful mess of my first marriage. It was hard to live with me being me. I was so abnormal. I mean, most writers struggle. I hadn't struggled. I couldn't suddenly go down to the PEN Club and behave like a normal human being, because most of t...
I don't stop. It's my nature. People have to tell me to slow down. I plan on playing every role on Broadway. I want to do 'Evita.' I want to do 'Sweeney Todd' with Chris Colfer. We want to do 'Wicked.' I'll be Elphaba and he wants to play 'Guy-linda....
[on Dave's return to the ship, after HAL has killed the rest of the crew] HAL: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
Mortimer Brewster: Aunt Abby, how can I believe you? There are twelve men down in the cellar and you admit you poisoned them. Aunt Abby Brewster: Yes, I did. But you don't think I'd stoop to telling a fib.
Mortimer Brewster: [watching the fighting, lighting up a cigarette] Go on - fight, fight. I don't care. Mortimer Brewster: [watching the police trying to bring down Jonathan with a shoe] Oh, don't do that. It never works. Mortimer Brewster: [Jonathan...
Dr. Einstein: You shouldn't have killed him. Just because he know something about us, what happens? Jonathan Brewster: We come to him for help, and he tries to shake us down. Besides, he said I looked like Boris Karloff!
Aladdin: [picking up the lamp] This is it? This is what we came all the way down here to... [sees Abu take a ruby] Aladdin: Abu! Nooo! Cave of Wonders: Infidels! Abu the Monkey: Uh-oh. Cave of Wonders: [thundering] You have touched the forbidden trea...
Rose: [after Charlie checks the boat for damage after going down a rather rough set of rapids] Could you see anything, dear? Charlie Allnut: Yeah. The shaft's twisted like a corkscrew and there's a blade gone off the prop. Rose: We'll have to mend it...
Richard Jeffries: You know, a lot of kids don't want to leave their first home, because they're afraid that if they do, their parents won't be able to find them. I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen to you. [cut to August, who has tears running ...
Grimes: Why aren't you shooting? Waddell: We're not being shot at yet. Grimes: How can you tell? Waddell: A hiss means it's close. A snap means... [a bullet whizzes close by] Waddell: Now they're shooting at us! [they begin returning fire]
[after Eversmann debriefs his chalk on Wolcott's crashed helicopter] Nelson: How come I gotta stay back here? Eversmann: Because you're dependable. Nelson: [to Twombly after Eversmann, Wadell, Schmid, and Galentine head for the crash site] I hate bei...