Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What I enjoy doing more than anything is, I have my little antique car collection, and when the weather is pretty I like to get out one of my old cars. I have a little route I run down in the country, down Nachez Trace Parkway. The loop down through there is just really relaxing, not much traffic.
I want to be really special, I want to be really good. It's not enough to be famous for me. Famous is empty so quickly, it's not what people think it is. It's wonderful, but if you're famous and you feel that you're an artist inside and everyone thinks you're just a celebrity, it's really painful.
Balance is everything. And I'm not just speaking from a road perspective - even from home. My wife and I work out of the house and we always struggle to find that balance because when work is around you 24/7, it's easy to neglect the little things in life that really help us to rejuvenate or heal.
Some people I've talked to have had really an interpretation of this record as being nostalgic. But in some ways, when we were writing Stay Positive, I was really obsessed with age. I kept saying it was a record about trying to age gracefully. This record, I think actually was us aging gracefully.
'La Marseillaise' sounds best ringing around a packed sports stadium. Its lyrics evoke revolution, conflict, taking up arms, preparing for the fight - everything my music does not! Even in our largely peaceful times, it retains its rousing, martial air that gives it a power that hasn't diminished.
My first manager chose the name Engelbert Humperdinck for me. My real name is Arnold George Dorsey. It didn't really quite hit the entertainment industry the way it should have. But when my manager chose the name Engelbert Humperdinck, I had a hit record immediately, which was called 'Release Me.'
The '60s was a magical time in the music business. So much creativity and talent. I think a lot of it came from the fact that we had grown up before rock n' roll. We listened to all the great songwriters and big bands, songs with great lyrics and melodies. I think that really influenced everybody.
I have to believe that most people know that 'Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You' is my song. But the reaction we get from the audience at 'Jersey Boys' is that they didn't remember how many hits we had. A lot of 'Oh yeah, I forgot they did that song.' We had 20 Top 10 hits in the U.S... people forget.
I don't like being away from home. That's one reason why I don't work as much as I used to [when I started my career], because so many things are on the road. I just don't want to be away from my husband, my dogs and my home. I don't sing that much any more because that also takes you on the road.
I don't like to think of myself as an insincere person but if I say I love you and I don't mean it then what else am I? Will I cherish you, adore you, make way for you, make myself better for you, look at you and always see you, tell you the truth? And if love is not those things then what things?
Every successful business creates or provides something of value that other people want or need at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation.
With any actor, rather than tips, I think when you enjoy working with somebody and you enjoy what they do, I think your reaction is partly to be doing what they're doing, so you're learning all the time, whether it be sub-consciously or whether it be just through the person you enjoy working with.
My first job was singing at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was years ago, so I can't remember who I was performing with. I was a sort of anti-climax after two hours of heavy rock-'n'-roll. Seventeen years old in a white dress. It was the first time that I got applause. Wonderful, that noise in my ears.
I got involved in the underground world known as ballroom culture, and I used to walk a category called 'face,' and it was a very heavily Latino culture - it's black and Latino - and they used to call me 'cara,' which means face in Spanish, so I started putting 'cara' on everything: hats, jackets.
The idea is to encourage men to go with their wives and screen. So, if the wife is going to go and do her screening, then the man can go and do his baseline screening, too. Men need to be aware of the health of their bodies, as well - prostate cancer and breast cancer are almost on the same level.
'Billionaire' is basically about, you know, like 'Brewster's Millions.' It's me talking about what would happen if I would somehow manage to become a billionaire. What would I do with the money? Don't get it wrong, I'm far from a billionaire. I think I just made it out the 'thousandaire' category.
There are two things that matter when you're making music. First, that you're doing what you love, even if it's crazy and other people tell you it's crazy. The second thing is the only people you really need to worry about are the people who love your music, not the people who speak badly about it.
If I could be more vague I'd write more about people in my life, but I hate hurting feelings or making people feel uncomfortable. I've done that before. Unless they're sad songs. Those get finished fast, but the mean ones often end up at the back of the bottom drawer and it's probably for the best.
At the core of these movies, Saw One and Saw Two, it's a very real situation. A guy cheats on his wife and didn't value what he had. It's the same thing in my story. Being a dad and playing someone whose last words to his son were 'go to hell'. I say to my son, the last thing I say is 'I love you'.
I think America offers a dream that cannot be fulfilled as easily anywhere else in the world as it could be fulfilled here. Although oppression was common to all of us, those styles of oppression gave us the opportunity to see the world in dimensions we didn't quite see growing up in any one place.
I'm not quite sure precisely when social and political activism became a visible brand of my DNA, but it seems to me that I was born into it. It is hard to be born into the experience in the world of poverty and not develop some instinct for survival and resistance to those things that oppress you.
You have record companies that sign acts that they think are great, and then they never do anything. Acts that they don't think are really going to do much end up having a career. I don't think anyone really knows what it is that drives somebody to get on their computer and want to download a song.
Every day of your life, you change the world. Absolutely, yes, we're out to change the world. I mean, you change it whether you like it or not. You wake up and you talk to the grocer. You either kick your dog or you pet him. There's a million decisions you have every day where you change the world.
I think what's more important to The Prodigy is that, whatever number your album goes in at, or the single, or however many plays it gets, or doesn't get, or awards you get, or don't get; our reward, as a band, is to write the best album we can and then go to Download festival and rip it to pieces.
For a long time I wasn't happy, but that had nothing to do with Beyonce. That had to do with me trying to get my life in order and make better decisions for myself. I'm seeing all these wonderful things happen for her, and I am happy for her. But I want a path. I want things to pop off for me, too.
I trust God's timing. I'm a very spiritual person, and a lot of times, we want things on our time, and we come up with our own plans of what we want to do with our lives, but God be like, 'Haha, you're funny. That's cute. Anyways, this is what you're going to do,' and I've learned to just sit back.
This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know.
Piracy is important to talk about. It's harming the music industry. It hurts all of us. The public needs to understand every time they buy a pirated CD, they hurt the industry. The only ones who can change that are the fans and the people that buy CDs. It's everybody's responsibility to prevent it.
I prayed very hard for this to happen and it happened. I don't even think about what I've achieved, I haven't focused on it and I wish I had, because I really want to enjoy it, and I don't know if I am enjoying it, because I am going through my life like a bulldozer. I still haven't marveled at it.
When you make music you have to listen to people's opinions and keep working on your music. A lot of people will try to get you down because they don't realize how much you love it or maybe they are just jealous... Sure it will never be perfect, but never give up and work until you'll be satisfied!
I watch artists say they wrote all these songs and don't mention anybody else who was involved, and that's fine. I don't expect an artist to give me credit. I know that they're gonna take the credit for everything. But, it's my job to give myself that exposure and not make excuses, not grow bitter.
When anyone calls you out for something you have done in your life and you're just on a journey to be authentic, to live in your own skin better, man, it makes you feel extremely special. I think that any time you're making huge steps in your life - I always say I need lots of hugs to feel special.
Time and again, a student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worthwhile to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests, saying that if the student could give up her work on my advice, she had better give it up without it.
All of my music, my stage show, my personality, my blog, my twitter feed, anything that's made me me, and a huge part of why people like and respect me, is that I just don't spend much energy on that other stuff. It's not worth it. It's a losing battle too. You're just screwed the minute you engage.
People like reality; I think it's always happened from the Roman times, when people used to go to a coliseum and watch people compete against each other. I think networks and cable channels find it an easier way of producing and putting things together, because people will watch it and it's cheaper.
It seems like I don't have a lot of time for all the things I need to do. I'm spreading myself fairly thin. I have responsibilities to my children. I have a big staff that works for me. And when you have a staff, and I'm sure you know this, you're always concerned with everybody's life all the time.
I hit rock bottom before I even went there. Actually, prison was the rescue mission that God had put on me. He sent out his angels to rescue me. In prison, he protected me the whole time I was in there, and it was just for me to get my will power back, to get my strength back, get my focus together.
Mum was a high-jumper and qualified to go to the Olympics, but it got into the newspapers that she was married to my father, and the church put pressure on her to pull out of the Olympic team, saying, 'You can't be exposing all your legs.' That's how strong the influence of the church was on us all.
The Catholic Church had strict racial attitudes and intolerance for anybody who was not Catholic. When I look at a lot of Black ministers and what went on in the Black church, I was more caught up with those who were in Cadillacs and shiny suits than I was with those who were Kingian in their style.
It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.
I thought, "Wow, it sounds really stoned anyway." It sounded good to me. I found out that there was a lot in there. What all this comes down to is I was just trying to get in touch with myself. And I met some interesting people in New York who weren't in show business. I even got to know my dentist.
Life is too damn short and [screwed] up to go through it silently loving someone and never telling them how you feel. [Screw] the consequences, [screw] the implications of the actions, to hell with it all... whatever happens as a result is better than the nothingness that is inevitable with silence.
The world changes. The world is completely different now from when I was growing up. Back then, you didn't say things like they say now, out loud, about race and things. But that's just progress. When are we going to find out that we're all the same - we're all absolutely, without a doubt, the same?
There was a time when I was in the South, singing, and someone came to me before the show and said, 'There's been a threat on your life. Someone had phoned in and said they were going to shoot you if you go on stage.' I was singing 'Chances Are,' and I kept moving so they wouldn't have a shot at me.
I still do believe in carrying yourself a certain way, and I do my best to be somewhat of a role model. I'm not a perfect person. I'm a human being. I'm not the Lord, but I do accept that responsibility, and that's why I do try to carry myself with confidence, with poise, with grace, and with class.
We enjoyed the fact that we were called to the folk festivals and we got to know Joan Baez, Dylan. We were singing strictly gospel, but then after we started hearing songs that they would sing, we saw that those songs were very fitting for us because they were singing the truth, and truth is gospel.
Most of my work for the past 25 years has been devoted to organizing demonstrations, benefits and campaigns, many of which have had the effect of bringing a policy debate to public focus or moving a political agenda forward. It's become a cliché to say 'think globally and act locally,' but it works.
Quebec City is the most European of any city in North America, they speak French all the time. There is a part of town called Old Quebec which is really like being in France. The architecture is just gorgeous, food, shopping. I'd say Quebec city is the most beautiful city in North America I've seen.
Quebec City is the most European of any city in North America; they speak French all the time. There is a part of town called Old Quebec which is really like being in France. The architecture is just gorgeous, food, shopping. I'd say Quebec City is the most beautiful city in North America I've seen.
Since I was a little girl, I have witnessed the strength and courage that energized my mother, who left every sorrow and pain in the past, who would work unyieldingly to obtain her goals, who was the great warrior from whom I learned all the values that are today fundamental pillars of my every day.