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I have a group of very loyal people. We are in the minority very much, basically 10 to 15% of the population that supports what we do. It's temporary. I think that the high numbers for Putin, they will pass as soon as economic tensions mount. And then the whole situation will be flipped. It's important not to alienate people, not to receive negative reaction on yourself, but we have to wait a little bit. Bolsheviks in 1914 were a dying sect, the only ones against the war, but just two and a half years later, they came to power.
The strange thing about my life is that I came to America at about the time when racial attitudes were changing. This was a big help to me. Also, the people who were most cruel to me when I first came to America were black Americans. They made absolute fun of the way I talked, the way I dressed. I couldn't dance. The people who were most kind and loving to me were white people. So what can one make of that? Perhaps it was a coincidence that all the people who found me strange were black and all the people who didn't were white.
When our people were fed out of the common store, and laboured jointly together, glad was he could slip from his labour, or slumber over his taske he cared not how, nay, the most honest among them would hardly take so much true paines in a weeke, as now for themselves they will doe in a day: neither cared they for the increase, presuming that howsoever the harvest prospered, the generall store must maintaine them, so that wee reaped not so much Corne from the labours of thirtie, as now three or foure doe provide for themselves.
During your lifetime, the people of our culture are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet--or they're not. Either way, it's certainly going to be extraordinary. If they figure out how to live sustainably here, then hum anity will be able to see something it can't see right now: a future that extends into the indefinite future. If they don't figure this out, then I'm afraid the human race is going to take its place among the species that we're driving into extinction here every day--as many as 200--every day
Everybody's been decrying the death of movie theaters for decades and, you know, people are still going to the movies in droves. It's gone down, but it hasn't gone down that much. I think the biggest change has been the emergence of cable and streaming on television. That has really had a dramatic effect, and I think it's a positive one. I think there's really good work going on there, and as movies stratify to being these gigantic tentpole movies, and small movies, I think it gives another outlet for character-driven material.
Definitely my generation and beyond grew up in theaters and when you make a film you think of the theatrical experience. You think of that big screen in the darkened theater with a lot of people, so that's always the thought behind it. If that's the case, it's nice if that's available. That's great, but I don't really mind if they're watching films on a plane. I don't mind. Anybody who just wants to watch a movie, I can't complain. If that's the way they're going to watch them, that's the way they watch them. Who am I to judge?
In Spain in the meantime, Aristotelian scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda was putting the impolitic moralizing of Las Casas into proper perspective for posterity: "Compare then the blessings enjoyed by Spaniards of prudence, genius, magnanimity, temperance, humanity, and religion with those of the little men [the Indians] in whom you will scarcely find even vestiges of humanity. . . . How can we doubt that these people - so uncivilized, so barbaric, contaminated with so many impieties and obscenities - have been justly conquered?"
I never thought I had the ability to not watch. People think I watch MSNBC's "Morning Joe." I don't watch "Morning Joe." I never thought I had the ability to, and who used to treat me great by the way, when I played the game. I never thought I had the ability to not watch what is unpleasant, if it's about me. Or pleasant. But when I see it's such false reporting and such bad reporting and false reporting that I've developed an ability that I never thought I had. I don't watch things that are unpleasant. I just don't watch them.
Before you speak, get very quiet, do the meditation, say, "Use me as a channel for what needs to get said to this community. This community needs to hear something very important that I'm the only person in the room who can say it. Please help open me so that I'm not frightened and speak through me. Let me be that channel so that I can help heal." You make yourself so humble that you really are like a flute and that music that comes out comes from el corazón. All the people you're connected to from that light that we call love.
Some people will follow their minds without listening to their hearts, and others will follow their hearts without listening to their minds. This is why reason exists, for there to be balance between the heart and mind. We were not meant to follow the mind and ignore the heart. Instead, we were meant to follow the heart over the mind, but without completely abandoning logic. The middle way is the preferred way, and this path simply means to allow your heart to drive you, but do not forget to balance reason with your conscience.
When I was a Senator from New York, I represented and worked with so many talented principled people who made their living in finance. But even thought I represented them and did all I could to make sure they continued to prosper, I called for closing the carried interest loophole and addressing skyrocketing CEO pay. I also was calling in '06, '07 for doing something about the mortgage crisis, because I saw every day from Wall Street literally to main streets across New York how a well-functioning financial system is essential.
I always wanted to have a young female artist that would tell me the truth about life and not only talk about the good things or the things that were exciting or interesting but also talk about the things that people in general are skeptical to talk about- the bad things that do happen. A good 50% of our lives is things that are happening that we're not necessarily super thrilled about and I feel like that's missing from pop music a lot of the time so my main goal is to be truthful about everything and not just specific things.
Many people in Western culture are striving for success. They want the home, they want the great business. They want all of these outer things. But what we found in our research is that having those things, certainly doesn't guarantee what we really want, which is happiness. And that's when all those outer things come. They don't come from going after them first to get the happiness, it's backwards; you go for the sense of inner joy, of inner peace, of inner vision first and then all of the other things from the outside appear.
Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism. My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.
That which the people called Quakers lay down as a main fundamental in religion is this- That God, through Christ, hath placed a principle in every man, to inform him of his duty, and to enable him to do it; and that those that live up to this principle are the people of God, and those that live in disobedience to it, are not God's people, whatever name they may bear, or profession they may make of religion. This is their ancient, first, and standing testimony: with this they began, and this they bore, and do bear to the world.
People call you "director," but it really should be "economic manager." Because everything is "Well, we can do another take here, but then you're gonna lose that shot over there." Or "The sun's going down, sorry, you're outta luck. We can't afford to." You know? And meanwhile, how do you get the performer's performance? I'm thinking the whole time all about "How can I get my day done?" And my performances are primarily a result of casting the right people at the right time in the right parts. And then I do little modifications.
When you dig down, people are pretty progressive, by and large. I guess, I've said it many times - that a lot of people say we're a conservative country, that people are conservative. And my response to that is, yes, that's true, and you know what the people want to conserve most? The progressive traditions of our country - freedom of speech, and of the press and of assembly. Freedom to dissent. The freedom to practice your own religion or not practice religion as you see fit. Yes, we're conservative! We want to conserve those.
Shari'a is not just the Qur'an, you see Shari'a is comprised according to all the doctrines. There's consensus and analogy - argument by analogy. These are the four components in the Shari'a. An orthodox Sunni would not accept that the Shari'a was simply comprised of the Qur'an itself and actually there are people who say that it's heretical to believe that. They have to say that because if they don't say that then they would have to accept that, for example, stoning is not a punishment which appears in the Qur'an - it doesn't.
I watch mainly fiction. The films I like watching are films where you see people change, like with Boyhood. You see a moment in someone's life where it's a breakthrough. For me, the breakthrough in Boyhood is that amazing moment right at the end when he finds somebody he can feel relaxed with, and who will maybe be a friend for the rest of his life. I like that it doesn't end in a love affair or marriage. It just ends in, "Wow, I found people I can relate to for the first people in my life. These people accept me, I like them."
It's a very vulnerable position to be in. I was so young and I was not focused on what I looked like. I was focused on the gold medal. At the end of the day, I have changed. I can't blame anybody for saying, 'Oh, she changed!' You know, because I have. And that's OK. It's good to keep evolving and growing. I think most people should be accepting with stuff like that, but you know, you can't force anybody into feeling a certain way. So for anybody who's judging it and not liking it, that's fine. Unfollow me. I don't really care.
I talked to people that I'd done theater with, older actors and stuff. There's a lot of people who go into the business, and they must think they're good, or they wouldn't be in it. Why do you think that you're good enough to go into the business and make money at it? So I really wanted to ask myself that question a lot. Because it was an important kind of thing that I was going to do. I really wanted to do it, I loved it, and I thought that I was good enough that I could make money at it. And that's really what it came down to.
Not only does the modern person often think that sight is more important than sound - there's no objective evidence to indicate that. Many people, even audiologists who study the science of human speech and hearing, have assumed for a long time that the human ear evolved to hear the human voice, rather than the voice changing to fit the human ear. And the human ear is actually not a perfect match if we map its sensitivity to the different frequencies in the human range of hearing; it's an unequal curve, it's kind of a wavy line.
You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it...I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it. That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say. ... I don't like overdubs, never liked them. ... The music business doesn't interest me anymore...Don't the people you're around shape the music, is that what you're saying? Everything does. ... I'm not joking around when I've said occasionally, trying to learn how to play a D chord properly has been a very big thing for me.
Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.
Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others.
Why do you people want to continue to import people that are going to end up placing a burden on our population? Why? If we're going to have an immigration policy, why don't we seek the best? Why do you people purposely want to go out and bring people in who are gonna end up being a burden? Now, you can define that as not learning English, not being able to have a job, being on the social safety welfare net, however you want to define it. But that's what Donald Trump means, because that's precisely what the Democrats want to do.
There's no passive success on radio. Well, in radio, one of the ways in which you engage people and make them active listeners and have them glued so that they don't want to do anything else, you have to find ways to incorporate this mystery called the theater of the mind. And it's the one ingredient that radio has that television does not that if used properly, if perfected and learned and executed properly, it can have a much greater impact than TV because it can create a much more intimate, direct connection with the audience.
When I first got on the internet as a tween, I wasn't comfortable showing up in social spaces. I didn't have a loud voice. As a function of my youth and gender, I wasn't given a voice at the dinner table, and nor maybe should I have been. But I thought I wanted one, and I was able to have it online. I wasn't a great talker, but I found these other skills. And when this stuff is described as "not real writing" or "bad for my brain" or whatever, it just seems like it's from people who wanted to keep their place at the dinner table.
Twitter is the only brand of social media that I have ever taken to at all. I like the feeling of having my perception of the world expanded daily, 24/7, by being able to monitor the reactions of 100-and-some people throughout the world that I personally follow so I have some sense of who they are. There has never really been anything like that before, at least in terms of the digestible 140-character bandwidth that Twitter is based on. I am able to wake up, open Twitter, and sort of glance across the psychic state of the planet.
Student loans are destroying the imagination of youth. If there’s a way of a society committing mass suicide, what better way than to take all the youngest, most energetic, creative, joyous people in your society and saddle them with, like $50,000 of debt so they have to be slaves? There goes your music. There goes your culture. There goes everything new that would pop out. And in a way, this is what’s happened to our society. We’re a society that has lost any ability to incorporate the interesting, creative and eccentric people.
If I drive my car to the store, those carbon molecules that are emitted actually get into the atmosphere circulation systems and affect climate in a global basis. This is shocking, this is amazing! No one in the 18th Century would have believed that anything like this were at all possible and I don't think we have, as part of our common sense, morality, norms and values that are really responsive to those kinds of issues, to the kind of power that we now are able to exert over the future and over people who live very far from us.
These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. There were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is no substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.
When you coach and teach leadership, most people think about them. It's like you're the leader and how do you influence them. Clearly, leaders do take their followers, their flock, their enterprise, their business - whatever - hopefully to a better place. But I think the foundation of what makes really great leaders is they lead themselves, and they're conscious about knowing themselves and coaching and leading themselves in a very profound way. The simplest of us talk to ourselves. The question is, "Do we really lead ourselves?"
The difference between deafness and any other disability is that there is no way to put yourself in a position of knowing what it would be like because you can't stop yourself from hearing your own breath or your own heartbeat. You can not remove sound entirely from your life. You can get a sense of what being blind is like by closing and covering your eyes which provides a source of empathy because we can all project ourselves to that. But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't.
Doing interviews is very different from working as an actor, because it's up to the journalist not only to understand what I'm trying to convey, but to convey that understanding through their process. And often times it gets manipulated, sometimes intentionally, by pulling things out of context. Some people may not appreciate your work and some may be incredibly moved by it. So that isn't the concern. You have to do what you can do, and share what you feel is appropriate to share in the moment. And then, it's out of your control.
With stand-up you meet almost constant rejection. You put yourself out there with your thoughts and your ideas, and you think they're funny, and you hope other people think they're funny too. The only way you're going to find out is when you do it and what the reaction is going to be. So if you're not prepared for that, if you're not willing to go along with that, it's going to be a rough road. But beyond stand-up, in terms of auditioning for acting roles, you don't get most of the roles you audition for - you get a precious few.
I think my music being referred to as "cinematic" has a lot to do with people just not being used to listening to instrumental music without watching a film. I'm still pretty convinced of that. You'll play Chopin in place of something average and like, "Wow, that'd be great in a film." People say it every time, swear to God. I don't think people have a good relationship with instruments and music anymore. But it's definitely visual; I started writing with this band because of the pictures. I can't really deny it either, you know?
He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.
What I think it's important to recognize in today's world is that all of our societies are multiethnic, multi-religious and multicultural. And that is a positive thing. That's a richness, and also strength. But we also have to recognize that, for those societies to be harmonious, there is a lot of the investment that needs to be made in social cohesion and inclusivity. But the important thing to recognize, and particularly Europe, most of the terrorist attacks are not done by people that came from the outside. They are homegrown.
I don't want to get too dippy about all this. If you take the view of the scientist and everything is in a state of vibration, then every note is a vibration, which has a certain frequency, and you know that if you put 40 beats into a frequency it's going to be the same note every time. You take that into infrasound and people can be made to be sick, actually killed. Taking it the other way, not to be too depressing, what about euphoria, etc., and what about consciousness being totally... no, I won't go into that one. Time warps.
Not that I ever felt the necessity of proving that all human beings suffer the same way, feel joy the same way, but it happened on my way - when I get close to these people, just by the simple intervention of translation I can actually reach them and ask them something, and their reaction is as I expected. I see that the relationship goes so smoothly, and I realize that cultural languages and specificities are nothing but simple obstacles that you can easily overcome. It's obvious that human beings are the same wherever they are.
There was always, along the way in my career, as more and more I made marijuana a part of my act and my life, the more I'd hear from people saying, like, well, part of the reason that everybody likes it so much is because of the excitement of it not being legal. I always thought that was silly. Especially when it comes to smoking marijuana. People are certainly not less interested in it now that it's legal. In terms of comedy, it has kind of shifted a little bit in that it seems like the novelty has sort of worn off a little bit.
I was 21, and I was like, "Man, am I really gonna start over and try this whole thing over again? Do I want to start over and be in a rock band again and try to act like a 17-year-old for as long as I can?" Because that was what I was doing with Simon Dawes band. I decided that if I was going to go on playing music, I was going to try and work on it. So I got into Leonard Cohen and Will Oldham, guys that really inspired me not only as songwriters but also through their music as people, and that's kind of what the shift was for me.
You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, 'We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!' Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them because their behavior is unbearable.
To me, making a horror movie is about how you can present similar genre familiarities, but present them a little bit differently. Part of what interests me is the nonchalant realism of it, because you don't get that in the big studio horror movies. I like seeing someone walk around a house and sift through the drawers, and things like that, because that reminds me of what I would do, and of weird personal choices that people would make. That, in contrast to seeing someone get chased with a knife, makes it all the more interesting.
We did decide that every addict in this film, Warning: This Drug May Kill You, would be someone who started out with a prescription for an opioid from a doctor. The story that hadn't been told is that the vast majority - somewhere around 80 percent - of current heroin users began with an addiction to prescription opioids. So as much as people might want to look at this and say, 'Oh this is really a heroin problem,' yes, it is a heroin problem, and no one is saying differently, but it starts more often than not with a prescription.
When people in my generation started to write, we did not actually have much of a movie industry, much of a theater scene, much of a television industry or other creative outlets. But we had a lot of aspiring writers. All that has changed. We now have a movie industry, television industry and lots of theater. But we have retained a large contingent of writers and a dedicated readership. The larger number of people in society who value writing, the larger number of good writers will be produced. That's my belief. It raises the bar.
I think younger artists are often "students" of the rock press. They have their favorite rock star interviews and know how they're supposed to act. But I find that time helps a lot. If you have enough time you can sort of break that down just by being a normal person. And then they realize the interview isn't just a performance, and they can actually speak to you. I often try to get people into a space where they're not over-thinking what they're talking about and instead they're speaking emotionally, from within their experience.
I have friends that I have made through Twitter or things like that, but they're all verified as real people - I've either seen them perform, or we're mutual fans of each other, something like that. I don't have any authentic. I have a lot of good people in my actual life, but I will say that it's a strange time that we live in - it's easy to make friends and to make connections through social media, and if you're a good-hearted person, sometimes you can just assume people are who they say they are, and that isn't always the case.
I am certainly not proposing that we wait passively for the people in power to change their minds. I think we need to be confrontational, to expose the truth in ways that are uncomfortable and that, yes, require courage. What I caution against is using hateful rhetoric to inspire action, and I see a lot of that today. We strengthen the underlying field of hatred, dehumanization, and conquest. It certainly doesn't engage what allows people to do courageous things and to commit deeply, which is the experience of beauty, love, grief.