Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Effectively, what we are saying to the governments of Europe is, 'OK, after 300 years, you have left these islands in a pretty bad state. You've left them with terrible developmental challenges, and we believe you have a responsibility to return to the Caribbean and participate in the rebuilding of the Caribbean.'
So many use dad's name, saying 'Johnny Cash would not like this' or 'Johnny Cash would do this' or 'Johnny Cash would vote for... ' Please, let his actions speak for who he was: A simple, loving man who never supported hate or bigotry. He was non-political, and a patriot with no public political party affiliation.
The truth is when you have a movie that was as successful as 'Chronicle' was, it's not as quick of a process. There are a lot more voices coming in and saying 'This is what the sequel should be' because there's a bigger expectation and a bigger fear of failure. And that's really what's going on with 'Chronicle 2.'
Whenever they sang a certain song in church, I used to sing it the loudest: 'Lead me, guide me, along the way!' One day, as I was singing this song, I felt as if the Lord was saying to me, 'Lead you along what way?' I realized then that if you don't have a plan, God doesn't have anything specific to direct you in.
I think tights make a comeback out of necessity every season: you can only go so far with naked legs in the cold! You've got to protect yourself. I remember going to a fashion show and saying, 'And it's okay if I wear nude tights with this?' to the designer, who looked at me like I just killed his dog or something.
At this stage in my career, I don't have to take any big risks. You want to take a calculated risk, not one that leads to people saying 'yes, but there was that one time when she made that big mistake.' It's always a shame when that happens, especially if you've gotten by for decades without anything hugely tragic.
Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, 'all options are open' - meaning the threat of war.
And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.
People have always had difficulty saying my name or were resistant to calling me 'Sir' even though my name starts with 'Ser.' Growing up, my family always called me Darius. They're the only ones that are allowed to. All my close friends call me 'Ser' or 'D' and on sets most people call me 'Ser'D.' I'm cool with that.
And before our current legislature adjourns, we intend to become the first state of full and true choice by saying to every low and middle-income Hoosier family, if you think a non-government school is the right one for your child, you're as entitled to that option as any wealthy family; here's a voucher, go sign up.
Having a band was part of my heart's desire, musically. Within myself, I was saying that, 'Not until you have a band for yourself can you maintain the standard of your songs,' and the sound become a foundation. You don't have to feel around for two or three weeks for the sound because the foundation is already built.
Money can make people look at you in strange ways. You get phone calls from people you haven't spoken with in a long time, and they'll leave a message saying, 'Do me a favor, call me back. I have something I want to ask you.' I'm not going to answer those calls, because there's always something behind it, like a loan.
If you're saying something that people don't want to hear or accept, a significant proportion of them will reply with hostility. Not because they know the facts, or because they have researched it themselves, but because they're so psychologically involved in believing good news that they will oppose it with a reflex.
I'm saying that people who are enmeshed in situations of subjugation and have to live, have to find ways to project their dignity as human beings - in spite of all the efforts of those around them to degrade them - I'm saying that this music is the manifestation of the dignity in the life that has always been present.
I actually love Twitter and Instagram. I do think it's so strange to think that 20 years ago, people would never have known personal stuff about musicians and actors, but I like it. As long as I don't obsessively overshare, it's OK. And when I do overshare, it's just, like, me saying, 'I've got $7 in my bank account!'
We found letters at the house we bought from a sailor to his wife who lived in the house. He went down to the Caribbean on this trader vessel, bringing down salted fish. There would be handwritten letters, but also telegrams, saying which ports he was in. And he'd be gone for three months. That was just the way it is.
I don't know about Mario Balotelli saying, 'Why always me?' - England should be saying as a nation, 'Why always us?' You can go back to 1970, when Gordon Banks got food poisoning and we lost to West Germany. Then there was 1986 and Maradona's hand. And last time, Frank Lampard not getting his goal against the Germans.
'Birdman' has kinda... changed things. I'm not saying you won't see traditionally made movies any more. But I've had meetings with directors, and they've said it makes them rethink everything. You can hate this movie, but you have to talk about it. It's going to go down as one of the most interesting movies ever made.
Trip Hawkins - and this was the early 1980s - was saying there's going to be a day when everyone has a computer and they're going to want to do more on it, including playing games. So he started up a company, EA Sports, and he was going to have three games, football, basketball and baseball. So I was the football game.
When you are young and you play football, you must play in the street. When you go to a club at the age of five, and the coach says you must pass this, eat this, drink this... it's not a life. Young people must train for themselves, play football every day, and not have three coaches, with each one saying this and this.
The only thing that I've really noticed in my own experience is just people kind of saying that a woman, when they react to something exciting, 'Oh, that's a masculine way of reacting.' And to me, that's absurd. It's like, that's how humans - they get excited, and you yell, and you jump, and you flex. That's what you do.
You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid 'no' muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it's our choice. Your 'no' muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, 'I don't care if that's what you want. I don't want that. No.'
With Benghazi, I don't see anyone saying, 'Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It's my fault.' I haven't heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that's just unbelievable to me.
If they're trying to get high school kids to go to the D-League, I will be shouting from mountaintops saying, 'What is this going to do to a generation of kids who say, 'All right, I'm going to do this,' you get one or two years to make it, and now you're out without any opportunities. Who's taking care of those kids now?'
There are vivid memories from my childhood - what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose, if I wanted to be fair, I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers.
It doesn't eat at me. As a competitor, it drives you. It's hard to say this without someone saying, 'Golly, he doesn't care that much.' I want to win a championship for our team, for our organization. I want us to win one bad. But do I lose sleep over it? Or would I be miserable one day if I never did it? The answer is no.
Obviously I know if you're putting yourself out there, saying, 'Hey! Listen to my music!,' with pictures of yourself in the magazines, then people are going to judge you. 'I hate her music. I hate her hair. I hate her production. I hate her videos.' Fine: don't care. That's the great thing about art: it's not for everyone.
I'm not saying anything that's unknown, but movies are always cut down and there's a lot of complexity within the film that is not always widely accepted by the general audience, which is just a reality; a movie of a certain size, they don't want people to be too - it's a balance of how deep to keep going with these ideas.
I think the truest things come from silence, but everything's always so clogged up with noise. If everything falls away, and you can truly listen to someone, giving them yourself and generosity, you can truly lose yourself in what they're saying. Like, not impose your ideas on what they're saying, but really tune into them.
I read a statistic that in horse racing, the favourite only wins 12 per cent of their races. I'm not comparing myself to a horse or saying I'm the favourite - although my sister would say I can nag an awful lot - but nothing is guaranteed in sport. Anyone can step up and take what you perceive to be your place in the final.
After I released 'Jesus, Take the Wheel,' people started saying, Oh, it's kind of risky. You're coming out with a religious song. And I was thinking, Really? I grew up in Oklahoma; I always had a close relationship with God. I never thought it was risky in the least. If anything, I thought it was the safest thing I could do.
I was in my bed scrolling through Instagram. It had been about a month since my audition. And Marvel just posted a photo saying go to our website and find out who the next Spider-Man is. I went on the Marvel website on my computer, and there it was: The new Spider-Man is Tom Holland. I went ballistic - like, absolutely nuts.
My formative years were in Houston. I was in middle school, and everyone was dropping the last half of their names and adding an 'o' to the end. My little crew that I had, we were an all-female rap group, and everyone had an 'o' at the end of their name. I was Lisso. Then this dude started getting lazy with it, saying Lizzo.
'Ruined' was a play which was somewhat of an anomaly in that I did not take a commission until it was finished because I really wanted to explore the subject matter unencumbered. Otherwise, I felt as though I'd have the voice of dramaturges and literary managers saying, 'This is great, but we'll never be able to produce it.'
You know, out-of-touch liberals like Barack Obama say they want a strong economy, but in everything they do, they show they don't like business very much. But the economy, of course, is simply the product of all the businesses of the nation added together. So it's a bit like saying you like an omelet, but you don't like eggs.
Mental strength is really important because you either win or lose in your mind. And I'm not solely talking about sporting matches, boxing events - anything you do, you do it first with your mental strength. And you can actually train and develop it, and I am responsible for what I'm saying because I have experience with that.
Some movies, I think, present ideas of the world that just don't help people with their lives. They just present things that are fleeting or stupid. So that's what I'm careful about - making sure I'm part of something that is saying something that I think is valuable in the world of people, not necessarily in the world of art.
There is a saying that if you get something for free, you should know that you're the product. It was never more true than in the case of Facebook and Gmail and YouTube. You get free social-media services, and you get free funny cat videos. In exchange, you give up the most valuable asset you have, which is your personal data.
The saying in business is that, 'You hire for skills and you fire for behavior.' And one would argue that in order to move up in career, to be promoted, to take on additional responsibility, in many ways that's linked more to the attitudes and behaviors that you carry rather than what you know technically about a given subject.
In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.
In Hollywood, there is one dominant voice. It is a white, male, straight gaze. When I talk about positive portrayals of black people and women, I'm saying complexity. I'm not saying goody-two-shoes, everything's okay. No. The positive view of me is to see me as I am: the 'good,' the 'bad,' the gray. That is a positive portrayal.
That the caste system must be abolished if the Hindu society is to be reconstructed on the basis of equality, goes without saying. Untouchability has its roots in the caste system. They cannot expect the Brahmins to rise in revolt against the caste system. Also we cannot rely upon the non-Brahmins and ask them to fight our battle.
When the Republicans controlled the House from 1994 -2006, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman Charlie Rangel, John Conyers and Rahm Emanuel weren't saying we need to move right to win. They stuck to their philosophy. And they fought against Reagan and they fought against the Bushes. And eventually they did win.
When I played Darth Maul, it sort of came from inside. I'm not saying it was natural, but I really enjoyed it, and I think I was tapping into my childhood, growing up with 'Star Wars.' And I grew up with G.I. Joe as well. Same as 'Thundercats' and 'Transformers' and 'He-Man.' And so I think it was the inner kid in me just came out.
In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there's a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.
I've been blessed to be somebody that's been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it's all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I'm saying, and it feels good 'cause it's good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.
I think the biggest learned behavior that I would love to get rid of is that little voice that tells you, 'That's stupid. You shouldn't say that.' And then five seconds later, you hear somebody saying the same thing, and you think, 'Seriously, what is wrong with me?' I think, in particular, a lot of women do it. And that's a problem.
My secret skill, if it even counts as one, is saying really crass things that sometimes end up as dialogue coming from other character's mouths. My inner salty sailor is alive and well - the only problem is most of the writers on our show are just as inappropriate, so at the end of the day, it's hard to tell who came up with the line.
Famous people are deceptive. Deep down, they're just regular people. Like Larry King. We've been friends for forty years. He's one of the few guys I know who's really famous. One minute he's talking to the president on his cell phone, and then the next minute he's saying to me, 'Do you think we ought to give the waiter another dollar?'
It's very important to go back and keep in mind the distinction between handling these events as criminal acts, which was the way we did before 9/11, and then looking at 9/11 and saying, 'This is not a criminal act,' not when you destroy 16 acres of Manhattan, kill 3,000 Americans, blow a big hole in the Pentagon. That's an act of war.