Between the time I was 16 until I was about 20, the books I read were by people like Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Elizabeth Bishop. All gay, of course, although I swear I didn't know that at the time. Yet all of them, it turned out, had had a parent who died during their childhood. Sexuality is nothing compared to that.

I swear to God, if my kids, when they're 18, if they come to me and say, 'Dad, I love pumping gas. I love getting up in the morning, I love grabbing the handle, I love the smell of the gas station,' I'd say, 'Go for it,' because if you love it that much at 18, he's probably going to end up owning 25 gas stations by the time he's 30.

How do we fill the need for technology workers, people who have computer skills and math and science skills? How do we get a more diverse science workforce? These are all issues - I would look at these documents that were from the '50s and '60s and '70s, and you'd swear they were written two weeks ago because the issues are the same.

I swear that he is an alien. There is something about his phrasing that is so unpredictable and cool. It makes you wonder where it came from. I wish I could play like that. I listen to Jeff Beck and think, 'Bloody hell!' The way that Jeff Beck and his band play together is just amazing. Yeah, those guys definitely come from another planet.

There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.'

I don't know if this is the flat-out strangest, but I'll never forget handling a human brain. It had been sliced into sections for autopsy, each about an inch thick, and felt like pork tenderloin. I swear to god, my first thought was that if you were to dust it with chipotle and cinnamon and saute it in butter, it would probably be delicious.

Establishing mood through pictorial means is the director Ridley Scott's most notable talent. There may be no working director more accomplished at wringing texture out of the color blue than the prodigious and now prolific Mr. Scott; you'd swear that with his dazzling washes of blues and sand tones, he was inventing additional hues on the spot.

Share This Page