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As for the primitive, I hark back to it because we are still very primitive. How many thousands of years of culture, think you, have rubbed and polished at our raw edges? One probably; at the best, no more than two. And that takes us back to screaming savagery, when, gross of body and deed, we drank blood from the skulls of our enemies, and hailed as highest paradise the orgies and carnage of Valhalla.
The thing I get the most [in public] is, 'Hey, Eugene.' You know what I mean? There's no catch phrase like: 'What a week I'm having.' People will actually just say, 'Hey, Eugene' or 'Hi, Eugene.' It's a great thing; they feel that comfortable calling me by my first name. It's not being forward. It depends how you say it. I think they can't help themselves. They think they know me. I find it gratifying.
There's two kinds of thinking. There is conjunctive thinking and there's disjunctive thinking. Disjunctive thinking says it has to be either/or. Now clearly, there are some either/or's - I either trust Christ or I don't. I'm either pregnant or I'm not. But a lot of thinking in Scripture, when it comes to theology is, in my opinion, conjunctive thinking. It's both/and. I believe that and I believe that.
I think music is just a great place to focus your energy and your feelings. If you're young, you can take all that stuff that you feel so intensely about - especially these days, but I'm not going to go there - but to take all those feelings and put them into music was such a big deal for me to be able to play punk rock songs. It was such a release for me. It's a good thing for parents to support that.
Some 2,800 Americans went to Spain [during the Spanish Civil War], and it was, by far, the largest number of Americans before or since who've ever joined somebody else's civil war. I think they were primarily people who were deeply alarmed by the menace of fascism. They saw this on the horizon. I quote one volunteer, Maury Colow of New York, who said, "for us it was never Franco, it was always Hitler."
I'm really happy in my own skin. There's a lot of judgment that can come from outside sometimes, and there's media scrutiny that is placed on a lot of women in the public eye, and I just couldn't care less. I really couldn't care less. 'I would sometimes say in my twenties, 'oh, I couldn't care less', but I think I probably did. Now I genuinely don't and that's a lovely, liberating thing to experience.
I think our legal system needs to be developed. Cases of citizens who are detained and then have to wait much too long for a trial - that is scary, for everyone. When someone commits a crime he needs to be charged quickly. Why does this take so long in many cases? I don't know. Is it because our legal system is still rudimentary? China has promised to modernize its legal system. This has high priority.
It might be one thing to think about putting on a dress, but when you're actually putting on a dress, it's a weird thing, because you're going, "Huh. I'm putting on a dress. Do I leave my underwear on? Do I get some other underwear? Is there something special I should wear?" All that dumb stuff. I'd never had any interest in putting on my mom's clothes, except to think, "Well, they are nice clothes..."
I've always felt, and I don't like to say this because I sound like an ex-patriot, I always feel quite a bit more comfortable sometimes in Canada. For a variety of reasons. I just think it's a politer place. Kind of. You don't have quite the population to deal with but you don't immediately get into skirmishes with everybody. If you had any passport, any terrorist would let the Canadians off the plane.
I’ve worked with such legendary guitar players as Allan Holdsworth, Ronnie Montrose, Eric Clapton, Lowell George and Steve Vai, but none of them come close to having Ed’s [Eddie Van Halen's] fantastic combination of chops and musicianship. I rank him along with Charlie Parker and Art Tatum as one of the three greatest musicians of my lifetime. Unfortunately, I don’t think Ed puts himself in that class.
You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so t here wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an 'I.' No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and of points.
I think that as Christians we want to think Christianly, and that means that we want what the Bible says as a rule for life and living to impact every aspect of our life. The Bible informs us of such issues and we need to as Christians do what a first century church did and that is realize that we are not living to be politically correct, popular, or prosperous, but we 're living with eternity in mind.
So many of the great detectives that we see on television now owe their origins to Sherlock Holmes. What was very exciting about Rob's pitch and script was that he is a real Holmes-ian expert. He knew all of the mythology. He was very well-versed in the genesis of Holmes and the stories. And the twist with Watson is something we jumped at immediately. It's a very forward-thinking way of doing the show.
Skin, bones, blood and organs transplant from person to person. Even what’s inside you already, the colonies of microbes and bugs that eat your food for you, without them you’d die. Nothing of you is all-the-way yours. All of you is inherited. Whatever you’re thinking, a million other folks are thinking. Whatever you do, they’re doing, and none of you is responsible. All of you is a cooperative effort.
I’m not really afraid to be my awkward self, and I know there’s lots and lots of other people just like me out there that are awkward themselves. And I think they just appreciate that I’m not afraid to say the weird things that I say and tweet the obnoxious things that I tweet. But I’ve tried being other people and myself suits me the best. I think you just be honest. I think people respond to honesty.
I've never like had a system or a program, I always think that I don't know how to act. I'll adapt to any director because I don't really have a set way that I do things. If a director hires me and says, "I want you to get started right now and do this research, this research, this research and I want you to have every line memorized before you ever show up for the first day," then that's what I'll do.
If you think that the gospel is all about what we can do, that the practice of it is optional, and that conversion is simply something that anyone can choose at any time, then I'm concerned that you'll think of evangelism as nothing more than a sales job where the prospect is to be won over to sign on the dotted line by praying a prayer, followed by an assurance that he is the proud owner of salvation.
My family dynamic is quite eccentric. I have two fathers. I think it depends on the relationship between the child and the parents, but definitely, when it comes to being a stepparent or a coparent, it's a different relationship. There's just as much love, but the bonds can be different. It depends when you come into their life and how well you know them - this dynamic takes a lot of patience and love.
To be honest, I’m more concerned with living my life than writing about my life. I feel like that’s really the main thing I know now that I didn’t know when I was younger — and that is that you have to have a life to write about one. If you’re more worried about having experiences so you can write about them, I think you’re kinda being ridiculous, and I think a lot of young people look at it like that.
You'd think that would have been forgotten long ago. But no, no sooner has a little grass grown over it than some clumsy camel comes along and rakes it all up again." Caroline giggled. She was probably imagining Aunt Glenda as a camel. "This is not a TV series, Maddy," said Lady Arista sharply. "Thank goodness, no, it isn't," said Great-aunt Maddy. "If it were, I'd have lost track of the plot ages ago.
I honestly would tell anyone young to start looking at stories and learning story, because I think that’s the next step after people go, ‘OK, I’ve had enough of that improvisation, I’ve had enough of those short comedy bits. Tell me a story, tell me a more complex story, something that lasts and maybe has a little more meaning to it.’ Don’t ever look at what’s happening now; look at what’s coming next.
If we think that we can somehow gain control of the US government, bring it under popular, enlightened progressive control, preserve a habitable climate, and rein in the dangers of nuclear and other warfare, then we should. However, if we think it's more likely that California can achieve those goals by secession, then we should go down that path. There's no question. It's an absolute moral imperative.
In the realm of strong A.I. or in the realm of human consciousness, I think that it's been something that troubles humans or forces us to look at it over and over for millennia, or as long as we've really been conscious, because there is no answer. There is no explanation for us, even for a one percent grip to hold on to. So we just don't know why we're here, we don't know how consciousness is created.
The deadly weapon against totalitarian society is openness - doing everything very openly on the Internet, letting people know every detail, any little development. Once it is out there, everybody can make their own judgement. [Therefore] holding a trial outside the court. I think that is fairness, that is justice, that is a civil society. Otherwise call it an evil society because everything is hidden.
I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain. One of the great Catalan poets, Joan Maragall, wrote this famous poem in which he called Barcelona the great enchantress, or some kind of sorceress, and in which the city has this dark enticing presence that seduces and lures people. I think Barcelona has a lot of that.
[Erwin Rommel] explained why in short words, what the two generals' message and then he explained his position and he gave some reason for his position. And then he said, "The ten minutes are over, and I have to leave now." Then my father said goodbye. He also told that us that in I think twenty or thirty minutes, I don't remember, "You will get a telephone call telling you that I have died of stroke."
I think I got a complete picture of what the lives of scientists are like. My father is of the opinion that if scientists are allowed to follow their nose, eventually it results in something. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen. What I came out of it with, in a non-cynical way, was that the scientific process is as messy as anything else. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is.
I think that I probably break on set more than I make other people break. I've realized recently that, in my everyday social life, I'm a very easygoing person, but when it comes to work, I'm pretty type - A. I'm very focused and I take it maybe too seriously sometimes. So, when I'm on set, even when there are really funny people that I'm in the scenes with, I'm generally good at not breaking too often.
You have to work and think about how we can make this world a better place for all. This is what I'd really like to ask our young leaders. We will try as leaders of today to minimise the problems which we will hand over to you. But it is to you. You have to take ownership and leadership of tomorrow. For that to be possible, you have to strengthen your capacity and widen your vision as a global citizen.
I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.
I think in the inception and creation of the characters, improv was the most important part for me, because I wanted to feel at home in those characters. I wanted to feel like I could commit to them. And so much of improv is saying yes and committing, so I think that's where the improv came in. Even if I'm saying yes to the X across the room from me, or the tennis ball on a stick, I have to stay alive.
A professionally trained actress should be a better liar, wouldn't you think? But no. I am pathetically underachieved in that area. I can think of a great lie. I'm plenty imaginative. But before the words are even out of my mouth, there's a weird tickle of unease in my armpits, a horsefly of guilt lands on the back of my neck, and before I can stop myself, that gassy little bubble of truth belches out.
I think I entered the market around the time when there was getting to be less snobbery about the difference between feature films and television. I think there's been a lot more receptivity on television to interesting adult stories that in the '60s and '70s would have been made into feature films. I have no problem jumping back and forth. If anything, I find it less restrictive working in television.
A belief is only a thought that you keep thinking. So as you keep thinking this thought, you keep vibrationally attracting relative to that thought. So you confirm your own beliefs again and again and again and again and again. That's why someone who believes in cancer can confirm that belief, or someone who believes in robbery can confirm that belief. So everything is a sort of confirmation of belief.
I guess I will say, going back to the Judaism questions, there are mental reflexes or patterns that I think of as Jewish in my own feelings about mysticism and theology.Franz Kafka is someone I very much revere. If I believed in holy texts I'd go to him as a touchstone. Not that I read Kafka all the time at this point. In a way, this is what I most want to talk about and it's the hardest to talk about.
Every once and a while somebody writes a script, but even regardless of what age you are, most of the actors would all agree that it's all based upon material and the material has got to spark with you. It may be great material but you think it's great material for somebody else. Or it's great material and I'm perfect for it. So, you just have to make that judgment and if you feel in the mood to do it.
I worked at a bunch of salons, and at one, a girl was going out to do a photo shoot for a women's magazine and brought me along to assist her. I remember going on that shoot and thinking, "God, this is great. It's creative, and you get to work with all of these other creative people." At that point I decided that hair would be my in to fashion and all the things I thought I would enjoy - and did enjoy.
I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces, and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent and self confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me and thinking that they were worse than they were. Please don't let that happen to you.
Think about your future possibilities and the fact that your potential is virtually unlimited. You can do what you want to do and go where you want to go. You can be the person you want to be. You can set large and small goals and make plans and move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization. There are no obstacles to what you can accomplish except the obstacles that you create in your mind.
At the same time, you had Barack Obama as a president. You had Hillary Clinton on track, all the Democrats looking good. And, you know, Donald Trump was just an entertaining buffoon to watch. And, over time, you came to realize that Donald Trump was appealing to a lot of people with his populist message. And, slowly, I think, even as a show, we started shifting in tone as the election started shifting.
We [on the left] have to be used to being a minority -- a small minority -- for some time to come. The odd thing is that the right, even when it is in power, likes to think of itself as an embattled minority against this elite that somehow runs everything. Whereas the left, even when it has no power at all, likes to imagine it somehow represents the majority of people. These are mirror-image delusions.
Well if I had my choice I would not - I wouldn't mind working with Alec Baldwin, but the mother role - I'm kidding. It's terrific. I'll tell you what happened with Alec Baldwin and myself. This is a couple acting together just this side of heaven. He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with in whole life. And I - I'm not overdoing it. I just think he's about the best around today. So I got lucky.
I was gushing and I knew it. I surprised myself with my eagerness to please, felt myself saying too much, explaining too much, overinvolved and overexcited in the way you are when you're a kid and you think you've found a soul mate in the new boy down the street and you feel yourself drawn by the force of the courtship and so act as you don't normally do and a lot more openly than you may even want to.
I found that with Rooney, her instincts in films was always to underplay and to sort of reduce down what was necessary to bring you in - a sense of economy, a sense of scale, which just seemed to understand the medium so well. When you see that in a younger actor, I always think it speaks to incredible knowledge. I can't exactly figure out where that comes from, that confidence to know how to be quiet.
South Korea from a country that had relatively little primary education became close to universal literacy in the course of 25, 30 years, in a way trying to replicate what Japan had done earlier. They were learning to some extent from the Japanese experience too. So I think, in a sense, the East Asians were following a path, which all other countries including South Asia could follow but chose not too.
When you go out on the court whether it be for the championship or just a scrimmage, have confidence that your abilities and what you've learned in your drills are better than your opponent's. This does not mean you should disregard your opponent. Before taking the court for any game, you should do a lot of thinking about what you have to do to beat your opponent and what he must or can do to beat you.
Money is a great way to get happiness. Right? Lots of wonderful things you can do with money. The question is, are we really optimizing on that? So, if you think about getting lattes and getting cable. Which one of those is actually giving you a greater happiness, and if you have to cut on one of those, which one would you cut? So, I think thinking in terms of concrete terms would help us a great deal.
The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views.
Because the utopian's worldview was framed around moving toward this perfected future, it helped stimulate the private exertions that add up to social progress. Progress is work. People need to build things and sacrifice and have a harder life for things to get better. On its own, I don't think even the most brilliant critique stimulates that kind of effort as well as an appealing vision of the future.
When you want to be a writer, you think that actually getting published will make you feel somehow more real to yourself. But it doesn't. And nor should it. If publication is the pole around which your entire identity pivots, you're in big trouble. I'd also add that many wonderful books by brilliant authors get ignored or overlooked, and that poor sales aren't (necessarily) a measure of your abilities.