These Quotes

I don't think I ever expected anything like an Oscar ever, to tell you the truth. That is not my motivation when I do these roles. I really am motivated by being able to work with great people and create a body of work that I can look back and be proud of.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

All these nice people saying I'm going to be world champion won't make me any faster, you have to believe it yourself.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion - very powerful emotions. That's what draws millions of people towards it. And, um, I found myself always going for these darker places and - people identify with that.

I'm more of a tomboy than anything and then you see your name on these Top 50 Most Beautiful People lists and you're like, "What?"

I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does.

If you've got the chops, people these days are more accepting of you.

Being in Hollywood is like being in the Christian right these days.

Did they preach one thing and practice another, these men of God?

It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.

All religious leaders and spiritual teachers emphasize finding a place within us that is true. People who obsessively follow these leaders instead of their own purpose attach to the spiritual leader and become fanatical and controlling. That's why Jesus tried to tell his followers not to get attached to outward form.

I jetset around and play these songs and get to hang with some pretty amazing people, then I go home to a really great farm, though actually it's a disaster area of a farm at the moment. But it's certainly a blast. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone right now.

The year I was born, 1956, was the peak year for babies being born, and there are more people essentially our age than anybody else. We could crush these new generations if we decided too.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be even lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anybody or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs, and unless we do something about it these people are going to deprive us of a future.

Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they're thinking and have their voice be heard.

We hear the stories every day now: the father who puts on a suit every morning and leaves the house so his daughter doesn't know he lost his job, the recent college grad facing up to the painful reality that the only door that's open to her after four years of study and a pile of debt is her parents'. These are the faces of the Obama economy.

I'm so busy these days. I forget everything but my lines.

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.

Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.

After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.

Now I know why guys like to hug girls. You guys just want to cop a feel. I can't believe that I've fallen for it all these years!

Most parts in comedy, they're not really written for men. They're written for, like, these boy-men.

Many of the Universities have very good Theatre Departments these days.

We have got to work on keeping these children engaged with the world.

And I always had this idea for making a movie about a femme fatale, because I like these characters. They're a lot of fun, they're sexy, they're manipulative, they're dangerous.

Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.

You don't implement change easily in Japan unless you explain very clearly why you need to do this change, how you're going to do this change and what's going to be the outcome of this change. If you offset or you forget to explain one of these three steps you're not going to do it.

I look at the careers of people I'm standing on the shoulders of. People like Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., and Sarah Vaughan. These are icons I wanted to emulate, and I feel like they've been holding me up for quite a long time.

Unfortunately these days, there is a hell of a lot that keeps me awake.