Took Quotes

I think of these things as obstacles rather than opportunities, because if they were opportunities it means I actually took the business of doing them seriously. To take myself too seriously is the gentle kiss of death.

But what I did think would be interesting is if we created a fictitious story of our own, and then took these stories that we had collected and assigned them to characters who would be played by actors.

The promise of America has always been that if you worked hard, had the right values, took some risks, that there was an opportunity to build a better life for your family and for your next generation.

It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words.

I never took a grant or borrowed a penny from anybody. It was partially because I didn't really know how to do that, but secondly, my pride never would have allowed me to. In the beginning it was about doing it the right way, on the merits of the music.

We were very happy when a South African court, which had previously ruled against us, took another look and decided that this material was not obscene and allowed it into the country.

It took a bit of talking through administrative people, but only once did an attorney try and get in the way of the process and say their artist couldn't do it.

It took me years to figure out that you don't fall into a tub of butter, you jump for it.

I wanted to make pictures where you would not know who took them. I also bring the present into the past.

My role models in the business were the older guys on my team when I first got there: Gray Scott, Adrian Smith, Roland Taylor. These were the guys who took me under their wing, and really schooled me in terms of what the business was about.

Back then I said to myself 'screw football.' Actually I just took part in this camp as there was nothing better for me to do. They also didn't draft me because they thought I was too wild and undisciplined.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.

My relationships with producers or photographers - these are relationships that took years.

Once I got a record contract, and I took my songs which weren't quite finished, or maybe they were a good idea, maybe they weren't. I took them into the studio and developed them. They came to life and they evolved... and they're great.

No show would be successful if you took a group of people and just said, 'You're dumb!' over and over. That's not what Broadway's about.

It wasn't a class system where I was the better guy and he was the second-rate guy. That was his role and my role was to play the solos. But he took great pride in his technique as a rhythm guitarist.

The most difficult part of playing Christ was that I had to keep up the image around the clock. As soon as the picture finished, I returned home to Sweden and tried to find my old self. It took six months to get back to normal.

When I entered politics, I took the only downward turn you could take from journalism.

Eventually I did that, but it took a lot of twists and turns, and there were a year or two there where I was living with no money at all - no home, no car, no nothing. I was living in somebody's garage in Los Angeles at that point - for a year.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

I started writing short stories. I tried writing horror, mystery, science fiction. I joined a little critique group here in town and ran my stories past them. After about three years, I tackled my first novel, Subterranean. It took me 11 months to write.

Because after my first year I had a lot of success, took everybody by storm, came back the next year thought it was easy and didn't have near the season I had the previous year. It was kind of a wake-up call. And so, life goes on.

I always knew I wanted to be a character in the movies. When I was growing up, I had to have a lot of surgery, and I spent a lot of time recovering at home and in the hospital. Watching movies took me away from my own problems and gave me a total escape.

I knew that this was what I wanted to talk about on stage. There was no point being coy about it, or pretending that I wasn't gay. That was the substance of my whole act. If you took that away, there would be nothing left.

I made decisions that I regret, and I took them as learning experiences... I'm human, not perfect, like anybody else.

It was there I met my future wife, Celeste Landry, although our lives took us separate ways for many years and we were not to marry until more than ten years later.

I've just started school again, and it was a bit strange to start off with; it took me three or four days to get used to it. My friends have been great, they've been treating me normally.

They said it was against the rules to take sides on a controversial issue. I said, 'I wish you had told me that during World War II, when I took sides against Hitler.'

I wish my readers took less of my time - about a third of my working time goes to them - but I love and need them all.

I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.