Quotes on Things

One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot-button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.

I've always had this feeling wherever I go. Of not feeling fully part of things, not fully accepted, not fully inside of something.

There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops' hearts, not just their heads.

Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe.

The satisfaction derived from the fleeting things of life is not lasting; and our wants remain unfulfilled. There is thus a general sense of dissatisfaction accompanied by all kinds of worries.

I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.

Film can do lots of things: It can produce alternative ideas, ask questions, just record the reality of what's happening, it can analyze what's happening. Of course, most commercial films are controlled by big corporations who have an interest in not doing those films.

We collectively, to get things done, work together as a team. Because the work really happens horizontally in our company, not vertically. Products are horizontal. It takes hardware plus software plus services to make a killer product.

The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important.

Only when a man will not do some things is he capable of doing great things.

As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.

Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us.

It's what I do well - I write about things that make people uncomfortable. That's probably the only thing I do better than my peers.

Many things I might not write today because I no longer believe them, but I wouldn't change them, since I believed them at the time.

We go through life owned by the stories we tell ourselves which are often historic and charged narratives - things we've learnt since childhood that we don't even consciously realise are going on.

I've written some great things. That's a gift, but there's consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

I've decided to tell my kids things like: 'I love the way each of you tilted back your heads when you laughed.' I will give them specific stuff they can grasp.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

I think the way to be a writer is to experience things, certainly, and be open to things, but at some point to become dedicated to the craft of writing and to create a stable environment for that writing to occur in.

As a child growing up in refugee camps, life taught me that many things were impossible. My older sister, Claire, taught me otherwise when her strength and resilience made the impossible possible in the way she worked, behaved, and took control of our lives.