I think it would be self-indulgent to go, "Oh, I'm going to make this character different by giving him a quirk of some kind." I don't think that serves the story, particularly. But even very similar scenes with a different set of actors, a different set of circumstances, it starts to evolve as a different character.
I think I give far more space and play to avant-garde writing than any other contemporary textbook author. I want students to be able to decide for themselves which aesthetics are closest to their own. Still, while I try not to be a nostalgist myself, I suppose I am drawn to those poignant moments in our lives, rendered clearly and artfully.
Once a piece of writing gets to a moment where it's not going to get much better than it already is, marinate it. If you still like the piece, send it out and see what others think. If not, it's time to put it away and forget about it for a while.
I think circumstance plays a big part in terms of what I do. For example, if I wasn't ever able to show in an art gallery I probably wouldn't really make very much sculpture. But I've had the opportunity to show in big spaces, so I want to fill up that space in the same way you might want to fill up a page.
... [I] recall thinking that the computer would never advance much further than this. Call me naïve, but I seemed to have underestimated the universal desire to sit in a hard plastic chair and stare at a screen until your eyes cross.
I think a huge amount of it is because of the Internet. Every single thing in the world is accessible with a few clicks. Almost every child, by the age of 13, has seen pornography. That's clearly different. It used to be really hard or really humiliating, as a 13-year-old, to access pornography. If you wanted to take a look at a Playboy, it was really challenging. Today, it's a joke.
Being in love is dangerous because you talk yourself into thinking you've never had it so good.
People used to think that private equity was basically just a compensation scheme, but it is much more about making companies more efficient.
I like entertainment and think mastery is good, though I don't feel like a master. If a theme means having a story that's legible, then that's certainly what we do. But we don't treat design as an add-on layer.
Think about what it feels like when you interact with someone who makes you notice what's good about yourself (raising your status), who is clear with his expectations of you (increasing certainty), who lets you make decisions (increasing autonomy), who connects with you on a human level (increasing relatedness), and who treats you fairly.
There is more inside you than you dare think.
I have had this desire my whole life to prove people wrong, to show them I could do things they didn't think I could do.
People who think well, write well
Logic has virtually nothing to do with the way we think.
I think there [on Cuba] is going to be an extraordinary reception.Cubans are - they want to hold onto their culture, their heritage, but they also want to embrace this opportunity, perhaps, for new economic freedoms.
If you're neurotic and you think, I'm not where I deserve to be or my mother didn't love me, or blah, blah, blah, that lie, that neurotic vision, takes over your life and you're plagued by it 'til it's cleansed. In a play, at the end of the play, the lie is revealed. [T]he better the play is, the more surprising and inevitable the lie is, as Aristotle told us. Plays are about lies.
I'm convinced we all are voyeurs. It's part of the detective thing. We want to know secrets and we want to know what goes on behind those windows. And not in a way that we would use to hurt anyone. There's an entertainment value to it, but at the same time we want to know: What do humans do? Do they do the same things as I do? It's a gaining of some sort of knowledge, I think.
Man is evolving...but it's difficult to see his progress with a Western perception of time. The Hindus think of time in much larger segments. They watch the hour hand of the clock while we in the West are preoccupied with the second hand.
To be born with a unique instinct, will demand 'unique duties'. If you didn't think about being an artist before 7 years of age you probably don't have it and you will be able to paint what you want to paint.
The Pulitzer has nothing to do with me; it's more about people's perceptions of me, whatever they may be. I'm not being humble - I honestly do not and cannot think about that. It's a lovely piece of crystal on my bookcase, but that's all it is to me.
But there was something about you that made me think of sparks and motion.
This is a difference between us: you desire what other people have, while I desire the things I used to have, or think I might have one day.
I don't remember what script it was, but at the Monday table read, the [opening] teaser didn't work.We went back and had to think of a new teaser, and [after] four hours, five hours, we weren't landing on anything.And it was probably Glen [Charles] who said, "What are we, cowards?" You had to do it, no matter how long it took.
I've just begun to dare to think I perhaps am a bit of an artist.
The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them.