I just look like a transvestite when I try to dress up. There's no place to hide my balls.
I think that I get different kinds of joy out of directing a film and acting, and it's sort of necessary to just be doing one and focusing on that. I'm in awe of anyone who tries to be an actor-director, so I couldn't really see that.
The only future Barack Obama is trying to win is his own re-election.
Through this world I've stumbled, so many times betrayed, trying to find an honest word, to find the truth enslaved.
I was trying to uphold what I thought feminism was as best I could by supporting women, by trying to create an opportunity to get women to get together, play music together and celebrate the fact that we are having great success making music on our own and together.
I try so hard to live in the moment - I don't think ahead very much.
I think sometimes all you need is to hear someone else say the same thing that you're going through to realize that you're not alone. I try to put some sense of hope into the songs, into whatever the situation is so that it's not just dirt, drudgery and a life of misery.
She tilted her head, considering the sensation. "It is strange." He gave a hiss of laughter at the words. "It only gets stranger, darling. But we shall try for something more.
Would you like to cross another item off this list today?" "I should like that very much. Which do you propose?" "I think it's time to try riding astride". "You can't mean..." "Oh, but I do, indeed, mean, Empress.
The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I'd try it out.
I write poetry to figure things out. It's what I use as a navigating tool in my life, so when there's something that I just can't understand, I have to "poem" my way through it. For that reason I write a lot about family, because my family confuses me and I'm always trying to figure them out. I write a lot about love, because love is continually confusing in all of its many glorious aspects.
Nothing is as universal as some good scatalogical humor. I try to shift the frame in which people think about poetry from being distant or "sacred" to being more human, because then I think it becomes easier to feel like poetry belongs to us, is for us, is from us.
Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.
I write about love and family a lot, because I'm always trying to figure those things out. At different points in my life, just when I think I've finished writing about it, the dynamics shift, and then I have a whole new set of questions and worries and misunderstandings to wrestle with.
I want to welcome folks to poetry, especially those who may have previously felt unwelcome; I want to celebrate everyone who is trying to make sense of this world through poetry the way I try to.
I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I’m trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.
I find it so ironic that all you do, for the earliest part of your life, is try to be like everybody else. And then you turn 30, and you realize all you want to do is distinguish yourself in some way.
We operate from this position of, "Let's build the skeleton and then insert the filling." We have this ping-pong dynamic with each other where we're able to try different things and bounce different ideas, and it ends up being us building our music together. I've never had a moment where I've been like, "I don't like it." Actually, that's total bullshit. I've had many moments where I'm like, "I don't like it," but it's always evolving.
There's a part of me, and I'm sure every single musician that writes for themselves has this: there's a layer of precious that you have to shed. I'm constantly trying to let go of, "Well, what about this, this would be cool." Some of that is needed, but a lot of it is total BS.
When you look at something that's so extraordinary, like a man who is traveling back in time to prevent JFK's assassination, for me as an actor, you're still trying to seed it in some sort of reality.
The way I sometimes approach my work, when I look at a script for the first time, is to identify what the archetypes are and what the writing is trying to do in that context.
You can't be emotional if you're trying to be a businesswoman.
I think if you're going to show a true representation of any one life, it can't be about any one thing. I try to see more of a full picture, with the romance just a single part.
I love YA, and it's been a really good fit for me. But at some point, I would like to try something else: a collection of short stories, or writing about something other than high school. A lot has happened to me since I was eighteen.
I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn’t already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to try and prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.
