Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity – and I don’t mean simple – it’ll be good, and the public will know it.
You hear a lot about God these days: God, the beneficent; God, the all-great; God, the Almighty; God, the most powerful; God, the giver of life; God, the creator of death. I mean, we’re hearing about God all the time, so we better learn how to deal with it. But if we know anything about God, God is arbitrary.
It’s nice to be in first place. But just because you’re not on a winner doesn’t mean you’re a loser.
The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid – I mean, all the stuff that our ruling class is.
Jesus ain’t American, you know what I mean? And there is gonna be more people in Heaven who don’t speak English and are not white when we get there.
I guess I was just always one of those guys who asked those fundamental questions: ‘Who am I? What’s this for? Why? What does this mean? Is this real?’ All these pretty basic questions. I like making movies about people who are self-conscious in that way, and are trying to feel their way through the world.
Maybe you’re not perfect, but you’re willing to actually look at yourself and take some kind of accountability. That’s a change. It might not mean that you can turn everything around, but I think there’s something incredibly hopeful about that.
The first lesson I’ve learned is that no matter what you do in your life, you have to figure out your own internal rhythms – I mean, what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for your friend.
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
Many people ask, ‘What do you need mentally to succeed in F1?’ I say, ‘What do you mean mentally?’
The way my brain processes information is quite odd. I mean, I have Attention Deficit Disorder and another learning disability I can’t even spell. I don’t even have a high school diploma. I’m smart, but you can’t prove it on paper.
Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower, or because God our Lord, seeing that it would be good for them, allows them to melt into tears. But this does not mean that they have greater charity or that they are more effective than others who enjoy no tears.
It’s not the tools that you have faith in – tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I’m still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.
The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
Chaos does not mean total disorder. Chaos means a multiplicity of possibilities. Chaos is from the ancient Greek words that means a thing that is birthed from the void. And it was about that which is possible, not about disorder.
I am a firm believe in the power of dreams, because the world is basically one giant realization of people’s collective dreams come true. We need to dream to aspire to do something that keeps us striving. But those dreams and ideas and wants mean nothing without execution, which doesn’t usually happen without a plan.
Bad things can happen to you, but it doesn’t mean you have to have regrets. It’s all about what you do with it.
You know, one of the things I’ve learnt since coming out of office is how much easier it is to give the advice than take the decision. I mean, you know, it’s tough.
But in the end, in the end one is alone. We are all of us alone. I mean I’m told these days we have to consider ourselves as being in society… but in the end one knows one is alone, that one lives at the heart of a solitude.
The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month?
One thing I love to do is produce. I’ve produced a couple of bands. I mean, nothing ever really happened with ’em, but I enjoy getting a young band into the studio and guiding them, and making them feel at ease.
You can’t have a democracy when people don’t learn to put themselves in the shoes of another person, who can’t think what their policies mean for others.
Just because it’s bad doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.
I do a mean beef Wellington. Gordon Ramsay’s is a phenomenal recipe. But that’s a lot of prep. The secret to wrap it in Parma ham before wrapping in pastry. I’m so pro smuggling more meat in.
Once I commit to something, I complete it. If I say ‘no,’ I mean ‘no.’ I just have to learn how to say ‘no’ more.
Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.
Chance doesn’t mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that’s the way that novelty, new things, come about.
The nude scenes were a little eerie and I felt a bit odd. Yeah, when the camera scanned up my body, I said to my friend, ‘Now, that’s a close-up.’ I mean, you see every inch of my body. But I’m okay with it and so it was cool.
I consider myself very fortunate. I mean, I think there’s that old saying, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ and I just have such a passion for jazz music and playing the piano that I just find a way to make it work, so to speak. Fortunately, I have so far.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
I have one friend who I don’t think has a mean bone in her body and I find that very bizarre. I can’t imagine her ever flying off the handle, whereas I will.
I was an only child and I had a mother and father who were just – there wasn’t a straight man in the house, and I mean that in a very nice way. They were fun, and we would laugh a lot.
Some people say I’ve got a five-octave range, which is ridiculous. That would mean I’d sing like Mariah Carey or that alien in ‘The Fifth Element.’ And I’m nothing like that blue alien. I’ve got a range of about 3 1/2 octaves.
I think it’s often assumed that the role of poetry is to comfort, but for me, poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order of the mind. It is radical, by which I don’t mean that it is either leftwing or rightwing, but that it works at the roots of thinking.
I’m addicted to chocolate chip cookies. I mean that seriously. If there are chocolate chip cookies, I will devour them.
All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don’t subscribe to any of that. It’s all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the Seventies sounds nothing like the stuff from the Eighties, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the Nineties. Who’s to say what is and isn’t a certain type of music?
I got a rebel side in me, but I’m not mean!
Blind don’t mean you can’t, you know, listen.
I think working with Johnny Depp was very intimidating. It was my fault though. I mean he’s a total cool nice, nice guy, but I was just so, I don’t know, overpowered by his presence. Like he’s a very mystic person. He’s older so I never really warmed up around him. I was so stiff.
Patriotism is a love of country. If you love your country, you should love your countrymen and women. It doesn’t mean you always agree with them or even like them. It is understanding that we have interwoven destiny.
Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla. And it has fantastic handling by the way. I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track, just crush it. So if you like fast cars, you’ll love this car. And then oh, by the way, it happens to be electric and it’s twice the efficiency of a Prius.
This is what we get paid to do, is to bring it every week, and I hope the guys would say I bring it every week. I mean, I love this game, and I bring energy.
When you say a friend has a sense of humor do you mean that he makes you laugh, or that he can make you laugh?
I think you can judge from somebody’s actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there’s a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve.
In football, the worst things are excuses. Excuses mean you cannot grow or move forward.
Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.
People have to realize that just because you’re a Christian, it doesn’t mean that you’re perfect, because every once in a while everyone stumbles. Living by faith is about when you do mess up, getting back up, brushing yourself off, and keep trying to improve where you mess up or where you have temptation.
We didn’t have any solution to the world’s problems. I mean, we were trying to grow up in a socialist way to some future where the world might be less of a miserable place than it is.
No matter how daring or cautious you may choose to be, in the course of your life, you are bound to come into direct physical contact with what’s known as Evil. I mean here not a property of the gothic novel but, to say the least, a palpable social reality that you in no way can control.
