I’ve always been able to be firm, to talk my way out of sticky situations. Bullies at school. Attempted muggings.
If you don’t travel the world and see as much of it as you can – see different characters in different situations – then how are you going to learn? I figured the best way to do that was to explore as much as I could.
I guess I’ve been extremely keen on theatre, on getting on to the stage, taking on different roles, enacting vocations, personalities, people, situations, and I guess that’s the interest that has driven me to work in movies.
There were some situations where I was giving up everything I had for the band and I just expected everybody else to feel the same way. I realized I was just kidding myself.
I’ve tried, in my own life, to speak up when I see harassment occurring. But I want to acknowledge that there are probably situations and instances where I could have done more. I think that’s an acknowledgment that all men need to make.
Continuity does not rule out fresh approaches to fresh situations.
Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.
We’re such a funky species. We’re so violent, so greedy – this is how we roll. But what are we going to do about it? How do we move forward given who we are? Because situations don’t come out of nothing. They come out of certain conditions.
Human nature must be changed if we are ever to have an end to war or to correct the wrong situations that make our lives uneasy and our hearts sore. Now Christianity, the power of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God, is the only force that can change people for good.
Umpires, like players, are expected to show constant improvement each season and at each level. Inconsistent plate work and the inability to handle situations are probably the two biggest problems that minor league umpires face.
With my feelings, I hold a lot in, because I didn’t always have boundaries and people would take advantage of situations because I’m a nice guy.
I would love to do more acting; I really would love to do it, particularly character acting. I’m a character type of actor; I love situations where I’ve got a bit of room to improvise on the character.
As a kid, I used to see how Sachin Tendulkar used to win matches under pressure for India in Sharjah or other places. So I was always keen to repeat the same in similar situations. I don’t take pressure on myself when I am in the middle. I love pressure, and I always believe that pressure makes you more focused.
People have the problem of denial. This is one of the things I learned in Lebanon. Everybody who left Beirut when the war started, including my parents, said, ‘Oh, its temporary.’ It lasted 17 years! People tend to underestimate the gravity of these situations. That’s how they work.
I go to great lengths to make certain situations feel right to the reader.
I do research for every single book, regardless. For ‘Double Dutch,’ I learned to jump and learned the scoring system. For ‘November Blues,’ I interviewed pregnant teens. I like to get up close and personal with the kids involved in the situations I write about.
I don’t think a lot of people understand the situations I’ve been involved in and the way I grew up. I took myself away from it and made something out of a bad situation.
As a child I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me – also because I read a lot.
I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.
Politics will take care of itself. I’m interested in people who are involved in the situations that politicians create. Politics is taken care of by politicians – they’re not filmmakers.
Everybody should have their own thing, and if he don’t want to be a role model, that should be up to him. In the right situations, I can try to help and be a role model, but I’m still gonna speak my mind, and if that affects the role-model deal, then too bad.
People change over the years, and that changes situations for good and for bad.
Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks you to image the world through someone else’s eyes, and it allows you to try to empathize with situations that you haven’t actually experienced.
You have to go out of your way as a suspense novelist to find situations where the protagonists are somewhat helpless and in real danger.
Lots of deals happen in situations that aren’t ‘pure work.’
The more time goes by, the more things will happen to you in your life. And the ability to be positive throughout and look for the good in people, look for the good in situations – it’s so important.
I think that in order for music to be heard in a lot of different situations you have to always consider that.
My dad suggested I change and try to play in goal. I always liked being at the heart of the action, trying to experience different situations and different challenges. One year, I decided to try playing in goal – after that, I was going to go back to playing outfield.
So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.
To the extent that you can find ways where you’re making predictions, there’s no substitute for testing yourself on real-world situations that you don’t know the answer to in advance.
I think some of my best theatre training has been in the Marine Corps. Not only meeting a bunch of characters, but growing up. You’re in really adult situations at a young age, as far as being in charge of people.
My mother took me to a lot of operas and when I was eight I got the opportunity to be in one and I realized that transformation into these make-believe situations was possible. I decided that was essentially what I wanted to do with my life.
Forgiveness has an uncanny way of bringing incredible good out of incredibly bad situations.
I don’t like cattiness, or people who are too judgmental of others, or other situations.
None of my characters are rich or famous, and the situations they find themselves in could happen to anyone.
Fashion has a long interest in collaborative situations.
I try to put myself into unusual and difficult situations as often as I can in order to capture the element of struggle in the music.
I feel really passionate now that talking with family, friends, or a counsellor is the way to deal with negative situations and difficult times.
Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many different people who come in to host the show and you get thrown into so many situations and learn how to think on your feet, so filmmaking actually feels slow, in a good way.
Climate change is a controversial subject, right? People will debate whether there is climate change… that’s a whole political debate that I don’t want to get into. I want to talk about the frequency of extreme weather situations, which is not political.
Scientific education is by far the best training for all walks of life because it teaches us how to assess situations critically and react accordingly. It gives us an understanding based on reverence for life-enhancing technologies as well as for life itself.
Myths are wonderful tools that we’ve had, oh, for eons now that help us navigate the situations we find ourselves in.
Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.
Every friendship goes through ups and downs. Dysfunctional patterns set in; external situations cause internal friction; you grow apart and then bounce back together.
I do situations and make fun of authority and life.
I don’t fret over lost time – I can always use the situations in a novel.
The faith-based thing is really important for me. There are certain situations that I would not have been able to make through without the promises He makes and gave for us.
To me, very much of what is artistic is people’s very creative and inventive ways out of impossible situations.
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
Amateurs in professional situations make me very impatient.
There’s certain circumstances, there’s certain situations, there’s certain decisions that have to be made based upon the business and you can’t take that personal.
I have this part in myself that sometimes gets me into situations that can never end well, just because I want to prove to myself that I’m no good.
I don’t really think about what’s ‘age appropriate’ for my audience because I think they can handle quite a bit, but I do try to think about what’s honest and true to my characters who have grown up in situations where they’ve been taught to handle these things very carefully and that they’re very powerful.
I think the hedge-fund industry has taken a reputational turn for the worse, this dog-eat-dog stuff. I’m not just talking about Herbalife or J. C. Penney, but in other situations where the media really focuses on who’s long and who’s short. I don’t think it’s a good thing for the industry.
