I’m not interested in breaking news. I’m interested in telling the story of what’s going on and then trying to figure it out.
My sensei was a British karate champion named Brian Fitkin. He was my mentor and because I had a hard relationship with my dad, he became a father figure to me.
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.
I love technology, and I love new gadgets. I can no longer figure out how to use any of them, but I love them.
I’m not a public figure at all. I don’t really go out a lot to places where there are people like those who sit at the bottom of your driveway.
There are only two rules for being successful: one, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.
Well, you have absolutely no idea what a nightmare it was to be on a set, trying to figure out how I was going to find out what time it is, how I was going to get my meds, and at the same time not have it be obvious to someone.
Richard Nixon is very much a self-made man in the six years prior to his emergence as a national figure. Between the moment he’s elected to Congress in 1946 and the moment he’s inaugurated as Vice President in 1953, he conducts nothing less than a kind of prodigy of American political self-advancement.
When I was a model, everybody was scrutinising me and I felt I had to go to the gym because my figure had to be fantastic. Now that I’m a singer, I’ve got a different kind of body – it’s more athletic.
No single man can be taken as a model for a perfect figure, for no man lives on earth who is endowed with the whole of beauty.
Beethoven suppressed everything, his personal life disappeared until he was locked inside. That is a figure quite extreme.
But then of course you reach a point where you have to say, I’ve got to figure out how this book’s going to end. Otherwise, you’re going to write yourself into so many dead-ends.
Ah, well, do I wish that we lived in a world where gender didn’t figure so prominently? Of course. Do I even think about myself as a woman when I go to make art? Of course not.
I’m extremely fascinated by marriage. I want to study marriage. I want to learn about it. I want to know it. I want to figure out whether or not I want to do it. I’m not just going to leap into it, because that’s not good for anybody.
I like going to Burning Man, for example. An environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society. What’s the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world.
I’m continuing to figure it out every single year: Life is a challenge, and the ones that succeed in life are the tough-minded ones that are not willing to accept failure.
I have never been the stereotypical figure skater.
The gay community just recognizes what their closets are and we straight have to spend years trying to figure out which closet we are trapped in.
Leadership is neither about you or me; it is about something that needs to be done. Leaders figure out how it can be made to happen and get ten or a million people to see that this is the way to do it.
Real education is about genuine understanding and the ability to figure things out on your own; not about making sure every 7th grader has memorized all the facts some bureaucrats have put in the 7th grade curriculum.
When it comes to the game of life, I figure I’ve played the whole course.
My father was Abe Burrows, who was a Broadway legend. ‘Guys and Dolls,’ ‘How to Succeed,’ ‘Cactus Flower,’ ’40 Karats,’ ‘Can-Can,’ ‘Happy Hunting,’ ‘Reclining Figure,’ it goes on. He was a legend, and when I was growing up, I was Abe Burrows’ kid. That was my self-esteem.
One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this: If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is.
I couldn’t figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time.
We have the script, we have the actors, and we’re trying to figure out what this is, and you don’t know what it is. You have to be open to what it’s going to become rather than have this thing that you’re trying to get to, which is boring.
There are three fundamental poses of the human figure. One is standing. The other is seated, and the third is lying down… Of the three poses, the reclining figure gives the most freedom, compositionally and spatially.
We need to build systems that can automatically figure out what’s high quality and what’s not, and encourage users to contribute high-quality content. There’s a lot of technical challenges in that.
As long as I’m learning something, I figure I’m OK – it’s a decent day.
No one told me about boys. I had to figure it out myself. The first thing I learned was that sometimes they grow slower than women mentally.
Once you climb to another level, you have to figure out how to sustain it.
I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that’s not exactly a full-time job. It wasn’t that I was writing and writing and writing and quit. Every now and then I wrote something, and every now and then I didn’t. The second just outnumbered the first.
I don’t think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.
Follow up the interview with a phone call. If Carrot Top can figure out how to use a phone, so can you.
They sent me the script, asking me to play the part of a general. I have never played the part of an authority figure. I’ve never thought of myself that way. I was uncomfortable with it, but I worked at it and knew I had a guttural voice for a general.
For those of us who aren’t great with people, we figure that silence is always the safest bet. If you’re an introvert, you spend so much of your time wishing that other people would just shut the hell up that you figure you’re doing everyone a favor.
I never really had that father figure to look up to. I think that’s the reason I’m so ambitious. I felt like I wasn’t appreciated as a child so I wanted to prove my worth as an adult, as an actor.
Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.
I taught myself to tune in to another person’s wavelength, figure out what they were looking for, and try to project that thing back at them.
It’s a funny thing. You sort of never figure it out with acting. You’re always learning.
If you are searching to figure out what is true and what is not, you will have a sad life. It means you have too much time, and you should do a hobby – like collecting art.
I didn’t figure out the makeup or cute hair or clothes until oh, maybe my junior year of high school.
When I do eventually drop, I pray to God that it’ll happen in one of three ways. Firstly, on stage or leaving the stage, then secondly in my sleep. And the third way? You’ll have to figure that out for yourself!
It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords.
Most fourth graders can’t say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that.
I love being an enigma. Every time I’m tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically – you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you’re pro-gun, or you’re anti-gun – I stop and say to myself, ‘This is great; this is what I wanted. I wanted to be the guy you can’t figure out.’
There are a couple of projects that are sort of on the plate; I haven’t closed any of them yet. I’m trying to figure out which one is going to be the best one for me.
I don’t think of myself as a role model, but I do feel like, for women out there who are trying to figure out who they are, the most important choice to make is to live a life that’s true to who you are inside. And let your ideas and your heart and your mind drive your fashion choices.
I’m not about to talk about what’s romantic in my life – I figure if you talk about it once, then that’s an open invitation for everyone to dig into your personal life even further. So, I just keep my private life to myself.
At home in Ireland, there’s a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.
I’m not one of those people who writes a biography or tries to figure out what kind of ice cream the character liked when he was 10.
I think in France, for example, we can say whatever we want about the French, but going out and dining is more about the intellectual moment to share with the people you dine with than trying to figure out what the chef did with that little piece of salmon or lobster and all that.
I’m trying to figure out the biology of dinosaurs and what they were like as living creatures.
Me personally, I’m a guy who it took a long time to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. I relate to a lot of that finding oneself a little later in the game, or being thrown a curve later in the game.
