I'm a perfectionist I guess. Everyone has to love me.

Do what you love. It’s going to lead to where you want to go.

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasing the risk of penetration of the new intelligence apparatus by the insurgency.

But I think frustration is hilarious. One of my missions is to bring humor into fine art. It's sacred.

I throw dignity out the window, and just become a creature of the moment on the stage. I act like I'd never act in real life.

If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunni Arab objections, there will be hell to pay.

I hate people who act too cool for school. Just own up to it, dude.

The written word is the only anchor we have in life. How extraordinary would it be if we had even three or four paragraphs written honestly about their lives by our ancestors?

It's about communication, no matter how impossibly hard your art is to understand and how much of an ivory tower or high horse you get on, it's still basically communication or why are you doing it?

The only tip I have for an artist is perseverance... Never give up.

It would be really embarrassing to introduce yourself as somebody who makes beauty.

Truth is worse than soap in the eyes.

Well, I sort of don’t trust anybody who doesn’t like Led Zeppelin.

Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self.

My success has nothing to do with opportunities or luck

To be honest, I'm not as goal oriented and ambitious as I once was.

Jove lifts the golden balances that show The fates of mortal men, and things below.

There's 3 types of people in this world: there's talkers, there's watchers, and there's doers.

I don't read the "letters" section of Time magazine. I think it's just my habit as a reader. I don't read comments on stories, in general.

Gideon was an untamed animal behind closed doors, a lover who bared me to the soul every time he made love to me.

Honestly, a lot of people thought that I was on top of the world selling so many millions of records, and that this is the life that everybody would want, but I never got to enjoy any of my success.