I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.

I like smart, funny, self-deprecating men.

The older I've gotten, the more the need to exert comedy no matter how tragic a character I may be portraying because they are essentials for presenting truth.

A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama.

I have an engagement ring, which is my favorite accessory.

There are genuinely sufficient resources in the world to ensure that no one, nowhere, at no time, should go hungry.

As they used to say 'What if they gave a war and nobody came?' How worthwhile if they declared a day of peace and everybody came.

All capitalists should be like Warren Buffett, and he says he should be taxed more.

I also think that there is a strong streak of racism, and whenever we engage in foreign adventures. Our whole history in regime change has been of people of different color.

My first job was with an auto plant, Kansas City - they treated you like slaves. From there I went back to Chicago, worked in steel mills, drove a cab, stuff like that.

It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.

my face I don't mind it, Because I'm behind it-- 'Tis the folks in the front that I jar.

"I think my reputation will look after itself," Holmes said. "If they hang me, Watson, I shall leave it to you to persuade your readers that the whole thing was a misunderstanding."

The Asia Pacific is home to nearly half the world's population, a growing middle class and holds so much opportunity for us all.

I guess after you've been doing something for 20 plus years, you have to work to stay interested.

The denial of contemporary genius is the rule rather than the exception. No one counts the eagles in the nest, till there is a rush of wings; and lo! they are flown.

When you're dead you don't have a mental problem.

Flowers . . . have a mysterious and subtle influence upon the feelings, not unlike some strains of music. They relax the tenseness of the mind. They dissolve its rigor.

Class is material consumed.

I went back to my mother's house recently and I saw some of my earlier works as a 15-year-old art student. And a lot of them were reiterations of classic works.