I think Americans suffer for their lack of travel, awareness of the world. It has horribly warped our sense of place in the scheme of things.
An adult has the opportunity to enjoy the wisdom gleaned from previous decades of living and experience.
In America, quite often, for people from a certain economic position two choices become very evident as to their adult life. One is crime, one is the military. And it is quite often that some people choose one or the other, their options not being as many as someone from a higher income.
I can say that American men and women in the Military are damn impressive.
What makes me uncomfortable about [Barack] Obama is what makes me uncomfortable about any young politician who has not yet been bloodied inside the Beltway.
My acting range is incredibly limited and narrow, but I'm a good heavy. I'm a good authoritarian figure; I don't know why. "Can you be a cop?" Sure. "Can you be a Marine?" Absolutely. Well, at least in a movie.
I think it's very sad that the political landscape is so dotted with religious extremists who feel the need to infringe upon the lives of decent, free and harmless Americans who want nothing more than to be in love and to spend the rest of their lives together.
I think Americans really need to start thinking globally. As resources become more dear, we will be pulled closer to the rest of the world anyway.
I will take the acting work when I can get it. I am not really an actor, that's always apparent but it's work and I'll take it and am always glad for it.
You never have to listen to a famous person, it's an elective.
Hopefully, one enhances [when growing older] his sense of humor. As he approaches 50, he'll need all the humor he can get.
When you see the Escalades and the Hummers driving down the street, at least in Los Angeles, this dry, flat desert with shopping malls, when you see someone driving one of those through this you're like, 'You are definitely part of the problem.'
This sounds really corny, but I am a slave to my work, a workaholic, and glad of it. I like what I do; this is my place, my little universe, one of them.
The reality is that we are going to have problems with water in this century. And the fact that we are going to have problems with fossil fuel is a given.
I live my life by the numbers. Not only am I an American, I am an Americanist.
All of the things that the bible warns you of being: jealous, covetous, murderous, selfish, etc., that's kind of how humans are.
All my big heroes are literary, writers. I'd love to meet Jimmy Hendrix or John Coltrane, but I'd much rather meet Thomas Wolfe, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Words and books have always meant a lot to me. That someone can take words and string them together to where they will move me is just a hell of a thing. It's amazing to me; more amazing to me than music or painting. It's always been the written word or the spoken word, like a great lecture or a great lyric, or a great poem. To me it's just amazing. And I always aspire toward capturing that, or my version of it.
I don't really think about the audience much. I think of myself. Let me dig myself out of that one.
I have built my life to pursue the new. I don't have family, don't know many people and I am usually ready to leave within an hour.
While I have not ruled out the possibility of doing music, what I don't want to do is go onstage and perform old songs. I do, all the time, but I don't think it is artistically brave.
I am primarily a loner. I don't go to clubs. I don't hang out with people. I don't know many people. It's just the way it ended up. It's not a sob story; it's fine for me.
If you really want a true confrontation, you treat your opponent with respect.
That's the only interaction I have with people, those talking shows. Most of the people in my phone book are artists, management, producers, engineers. I don't ever call people with, "Hi! How are you?" I say, "How are you? Do you have that 16/30 ready? When do you want me to come into the studio?" That's what I do.
I write what I can. I think being able to write like Michael Connelly and have a character that goes from novel to novel, or to dramatize history like Vidal or Ellroy, or have an explosively inventive mind like Bulgakov, would be an incredible thing. I don't have that. I only have what I have.
I'm not trying to amass people in the streets. I just want them to be more aware.
