These Quotes

And I always had this idea for making a movie about a femme fatale, because I like these characters. They're a lot of fun, they're sexy, they're manipulative, they're dangerous.

Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.

You don't implement change easily in Japan unless you explain very clearly why you need to do this change, how you're going to do this change and what's going to be the outcome of this change. If you offset or you forget to explain one of these three steps you're not going to do it.

I look at the careers of people I'm standing on the shoulders of. People like Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., and Sarah Vaughan. These are icons I wanted to emulate, and I feel like they've been holding me up for quite a long time.

Unfortunately these days, there is a hell of a lot that keeps me awake.

We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.

Well, look at all of these summer blockbusters. You can't help but laugh a little, because you've already seen a lot of these movies 482 times.

Are things getting better with each generation? Yes. It's quite interesting to be living in these times, for me to witness an African-American being elected president. It's quite extraordinary.

Then in a fraction of a second, I realized that these sportsmen were not anyone's enemies.

The first white men of your people who came to our country were named Lewis and Clark. They brought many things that our people had never seen. They talked straight. These men were very kind.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating war and violence.

Everybody in America started to define themselves by all these things they had around them. And all of a sudden it came tumbling down. So the old American dream has died, and that is a good thing.

Whenever I read stories of people doing huge pranks on set, all I think is, 'These people have too much time on their hands.' Besides, I don't want to make some poor assistant clean up someone's trailer after I've filled it with, say, Cadbury eggs. See? I can't even think of a good prank.

So, the point I'm making is, we are not going to cut spending in Washington if we think it's the job of every congressman and senator is to pave local parking lots and build local sewer plants. These parochial interests are getting in the way of the national interests.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

You hear a lot about God these days: God, the beneficent; God, the all-great; God, the Almighty; God, the most powerful; God, the giver of life; God, the creator of death. I mean, we're hearing about God all the time, so we better learn how to deal with it. But if we know anything about God, God is arbitrary.

In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.

There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.

At one point, my house was a school for autistic children. I opened up my doors to about 30 kids and their families at the time. I was turning into Mary Poppins because I had to do something for these kids who have nowhere to go. So my house was the school for two years.

I love being a woman and I was not one of these women who rose through professional life by wearing men's clothes or looking masculine. I loved wearing bright colors and being who I am.

I'm a perfectionist. I need to be needed. I need to do things for a man. But I don't need to do them as much, these days.

Over the years, I have been asked to play these sort of scary frenetic characters that express their emotions physically.

Advocates of unrestricted abortion do not want the public to focus on these undeniable facts of fetal development, but the facts cannot be ignored.

Funny enough, if you are looking at people these days who are putting Botox in their face and getting all sorts of plastic surgery, we look at them and go, I can tell you've had Botox. I can tell you've had plastic surgery. You look really strange to me. But no one's saying anything. We're just accepting the fact that they're strange-looking.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

I don't think fashion week will go back to what it used to be because people are realising that the industry is completely changing. It's not just in Bryant Park any more, people are figuring out who their audience is, where they want to show, they aren't really playing by the rules. It's not so much about these editors, these buyers.