I'm not part of the friends-and-family club; I'm not part of the pay-to-play club; I'm not looking to get re-elected. I'm not looking to go to another office and fill my campaign coffers. I don't need any friends in Albany except the people of the state.
My travels have made clear that people across this state - from every political perspective - are looking for a new leader in Albany.
I tell people that I've now done one decent thing in my life. Albeit inadvertently.
Graham Greene famously said that all writers need a chip of ice in their heart; Cusk can come across as the most beautiful ice palace of stalactites and stalagmites, and some people find her company, albeit by proxy, about as inviting as a long weekend in a walk-in frigidaire.
In a banana republic, one might slip on a banana peel but things do work - now and then for the people, albeit inefficiently and unreliably.
Imagine someone so infatuated by a band that they have every different pressing of every album the band made. Most of the time, the only difference in the album is the matrix number or a different 'made in' notation on the back cover or label. This is enough to make some people extremely excited. Actually, much more than excited.
There's a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.
I get letters from young people telling me that they're broke and download my albums for free. They ask me what I think about that. I now have a standard line. I tell them, 'I would rather be heard than paid.'
With albums like 'Rodeo,' 'Days Before Rodeo' and 'Owl Pharaoh,' I was really tuned into wanting to get people to understand my conscious and who I was mentally and who I am mentally.
The great thing about albums is it gives you a lot of choices, and we can all say that the album business is dead, but watch Taylor Swift. I don't think it's dead. I just think we've got to hit on the energies that make people want to collect albums.
The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.
I draw the line at letting people into my songwriting cave. To me, that's where the alchemy happens and where the mystery is.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
Millions of people die every day. Everyone's got to go sometime. I've came by this particular tumor honestly. If you smoke, which I did for many years very heavily with occasional interruption, and if you use alcohol, you make yourself a candidate for it in your sixties.
Alcohol decimated the working class and so many people.
Alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical drugs are legal, but they can hurt a lot of people.
Tons of comedians have said, 'I grew up learning from Bill Cosby. He's great.' But that respect doesn't mean much to the young people. They like their ginger ale with hot sauce.
I started being interested in acting when I heard the voices of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness. I've had the great privilege of working with Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Anthony Hopkins. These are people who inspire the work that I do.
Bush is a frat boy in the White House but we've had that before. But I wasn't one of those people that was threatening to leave the country. By the way none of those people have left the country. Alec Baldwin is still here.
I tell people, if you really want me to look that good, why don't you cough up about $2 million more and hire Alec or Billy? If you want me to do it, this is what you get.