When technology is ready for something novel, when the components needed to build something new become affordable, it is going to be done by someone and more likely by several people.
When you have to write a letter, you're automatically put into a state of composure and a kind of formality. You can't help it. So, no, I never once got a letter where someone just popped off at me.
If you have an embarrassing story, and it's a source of shame, keeping it in just compounds the shame and turns the story into something poisonous. And if someone knows about it, then it can be used against you.
I'm very attracted to poetry for all the reasons someone likes poetry. The notion of compression seems to fit my personality.
I'm lucky because the most dangerous thing that could happen to me is that someone will say something mean on a computer screen miles away, and so I feel like if that's all that I'm facing, then why would I not use my platform to talk about things?
Just because someone can sit behind a computer screen and have a different name and hide themselves, they feel like they can do anything to anyone.
Recognizing chronic sadness may encourage someone to reach out to a friend, family member, or counselor rather than concealing the distress.
I have always been fond of recognizing the spiritual side of someone's personality. It's a very lovely concept.
As for my own views, they've of course evolved over the years. This conception of 'renouncing beliefs' is very odd, as if we're in some kind of religious cult. I 'renounce beliefs' practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.
Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
It's clear on the one hand that an education enriches and informs a response to beauty, even makes it possible in esoteric cases. On the other hand, there's no question that someone with no musical education whatsoever might wander into a concert hall and be overwhelmed by the 'Beethoven Pastoral Symphony'.
I'm six foot four and a half and I have a temper. It's reserved for very important issues. If someone is asking me to make an artistic concession, then I'll become a madman.
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.
If you condemn someone who has committed a crime to be tortured, that would be unconstitutional.
I want to find someone on the earth so intelligent that he welcomes opinions which he condemns.
Anything that's on television as often as someone on 'The X Factor' is what's successful. That doesn't mean that I condone that or think that it's right. To be honest, I'd be the first to say I think it's a shame. But if that's the way it is then that's the way it is.
I suppose a good director is like a teacher. I think that someone like David Cronenberg was very much like a teacher, because there's an openness, but a certain set of rules of behavior, and a certain conduct expected. But there's an atmosphere that's relaxed and conducive to exploration, and that is created by someone like Cronenberg.
People in my confirmation process, on the right and the left, really loved that idea of having someone who's going to be in meetings arguing on behalf of the dignity of people who sometimes aren't represented in meetings. But by the same token, they have somewhat unrealistic expectations that I can kind of make my own policy.
Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.
I'm not confrontational, but if someone challenges, I'm not going to back down.
