I don't really think about the critics or the commercial success.
People ask about art and commercialism. I think that if someone tries to sell their work at a high price, that is the wrong way of doing it.
I think I came to see Islam, or at least one part of Islam, as an important defense mechanism against the commercialization of the world.
It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar.
I think the concept of commercials, for example, I have had offers to do songs in different commercials, and it is not what I have liked.
In the 9/11 Commission Report, one of the things they point out is that firefighters saved just about everybody below the fire. I don't think they realize how proud the fire department is of that. Because, conceivably, that's all they could have done. They could not have gotten above that fire.
There's still a lot I need to do as a player, as a musician, as a sound creator. I have commissioned 170 pieces: that's still not enough, there are still lots and lots of composers I would like to approach. When I see a composer and I see a performer, I think to combine those forces.
A large part of my work has been collaborating with composers; I think we've commissioned about 140 pieces now, a lot of them percussion concertos.
I think what limited my role when I was WWE commissioner in 2000 was my reluctance to get back in the ring every now and then.
Anyone who thinks sports are ruled by athletes need only think of American sports' most enduring tradition: Immediately after a championship, as the champagne sprays and the confetti falls, the trophy is passed not to the team captain but most often to the team owner, handed to him by his highest-ranking employee, the league commissioner.
I think the Commissioner is taking the steps necessary to give the game back to the players and the fans and hopefully take the league to the next level.
I feel, first of all, very privileged that these people think enough of me that they made me commissioner. And it's almost like, as Yogi Berra said, 'deja vu all over again.'
Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.
I think any advocate who is effective has fully acquainted himself or herself with the legislator they are going to meet. Know what committees they are on, what issues they are interested in, all in an effort to build a bridge for communicating with them.
Black-marketeers are really knowing, intelligent, and ordinarily responsible people, and when they indulge in black-marketing, I think they ought to be very severely punished because they undermine the entire system of control and regulation of foodstuffs and essential commodities, and cause wholesale starvation and want and even death.
What happened in 2008 stopped people in their tracks. People stopped looking at their homes simply as commodities to exploit and starting thinking about how they might personalise that space and make them less bland and more autobiographical, and that's healthy, I think.
I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I think, and out of all that I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can.
The launch of the report coincides with the initiation by WHO of the global strategy for the prevention and control of osteoporosis, and I think a good partnership could be established in our common efforts to prevent osteoporosis.
The common belief is that you are either a dreamer or a realist. But idealism and pragmatism aren't as far apart as one might think.
