If you're doing black music, you should have a core understanding of where that comes from, and the fundamentals - so you're not some bozo thinking you're doing something new.
I think the discipline comes with turning that cellphone and Blackberry off and unplugging completely. You do that and you go through some withdrawals in the beginning. You start thinking, 'Oh, do I need to do this? Do I need to do that?' You forget that we were doing just fine with the payphone.
I've been thinking of trying my hand at rap. I've been recording snippets on my BlackBerry.
Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what's been on your mind so you can think about what you've been thinking about.
A lot of the fear about being a first-time director is just starting with a completely blank slate and thinking: 'Is this going to connect with anybody?'
I don't want to go around like some kind of bleeding giant or whatever, or thinking I'm a big deal, because it doesn't help you do your work. I think people like Hemingway got into an awful lot of trouble that way.
There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.
I've always thought that you don't love a country by turning a blind eye to its crimes and to a problem. The way that you love a country is by seeing everything that it's done wrong, all of its mistakes, and still thinking that it's beautiful and that it's worthy.
My favorite New York memory is that blizzard in '96. I get chills thinking about it. It's my favorite time here - call me crazy. I'm from Canada, and it's very cold up there.
I was traveling on our tour bus through Europe and I was thinking I want to have long blonde hair.
I understood something way back when I was on 'Three's Company.' When I got the part, I was flat broke. I was so happy to get the part, but I kept thinking, 'Ugh - dumb blondes are so irritating; how do I make her likable?' I think that I achieved that. It took a while for people to realize I was acting.
An early fascination with higher mathematics at the university level blossomed into speculative thinking that could provide a basis for dealing with economic issues.
It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say.
I was blown away by the control and the range that I was hearing. I'm listening to Pavarotti and thinking, What the hell have I been doing with my voice all these years?
Her blue eyes were still beautiful, but they did not know what was before them, and Mary herself could never look through them again to tell Laura what she was thinking without saying a word.
The imagination of our children is blunted on television, and their thinking is done for them.
What is this drive to be thinner, prettier, better dressed, other? Who exactly is this other and what does she look like beyond the jacket she's wearing or the food she's not eating? What might we be doing, thinking, feeling about if we didn't think about body image, ever?
I was driving across Georgia with a warlord and his bodyguards riding shotgun with their Kalashnikovs in a convoy of Mercedes and Land Rovers. The guy put on Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' on a cassette, which they played on loudspeakers as we raced across the mountains, and I remember thinking, 'This sure beats respectable life in England.'
When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. 'How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?'
How to get over the river was the bother. At last, after thinking a heap about it, I came to the conclusion that I always did: that the boldest plan is the best and safest.
