I can't have friends in every port. I have to work very hard and be very clear about what I want to do. I cannot just swallow everything I am told. I have to decide what I want to become part of my luggage - and what I don't.
When I work with artists, I give them a general guideline of what my vision is. Then they're going to speak their minds on how they view it, too. The song that defines 'Neon Future' the best is the title track. I wrote that with Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun. It's through his words. We had an amazing songwriting session together, connecting.
I've been through my fair share of highs and lows. Yes, I've been written off, and it amazes me, and it amuses me, also, when I'm written off by the press cause then I tell them that's just the lull before the storm. And every time I've been down, I've been down, never out. So it just makes me work a lot harder.
In Victorian fiction, there would be a chapter at the end devoted to righting all of the wrongs. I thought to right all of the wrongs would be too glib. I thought it would be better to lull the reader into thinking that is the way it would work, but then not to do that.
I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.
Our ties are deep and long-standing. We are dependent on each other. And no matter what the issue of the day, whether it be softwood lumber, whether it be a war in Iraq, we need to continue to work together.
I did theater at Spelman until I graduated from there, and I got to work with such luminous actresses as Diana Sands in 'Macbeth.'
Lumped in as a hobby, I don't really like drawing pictures all that much, but thinking of it as work, it's the greatest.
I've been screaming at the top of my lungs at my family, 'Work out! Work out! Old age is coming!'
Throughout Ireland, there's a brilliant community of filmmakers and actors, and I guess there was always a lure to do some work in the place where I come from.
Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.
Most cops are not looking for understanding. They work in a world filled with a sense - real or imagined - of danger lurking around each corner and every hallway. Most cops are merely looking for respect.
The U.N. might not be the most luxurious place to work, but it certainly is one of the most important places in the world.
Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work.
I wouldn't say I see my work as having a political ideology. Lynn Nottage certainly has a political ideology. I think that the work is an extension of who I am, but I don't think that when I write the play I'm looking to push the audience one way or another.
A lot of comedians do bits where they say, 'I was listening to this song, and this person said this, and you know how they say that?' And I thought it would work better if I actually had a DJ put that song lyric right there. It makes it more dynamic, and it's more energetic.
When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me.
I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home.
The songs that work best are broad lyrically and have one strong concept in the metaphor.
If it hadn't been for Bill Macdonald's book 'The True Intrepid,' I might never have found out about the women who went down to work in secret in New York for our own spymaster Sir William Stephenson in the Second World War.
