Fine tuning the institutions built by powdered wig guys two hundred years ago is a long shot at holding the whole thing together.
My mom said I was a handful. Now I'm helpful.
I think my capacity to change has given me tremendous happiness, because who I am today I am completely content to be.
The system is only as good as the person programming it. If you don't have the follow-through, your system is useless. And by the way, it's that way in parenting; it's that way in marriages.
Once we get out into a kind of an open world, we really do learn about ourselves and for me it's a lesson in discovering yourself, discovering your inner resources and then literally, in the movie, finding your voice.
I'm one of those people who does a lot of things. I'm lucky. I get up and I have a lot of energy. I have a great work ethic.
You can't live a truthful life without regret.
I had a dream that Louis Armstrong was playing the 'Swept Away' melody. I have no idea where it came from. But Louis Armstrong was playing it and singing the song to me. I woke up-it's a borrowed melody no doubt-and wrote it down. If I hear a song and I choose not to put it down, that's me neglecting to accept that song. I think there's a very spiritual and godly-type ting that happens, and it happens to way more people than we know. It's just that very few of us choose to engage it.
Do you know what would keep me in Brazil, no matter what happened? Sex!
one way to keep people close to you is by not giving them enough. . . . with people who give a lot of themselves, you sometimes lean back - but with people who give little you often lean forward, as if they're a spigot in the desert and you're the empty cup. It is the tropism of deprivation: We lean toward those who do not give.
I think when hundreds of thousands of lives are on the line, you might have to set aside some principles.