When I take up my pen, nothing can happen to me. Fate, remember that.
America is not a special country by accident. It did not happen on its own. It happened because for over 200 years, each generation before us did what needed to be done.
When you put a group of actors together who get along, and we have since day one, they don't become like their roles. What tends to happen is their age disappears and they all deal with each other as friends.
The problem is not that religious people are stupid. It's not that religious fundamentalists are stupid. I happen to think that you can be so well educated that you can build a nuclear bomb, and still get--and still believe that you will get the 72 virgins in paradise--that is the problem. The problem is that--religion--because it has been sheltered from criticism as it has been--allows people--perfectly sane, perfectly intelligent people--to believe en masse, what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.
To be on stage, to be sharing a stage with Lauryn Hill, Grace Jones, SZA, Kelis, and all these incredible women, I'm like 'When did this happen?'
Even when bad things happen you have to try to use those bad things in a positive manner and really just take the positive out of it.
I'm very objective about what I want to have happen to my protagonists and where that has to come from. On one hand, it does help me that I had a mother who might have taken the last dollar and bought a pack of cigarettes or something, but I also had a mother who exposed me to art, music, other religions, different foods. My mother was very adventurous in her own way, so she fed the part of me that was going to grow up to be a writer. But there's always, too, the opposite response that helps me to create.
I believe that things happen for a reason. I think there are no coincidences in life.
College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking.
We need to keep our families intact. We need to keep our relationships strong, because whatever happens is going to happen. And we've got to enjoy our life, and we've got to make the most of what we have today.
There's no way to know what's going to happen.
One must be able to let things happen.
We'll always be disappointed if we believe that we can plan for a peak experience and make it happen. True joy can't be anticipated or planned. It just strikes.
I enjoy the process of writing collaboration so there's some stuff that already that may happen and then some stuff that I'm initiating that I may write on my own.
Life’s like that. As we grow and change, some things we’ve experience before take on new meaning. It’ll happen for the rest of your life.
I've really enjoyed playing live shows, because sometimes things we'll just happen - sometimes a song will go on for 10 minutes. It always depends on the crowd. But it's always kinda different, which is cool.
I never root for a failure. I learned that when we were on 'Felicity. ' There was a show that failed on the lot, and suddenly all of this food showed up on our set. I was, like, 'What is this?' And they said, 'Oh, they cancelled this other show right before their lunch. ' And I said, 'Throw that food away! We don't want to touch that food! There's no way I'm eating it!' So I never root for anybody, because it could happen to you in two seconds.
Devotion is the essence of the path, and if we have in mind nothing but the guru and feel nothing but fervent devotion, whatever occurs is perceived as his blessing. If we simply practice with this constantly present devotion, this is prayer itself. When all thoughts are imbued with devotion to the guru, there is a natural confidence that this will take care of whatever may happen. All forms are the guru, all sounds are prayer, and all gross and subtle thoughts arise as devotion. Everything is spontaneously liberated in the absolute nature, like knots untied in the sky.
This country's going to have a revolution if something doesn't happen the haves and have - nots.
You're pretending this isn't your life. You think it's going to happen some other time. When you're dead you'll realise you were alive now.