There's this great thing called the 'Chitlin' Circuit,' which I started my shows on and back in the day when, you know, Ray Charles and Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, they couldn't get into white establishments, so they went on this circuit and toured. They were huge stars in their own community, you know, and that's pretty much my same story.
The first time I heard a Billie Holiday record, I thought, 'What's so great about Billie Holiday?'
I thought the Billie Holiday comparison was beautiful. I think, Wow, what a wonderful, creative, helpful spirit. She's someone who wanted to help others by sharing her emotion. That's what I do, too, so I think that's a great comparison.
My great hero is Billie Holiday, and I've always wanted to do an album of standards with a piano-led quartet.
I think the great irony of history will be that it was a secular billionaire from New York who turned out the be the most faith-friendly president in history.
A lot of people have said a lot of great things about Steve Jobs. And for good reason: he built the world's second-most valuable company, with billions in profits and products that have improved every aspect of our lives. But Steve didn't get there by being a soft, fluffy, Kumbaya-type leader.
I was totally dominated and revered my father. I admired everything he did. He was a great sports person. He loved me. I was his only boy at that time, before my brother Billy came along.
I've met people of great faith. I sat in the home of Billy Graham and in the residence of Cardinal Dolan and prayed with these men of God.
I listen to Billy Joel. He is fabulous. I saw him with Elton John when they toured together, it was so great.
In Denver, all we really had was pop radio, so I grew up on all that late '70s pop stuff - Billy Joel, James Taylor, Lionel Richie, Elton John, Steve Miller and Toto. Great love songs and really hooky and melodic music - I have all of that stuff in my heart.
We teach young kids from 8 to 14 or 15 about their musical heritage through great songs written by American songwriters. We don't do too many modern composers, although we include songs from Billy Joel and other writers like him.
Billy Joel and Joe Jackson were both great, and they both play piano.
I'm not going to have a perfect career. It's better to be Billy Wilder and make lots of movies and have five or six great ones than to make so few movies that when you make a bad one it crushes you.
In some instances, I don't care what people think. In other instances, I do - especially because of the stereotype. People take a look at me and say, 'She's cute. She's blond. She's an actress. She's a bimbo.' You know? So I take great pains to show I'm intelligent, to show I'm not a twinkie.
Don't get me wrong. I don't take anything for granted. But it seems like the better I play, the more attention I get. And I can't get away from it. You play great, you get attention. But I hate attention. It is weird. I'm in a bind. The more you win, the more they come.
All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.
Cinema is a great binding force for a nation.
No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.
There is a lot that binds Germany to Turkey, and even if we have a difference of opinion on an individual matter, the breadth of our links, our friendship, our strategic ties, is great.
I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.
