Insight essentially means being able to see things other people are not able to see. This is the hallmark of leadership.
If the only people we seek to impress are within our own ivory towers of artistic excellence or our hallowed institutions, we will find the audience is gone in 20 to 30 years. I find as I keep a broader audience in mind, I choose to sing and say more things I actually want to share and fewer things just for the sake of impressing others.
Some people insist that hallowed professional teams should never change their nicknames.
I consider part of lower Manhattan to be hallowed ground. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the World Trade Center towers... and for that reason alone, our nation should make absolutely sure that what gets built on 'Ground Zero' is an inspiring tribute to all who loved the Twin Towers, worked in them, and died there.
On Halloween, don't you know back when you were little, your mom tells you don't eat any candy until she checks it? I used to be so tempted to eat my candy on the way to other people's houses. That used to be such a tease.
I had parties in church halls. My mama knew people that had venues and all that, and I knew a lot of people from forever. I was always popular growing up. She used to get me the spots, and I used to have parties. Probably about 300, 400 people.
The first stage I preformed on were the stairs to the hallway in the living room. There was a really nice platform, and when people were sitting in the living room, it was kind of an elevated platform and we would put on shows and skits.
At the New York Harvard Club, they've moved the memorial for those who died in World Wars I and II up to an obscure little hallway; they used to be in the main hall, in the most prominent location. The sacrifice of those young people I always found so stunning and so admirable.
It's hard to mix with a crowd when you're walking down the hallway and everybody else is a foot shorter. I remember hanging out with my friends, like at the mall, and thinking people were staring at me and talking about me. It made me turn inside myself. I became more shy and quiet.
A lot of people, even if they know what VR is, see it as this tool to go in your basement and play Halo.
When you're doing that you lose your focus on the discipline of the business, and how you train people at Hamburger University, and everybody gets on a bigger, different vision, and they're not on the same page.
Because of the success of 'Hamilton' and 'On Your Feet!' you can't hide behind the old argument of, 'It needs to be bankable, so we can't put all these people of color in the show.' We are bankable.
I look at it like this: that if Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written two or three plays about the Kennedy family, and actors would traditionally play JFK like they Hamlet or King Lear. They just would. I mean, people have played JFK, and they'll play him long after I have.
Five billion people have played Hamlet. 'To be or not to be.' And how do you do that and find your way into your own journey, your own way of telling it?
'The Real World' is the most predictable arc ever. They get on the show, they're all excited, we're gonna be best friends, then people start drinking and get hammered, and say stupid stuff, and that's pretty much it.
Illogical thinkers throw names and slurs around because they have no arguments with which to rebut their opponents. Rational people have to keep hammering their points home.
I would like 'Frost' to go on forever, but you don't want people in the press hammering you, saying you've outstayed your welcome or that it's not believable anymore.
There are 435 members of Congress. There's one 'Morning Joe' show. Hopefully, we can keep hammering the argument that you can disagree with other people and have debates but remain civil.
France is the only place where you can make love in the afternoon without people hammering on your door.
It may sound amazing to people today, but Rodgers and Hammerstein were considered by - how can I put it? - the sort of opinion-making tastemakers and everything to be 'off the scale as sentimental.'
