Now, McDonald's is a very good indicator of the global economy. If McDonald's doesn't increase its sales, it tells you that the monetary policies have largely failed in the sense that prices are going up more than disposable income, and so people have less purchasing power.
It's pure joy to see some people who've never had the chance to live their dream, come on stage, and let loose.
A lot of people put all that stuff on a pedestal, and they won't touch it. But I don't think that's the reason they did that. I think they played that stuff out of pure joy.
I know theater can improve the quality of people's lives, and I know theater can heal. I've worked as a doctor clown in a hospital for two years. I have seen sick kids and sad parents and doctors be lifted and transported in moments of pure joy. I know theater unites us.
Did any artist ever bring more pure joy to more people than Fred Astaire?
Because love encompasses everything, nothing is unimportant, including tonight's dinner menu. Think about it for a minute. If you were pure love, the loving parent of all life, how would you want people to eat?
You can compromise between good, better, and best, and you can compromise between bad and worse and terrible. But you can't compromise between good and evil. And now people look at the other side as a completely different kind of animal and say, 'They are taking the country down the road to purgatory.' It's complete intolerance.
I used to be a major people pleaser, but that way purgatory lies.
The more we can purge ourselves of the diseases we create the more we can become magnificent people.
People saw the Depression as a necessary thing - a chance to squeeze out the excesses, get back to Puritan morality. That just made things worse.
The Arab world is mediatised in a way that gives too much space to these people - puritans, extremists, whatever you want to call them. There are a lot more people like me in the Middle East than you might think.
I was very against pink and purple when I was young, because they were girls' colors. But that was only because I didn't want people to write me off for what I can do. When I got into my 20s, I decided that was stupid.
I am purposeful in how I present myself to the world. I want my ideas to be taken seriously, and so I present myself in a way that allows people to see me and listen to what I have to say.
In any situation that calls for you to persuade, convince or manage someone or a group of people to do something, the ability to tell a purposeful story will be your secret sauce. Telling to win through purposeful stories is situation, industry, gender, demographic, and psychographic-agnostic. It's an all-purpose, everyone wins tool.
There is something about the sameness people like. And what I've tried to do with all the zombie films is purposely make them different. That may be part of why it takes so long for people to see what it's intended to be.
People are always like, 'Did you purposely do something to make people uncomfortable?' And I say the reason why it's uncomfortable is because it's either something that we can't talk about or aren't supposed to talk about, and they're images that aren't ever seen.
I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.
Is there something about the gay experience, being gay and the gay experience, that pushes us even more than other people toward competition?
I guess I just like to challenge myself and push myself harder to do things that I don't think I can, to do things that other people do not think I can. It pushes me. I push my own personal limits.
My goal is to get my music out to as many people as possible. That a song of mine is being played on the radio so far away from home really, really pushes me. It's everything I've dreamed of.
