Like many works of literature, Hollywood chooses for its villains people who strive for social dominance through the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and power. But the ordinary business of capitalism is much more egalitarian: It's about finding meaning and enjoyment in work and production.
It's been a great place to get in touch with what people are really thinking. And to make contact with readers and other writers. Egalitarian, wide open, like the Wild West!
People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.
Creative directors can be egocentric, they say. I decide; they shout at people and harass. I don't want that.
Some people have a blog that's, like, 'Today I brushed my teeth.' Well, who cares? Who cares that you brushed your teeth. Okay - you brushed your teeth! That's so massively egocentric, it's just ridiculous.
People who are successful should never forget that it's 90 per cent luck. You've got to be an eejit to be an egomaniac. I had my glory years - 'Blankety Blank,' the talk show, when I was winning every award going.
Of course it's fun writing about an egomaniac, but I know there are going to be reviewers who've never met me, who don't know anything about me, who are going to say this is autobiography: he's just changed the names of a few people, and the rest is totally as it was.
Not to sound egomaniac or anything, but just to get under people's skin like that, and for them to believe in you and believe strongly enough to write... it's flattering and it helps you during the day.
The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.
Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.
It seems that, culturally, young people function more in groups. They know each other through digital media. All the young comedy people who work in TV are really used to working at the table with lots of writers around. They're comfortable in the group; they don't assert their own egos over everyone else.
I have some realistic humility which comes from my first career as a writer. I wrote for other people for ten years. I saw some incredible egos not based on any reality. They were great when they were on top and awful when they weren't. I learned a lot about how to treat people.
Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.
They say shyness is a form of egotism, and you are only shy because you care too much about what people think of you. And maybe its true, maybe I am just an egotist.
I don't think enough people admit that there's just something fun about being in front of people. And that's not a self-centered, egotistical thing.
To be an entertainer, you gotta be a little gutsy, a little egotistical, so you have to pull back sometimes when people say, 'Well, he's stuck-up.' 'Stuck-up' is only another word for self-conscious.
The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization.
I had always thought of Egypt as a rather secular country. And I think it is, but people are quite observant of the strictures of Ramadan.
Egypt's problem is that you've got an economy that works for about 40 million people, only you have 90 million people. The answer to the Egyptian problem is not guns, but jobs. We've got to find a private-sector, nongovernmental, aggressive way of creating jobs. That's not America's role totally.
I don't think the Egyptian people want to see what is a very clear effort to obtain political and economic rights turn into any kind of new form of oppression or suppression or violence or letting loose criminal elements.
