On the human rights side, administration policy has been marked by indifference. When the people of Iran flooded the streets to protest the theft of their presidential election in June 2009, President Obama was silent for 11 days.
As soon as the printing press started flooding Europe with books, people were complaining that there were too many books and that it was going to change philosophy and the course of human thought in ways that wouldn't necessarily be good.
I like buying people little things, not flooding them with money, trying to win them.
Americans think they're the leader of the world and yet can say that they're putting their economic interests ahead of the lives of - quite possibly - tens of millions of people who over the next 50 years will die because of floods or storms or tropical diseases or whatever. I guess that sort of thing makes me angry.
You have this fairy tale of 'life on your own.' It's so awesome. Until the apartment floods, or something happens, and your go-to people aren't there.
There's a good chance that in 40 years, after the floods, people zipping by on scavenged jetpacks with their scavenged baseball caps on backwards, I will be in my rocking chair saying bitterly, 'I remember when 'all right' was two words.'
We have a very open culture at the company, where we foster a lot of interaction between not just me and people but between everyone else. It's an open floor plan. People have these desks where no one really has an office. I mean, I have a room where I meet with people. But it has all glass, so everyone can see into it and see what's going on.
We put out press releases to tell people what had happened to me and that I had a large weight gain but a lot of people still didn't know. The ones that didn't know were floored. That was a real humbling experience for me.
I grew up less than a mile from folks that lived in shacks with dirt floors. I certainly know that there are needs in this country. Not too far from your house, if you look around, people need to be helped.
A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it's going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, 'Wow, that movie' - or that show or whatever - 'turned out really well.'
People are quick to be like, 'You're irrelevant. You're a flop; you're washed up.'
I don't know if a song is going to be a hit or it's going to flop. I never know. I just do the music and if people like it, they like it.
Even the biggest flops have been liked by a few select people.
When my film flops, I believe it is my mistake. There have been times when I didn't come out of my house because my films didn't do well. I lock myself in for months. I don't talk to people. I feel bad for producer, director, for those who lost money. It's never about myself or my career alone.
When people say they take hits and flops in their stride, I personally feel that they are just lying. Of course, I'm upset when my movies flop. I take it very personally.
For as long as I can remember, I have been passionately intrigued by 'Africa,' by the word itself, by its flora and fauna, its topographical diversity and grandeur; but above all else, by the sheer variety of the colors of its people, from tan and sepia to jet and ebony.
I was Lady Gaga way before her time. I had a wee kettle for a handbag. Didn't everyone, at some point? One of the teachers used to call me Dame Flora Robson because I had this big, long Victorian skirt. And I wore a Peruvian hat. It was the 1980s - people were wearing lots of lace.
Sardinia is beautiful. The people were so friendly, and the food was incredible! I also loved Florence. I spent two months there as part of a school study-abroad program. On the weekends, we would get to travel wherever we wanted, so I would explore. That was a magical time.
I didn't run into racism until we moved to Nassau when I was ten and a half, but it was vastly different from the kind of horrendous oppression that black people in Miami were under when I moved there at 15. I found Florida an antihuman place.
If you don't let people flourish in their jobs, why are they going to stay?
