Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself.
Maybe I don't ever fully switch off, but I think the way I offset that is by splitting my time between film and music. I always want to challenge myself and grow, fail, self-flagellate, and then try again.
For a long time, I thought when you do a box set, you're giving up; you're saying, 'OK, I don't have anything left.' But now I've listened to some of the old stuff I haven't heard in 20 to 40 years with fresh ears. It's like, 'Oh yeah, I can see where people might want to to hear some of this stuff that didn't make it onto the records.'
Scripts were rather scarce in 1968. We did a lot of Amiri Baraka's plays, the agitprop stuff he was writing. It was at a time when black student organizations were active on the campuses, so we were invited to the colleges around Pittsburgh and Ohio, and even as far away as Jackson, Mississippi.
Stocks in the United States plunged in 2002 amid fears of war and terrorism, a weak economy, rising oil prices and dozens of corporate scandals. It was the third consecutive annual decline, the first time that has happened in 60 years.
When you feel stuck in a hard time, jump-start a pro-change attitude by letting go of possessions that no longer work for you - like old clothes and old shoes.
The world changes fast, and a lot of the old country folks have a hard time keeping up with it, and it makes them sad.
I liked the idea of creating a new pop-culture, folkloric hero character that I created with 'Django' that I think's gonna last for a long time. And I think as the generations go on and everything, you know, my hope is it can be a rite of passage for black fathers and their sons. Like, when are they old enough to watch 'Django Unchained'?
Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference.
I was in government for 13 years and in that time only once met the head of the German security services, and that was because he was an old friend. Otherwise, I carefully avoided having anything to do with these people. They are unavoidable but not really necessary.
Exercise is like an old friend: You may not be able to see that friend all the time, but you're not mad when you see them, you're happy, and you get right back into it.
The editor of a newspaper, who is an old friend, asked me to write a column. According to her, I cracked lame jokes all the time and read voraciously.
I reckon I probably worked for Euripides a long time ago. I do think we have many Earth walks and it's possible that he's an old friend. Does that sound too stupid for words? Quite frankly I think I've been an actor in so many lifetimes.
If there is a public perception at all, they see the producer as a big old guy who smokes a cigar and has lots of money and lots of power. That's not what a producer is and, if it ever was what a producer was, it certainly hasn't been for a long time.
What I realised is, watching some old home videos, I've always had a weird accent. It's because I spent a lot of time on film sets. But Australia will always be home... I sound like the Qantas ad, don't I?
I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.
I love to watch old movies when I get time off.
I will have a song that I'm in love with for a couple of months and then I'll go to something else. That's just constantly changing. And sometimes I will go back to old one that I haven't heard for a long time.
The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one.
I never thought I was going to make a career out of tennis, to be honest, until I was 10 or 11 years old. One of my earliest memories is when I was seven, and I was competing against players that were three, four years older than me. I didn't take it too seriously at the time. I was having a lot of fun.
