The younger generation has embraced Twitter and Facebook massively, and they spend most of their time on there. So if I want to reach new fans or keep in touch with my current, I try to use Twitter and Facebook as much as possible.
It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you're writing all the time. You're collecting songs. I've had songs that have been collected over a two-year period for my next record.
If I had my choice, I would be writing by typewriter. I worked on newspapers for 10 years. I typed with the touch system, and unfortunately, you can't keep typewriters going today. You have to take the ribbons back to be re-inked. You have to - it's a horrible search to try to find missing parts. So I went to the computer.
I had a ukulele when I was much younger. I have no idea what happened to it but I think that was part of it, just being inspired and wanting to try to play an instrument that, to me, sounded beautiful.
I try to be careful with my persuasiveness. When my heart is really behind it, and when I have no ulterior motive, then I know I'm truly persuasive.
To try to preemptively shut down debate with name-calling is profoundly un-American and will harm this country.
I try to be unafraid of making a fool of myself.
I tell my students to try early in life to find an unattainable objective.
The scales of justice often, in my head, are unbalanced. And so my job is to try to balance out those scales.
As a competitor, I try to do everything in my power to control the uncontrollable.
A lot of the time, if you go into an arena, they're pretty uninspiring. But we try to create an atmosphere.
I always try to be a universalist, not a specialist.
I learnt that an actor should be willing to take risks, try new things and unlearn stuff.
My story is a little unorthodox. At first, I just wanted to book a commercial. I didn't have any expectations, and I wanted to try something new.
I have those moments with my kids and family where we try to unplug and just be in the moment. We put everything else to the side and just be there with our family.
I grew up playing on unprepared surfaces where your wicket depended on quickly adapting to the bounce. As a kid, I could never differentiate off-spin from leg-spin. All I looked to do was to try to hit the ball before it pitched.
When husbands and wives not only co-work but try to co-homemake, as post-feminist and well-intentioned as it is, out goes the clear delineation of spheres, out goes the calm of unquestioned authority, and of course, out goes the gratitude.
There's this idea that many of the attitudes and personality developments in black folks in the diaspora are a consequence of this unresolved trauma. There have been attempts by black artists to try and figure out how to represent that in some kind of way.
Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.
Because I was from the Midwest and untrained, I was completely open and ready to try anything. Many of my classmates were cynical and jaded; some already had conservatory training, and they were there simply to get that Yale stamp of approval, which they saw as a career stepping-stone.
