Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.
One question you ask as a writer or any kind of artist when you start making something is, 'Does this have reason to exist in the world?' And you're reassured when you get little confirmations that people are pleased it did exist - whether they buy a ticket, whether it gets good reviews, whether it transfers.
I used to pass by a large computer system with the feeling that it represented the summed-up knowledge of human beings. It reassured me to think of all those programs as a kind of library in which our understanding of the world was recorded in intricate and exquisite detail.
As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn.
The world probably wishes that Great Britain had rebuilt its defenses and stopped Germany from reoccupying the Rhineland in 1936.
It was voters in the Rust Belt that cared about their roads being rebuilt, their highways, their bridges. They felt like the world was crumbling. So I started making ads that would show the bridge crumbling.
Sometimes, what's not said is just as important to the writing as what is said. As a writer, we have our voices heard. I think that, at oftentimes, the ability to allow the dialogue to recede properly into the world of the film is also a really valid sort of way to be a writer, I think.
Empathy is what obsesses me. And watching empathy recede in the world is terrifying.
One reason that birds matter - ought to matter - is that they are our last, best connection to a natural world that is otherwise receding. They're the most vivid and widespread representatives of the Earth as it was before people arrived on it.
I can testify to what UNICEF means to children because I was among those who received food and medical relief right after World War II.
China's own recent history proves that when it opens itself, there is nothing its people cannot accomplish. A more open China will lead to a more prosperous and stable China. That's good for China, the United States and, indeed, the entire world.
My grandpa was a World War II paratrooper, my uncle a Vietnam Purple Heart recipient, my cousins both Marine Corps officers. I have some very close Navy SEAL connections as well.
When I was a kid, I would do Andrew Dice Clay jokes for my siblings. Like, we'd be on vacation, and I'd just recite Andrew Dice Clay jokes. They seemed to think that was pretty funny. Then it evolved into 'Wayne's World.'
Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing.
Yes, I'm reckless and sometime express no concern for my own well being, and I express a misanthropic view of the world, but to have an opinion, you can't be a nihilist.
What do you think is the world's most recognisable container of information? It's the human face. We are constantly reading each other and responding.
'Line of Duty' is a social realist drama, so it's set in a world that has the recognisable features of the authentic world we see around us.
When someone recognises you or wants an interview, you think, 'You know, maybe I've done something good. Maybe I have a good result.' So if you see it in that way, it becomes a lot easier, and you realise that, actually, you're there and you've succeeded because of the media, because if it wasn't for them, no one in the world would know us.
There's no question that homophobia is rampant among the world's 1.5 billion Muslims - but that doesn't negate the fact that there are huge groups of Muslims who have easily reconciled their faith and sexual orientation, like LGBT people in other faith communities.
