Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is.

'Cat?' 'Cat' can be anybody from the guy in the gutter to a lawyer, doctor, the biggest man to the lowest man, but if he's in there with a good heart and enjoy the same music together, he's a cat.

I do believe that my whole success goes back to that time I was arrested as a wayward boy at the age of thirteen. Because then I had to quit running around and began to learn something. Most of all, I began to learn music.

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

I had a long time admiration for the Jewish people. Especially with their long time of courage, taking so much abuse for so long. I was only seven years old, but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for.

What we play is life.

I love the DJ scene out in the clubs. It is a great way to party and make people happy, the atmosphere is one that I use as an escape from reality.

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

The perfect ham and cheese sandwich is all about focusing on quality ingredients and about simple techniques. You start with great bread, a well-cured ham and a sharp local cheese, and the rest is easy. A little butter in a pan and a little patience - in the end you'll have a sandwich that is at once comforting and delicious.

What I love about Thanksgiving is that it's purely about getting together with friends or family and enjoying food. It's really for everybody, and it doesn't matter where you're from.

Even if you are vegetarian, you do want to have a stuffing for Thanksgiving. The stuffing is not so much about the vegetables, but it's very unique to the season.

When I was a child, she'd have me wash the lettuce ten times or open walnuts by hand to make a cake. I was like, 'Mom, this is ridiculous.' But now? I run my kitchen the same way.

As people move further away from a meat-based diet, I think the focus will shift to using grains as the central focus of our food supply.

The visual aspect of a dish is so important; the shapes and colors and overall design have to strike the right mood and convey the right idea.

In terms of fashion, I love adding a fun scarf to whatever I'm wearing - it's a great way to dress up a plain outfit!

A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.

It is the knowledge that all men have weaknesses and that many have vices that makes government necessary.

If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy.

It was by one Union that we achieved our independence and liberties, and by it alone can they be maintained.

A king without power is an absurdity.

I think there's great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but have not invented their circumstances.

Money has transformed every watchdog, every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen.

Liberal that I am, I support health-care reform on its merits alone. My liberal blood boils, for example, when I read that half of the personal bankruptcies in this country are brought on, in part, by medical expenses.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

Sunglasses are great, but I always feel a bit pretentious wearing sunglasses. I mean, I do love to wear them.

I'd quite like to have one place where I stay put. And I don't like living in cities all the time. In order to have ideas, you have to have some peace and quiet.

We need a government, not politics. Because there's too much politics. Of course there should be debate. But there seems to be so much pettiness and not enough good faith. It is civilized to agree to disagree, and this idea is slowly disintegrating. The great statesmen of the past knew this, and I think it helps drive civilization.

Great teachers are the ones who inspire you.

I studied with Strasberg, Elia Kazan. They raised the bar. They weren't easy to please, and they made you achieve the best you could do. That's what a teacher does: he infuses you with passion for something.

My best stuff as a teacher was always to find the problems within each individual actor, and I'll suggest things that I know that particular actor will have difficulty with.

I'm very proud of Space 1999. Its success paved the way for other sci-fi shows to follow. My hope is that the DVD release will help it reach a new generation of fans.

People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.

Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time.

Some people think architecture is about the genius sketch; I don't. Great architecture is a collaboration among a lot of people over a long period of time.

Great men are rarely isolated mountain peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

When a thought takes one's breath away, a grammar lesson seems an impertinence.

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.

Contacts would bother me. I'm just not that used to them. I think glasses are a great accessory.

Gucci has always represented great design and contemporary lifestyle.

One of my challenges was to try to photograph the Great Wall of China. And I did actually take some photos, but it was hard to discern the wall with the naked eye.

I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.

You can no longer just be a good sailor. You have to be an incredible athlete as well. Having said that, you can be a great athlete, the strongest guy in the world, but if you can't anticipate and make decisions under stress and exhaustion and think ahead, then you won't be able to cut it, either.

The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking.

The problems that ail the U.S. economy and American society are one and the same: Both consume too much and refuse to make badly needed changes. This is true above all in the realm of energy.

Exceptional circumstances can accelerate the gradual process of energy transitions: France's decision to develop nuclear energy on a grand scale is perhaps the best example of how that can be done by government fiat. In contrast, America's accelerated shift from coal has been driven by an inevitable embrace of cheaper natural gas.

I wouldn't put a big trust in what people in Silicon Valley say. They may be good at manipulating ones and zeroes and writing software, but beyond that, their contribution to human progress has been pretty dismal. I'm not impressed.

Killing animals and eating meat have been significant components of human evolution that had a synergistic relationship with other key attributes that have made us human, with larger brains, smaller guts, bipedalism, and language.