My father was a fighter pilot, so I moved around the world when I was young. Then I ended up in Kansas. I'd just sort of gravitated toward the arts, and I had always loved music and really loved theater even though I didn't want to act.

Movies always had a captive audience, so they were able to do deeper, more complex things. Television was always about, 'Look at me now! Look at me now! Now go away!' That's starting to change.

I have a real pet peeve for women who play damaged characters but don't look damaged.

Any sympathy won for Aileen Wuornos based on a lie is not sympathy at all. The question is, can we have sympathy for the circumstances of someone's life? That's what I was interested in.

My mother's father was from Brazil - a painter, and not a famous one - and was always broke. But he was a free spirit, a great grandfather.

'Chocolat' was a sort of statement of my own childhood, recognizing I experienced something from the end of the colonial era and the beginning of independence as I was a child that really made me aware of things I never forgot - a sort of childhood that made me different when I was a student in France.

I want to be famous everywhere.

In opera, as with any performing art, to be in great demand and to command high fees you must be good of course, but you must also be famous. The two are different things.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

I was an elementary school teacher.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.

I've always had a lot of respect from the people I respected.

Thank God for the potholes on memory lane.

Now, we believe that the majority of teachers in America know our system must be reformed, to put students first so that America can compete, that teachers don't teach to become rich or famous. They teach because they love children.

And the greatest lesson that mom ever taught me though was this one. She told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. Now she said to always pick being respected.

One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits - a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment.

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes nothing, for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime.

If anybody ran a business like that they would be out of business quickly, and Barack Obama's leadership is driving this business, the United States of America, toward a fiscal cliff.

Now, do I think there has to be shared sacrifice among other nations in the world who want a stable and secure world? Absolutely, there has to be. But I don't think that America can ever abdicate its leadership role in the world because of who we are and where we've come from. We are the symbol for the world for freedom and liberty.

They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics, to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership, we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it.

I believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved. Now our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeing, and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times.

Now our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeing, and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times.

Mom spent the time that she was supposed to be a kid actully raising children, her younger brother and younger sister. She was tough as nails and did not suffer fools at all. And the truth was she could not afford to. She spoke the truth, bluntly, directly, and without much varnish. I am her son.

I'm a conservative, pro-life governor in a state where it is really tough to be both. A state like New Jersey, with lots of Democrats, but still we cut taxes, we balanced budgets. We fought the teacher's union.

It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?

I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.

It's really funny because the same people who loved me as Stringer Bell were the same people that were watching 'Daddy's Little Girls' literally in tears.

There's the argument that you can relate to someone who's completely unrelatable. In the way that a director shows you his imagination on a film, then I get to show you my imagination in a big dumb character.

Two famous happy warriors - Reagan and his political soulmate, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - knew they were fighting their own ideological and external wars. But they did so with the sunny dispositions and positive outlooks of those who knew they were on the right side of history.

I developed the concept of the Happy Warrior as a rallying cry for those of us who want to restore America to its great foundational principles: individual freedom, personal responsibility, fiscal restraint, and economic liberty.

True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity - or political ideology.

Nixon has enough to overcome in terms of his legacy and his political history. Now he has to overcome the in-fighting between his daughters. It's so sad. There's another obstacle for him to clear.

American presidential leadership never goes out of style.

If you have small-government, traditional values, you may be considered by your own leadership to be an enemy of the state.

When the world lacks muscular and wise American leadership, it devolves into total chaos, which, in turn, produces unspeakable evils.

It is an abuse of power, when you are President of the United States, to use the White House to single out a single news organization, and castigate them and try to delegitimize them.

During President George W. Bush's two terms, you couldn't drive far without seeing a particular bumper sticker: 'Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.'

For years, Suzanne Somers has been a pioneer when it comes to alternative medical treatments.

When the Left agitates over government policies, it's considered righteous anger. When the Right - and much of the center - agitate, it's painted as the rantings of the criminally and violently insane.

I was with a famous comedian when a young fan walked up and asked for an autograph. The comedian blew him off. I'll never forget the look on the young boy's face. He was devastated.

I had been asking the universe and God to send me a way for me to help me. Show business has been so wonderful to me, and it came in the form of that. It's just so funny how things come into your life, and if you take a chance on them, it might give you a brand new life.

When I'm living in the world of luxury and celebrity, which is where I found myself for a large part of my life, it's a walk-on part. Not a vital necessity, like it is for so many people. I enjoy it but I can see right through it!

My path has not been determined. I shall have more experiences and pass many more milestones.

I just want to live in peace and quiet.

I like celebrities. I love people who are famous. Always have.

I think I have more humour in me than anger. But those two things are great bed-fellows, performance-wise.

All you have to do is say, 'I'm going home,' and you're the most popular girl at the party.

The people in New York - their humor is on a level that goes, uh, very deep, you know?

I compare Stephen Sondheim with humor, because humor is unanalyzable. You can't analyze humor. You just have to get through it.