When you lead change, sometimes you get arrows in your back. I mean, that's just the way the real world is.
The truth is - I found myself doing these huge action-adventure movies, and um, and which are cool man. And I really love doing them. And thankfully I haven't had too much dialogue, because if I had I would have really made a mess of it. You know what I mean?
To borrow a phrase from my friend Erskine Bowles on the Fiscal Commission, we are the healthiest looking horse in the glue factory. That means America is still a step ahead of the European nations who are confronting a debt crisis, of Japan that's in its second lost decade.
Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand up and do what’s needed.
What I really want is a world where no one alive can remember what the word 'war' means. That's my goal.
I think for a lot of people, bowling is sort of a joke. But I love it, and it means a lot to me, so any chance to help promote it or celebrate it or not make the hackiest jokes - 'Bowlers are like plumbers and they wear the craziest shirts!' - I'm way into.
I have a hard time articulating the emotional experience of working on a film. Even when I have meetings on films or discussing them with directors, I find that's my biggest challenge. Different words mean different things to people.
I spent an awful lot of time with Hemingway. And Hemingway had a remarkable ability to reach very noble goals through sometimes ignoble means.
Good leadership means leading the way, not hectoring other people to do things your way.
Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.
The desire to be a free person is very worthwhile. To be free means you are no longer the victim of fear, anger, craving, or suspicion.
Maybe the discipline in North America is just consolidation, right? I mean, it may be that if there were more vigorous pursuit of antitrust in America, there would have more competitors competing on price, and then airlines wouldn't be making any money again.
When one talks about being like a dead corpse in the hands of a spiritual teacher it means being able to surrender one's will, specially one's nafs al ammarah, that is a part of our soul which is again a Quranic term, which commands us to evil - we must surrender that. That's what it means. It doesn't make you become part of a cog of a machine.
Photography - the supreme form of travel, of tourism - is the principal modern means for enlarging the world. As a branch of art, photography's enterprise of world enlargement tends to specialize in the subjects felt to be challenging, transgressive. A photograph may be telling us: this too exists. And that. And that. (And it is all 'human. ') But what are we to do with this knowledge - if indeed it is knowledge, about, say, the self, about abnormality, about ostracized or clandestine worlds?
No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst.
I as a Muslim want you, as a Christian, to really be a perfect Christian. I want my Jewish friends to be perfect Jews, to live according to the highest principles of what it means to be a Jew, to be a Christian, to be a Muslim.
Civil Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of Power in Nature for the use and convenience of man; being that practical application of the most important principles of natural Philosophy which has in a considerable degree realized the anticipations of Bacon, and changed the aspect and state of affairs in the whole world. The most important object of Civil Engineering is to improve the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal Trade.
Barack Obama is an opportunist, mostly supported by the financial institutions. He had no positions on anything. He's very intelligent. If you look at his program, almost no substance. Change, hope, what's that? I mean, he had some policies, but it was almost certain that he would give them up instantly, which he did.
To truly be feminine means being soft, receptive, and - look out, here it comes - submissive.
I used to believe having a good memory meant being able to remember everything in perfect detail. Now I believe having a good memory means being able to selectively forget. It's not what I'll remember, it's what I'll forget that matters.