I didn't even get a computer till I was 16, so I didn't have Internet when I was in middle school and beginning of high school. I didn't think to be looking things up and looking at message boards saying whether people liked me or not.
I think this kind of bohemianism doesn't really exist in the New York city anymore - the bohemianism that I was trying to record in Carnegie Hall that completely defined our culture. The people who lived and worked in Carnegie Hall studios, they defined our culture in music, dance, theater, fashion, illustration. It wasn't so much nostalgic as a celebration of that and an acknowledgment of that and saying that it's really important. And it's actually something that is a loss for the city, I think.
The McCarthy period came along. . . and many of the other scientists who had been working on these same lines gave up. Probably saying "Why should I sacrifice myself? I am a scientist, I am supposed to be working on scientific things, so I don't need to put myself at risk by talking about these possibilities. " And I have said that perhaps I'm just stubborn. . . I have said "I don't like anybody to tell me what to do or to think, except Mrs. Pauling. "
Really, he could have just punched me in the stomach, because my brain refused to comprehend the words he was saying. A physical assault, it might have understood.
I keep saying, 'Don't change. Be who you are,' but society is really strong in their opinions.
When I was young I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then and I'm labeled senile.
And people are always saying: 'Well, you go to Hollywood and you get yourself a film career or a TV series, and then you can do anything you want. Because then you've got the clout. ' That had always sounded like a lot of hooey to me, but now I think it's true, unfortunately.
I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable.
I always felt that organized religion was just basically a theological insurance scam where they're saying if you spend time with us, guess what, you're going to live forever, you're going to go to some other plain where you're going to be so happy, you'll just be happy all the time, which is also kind of a scary idea to me.
I just know that something good is going to happen. I don't know when - but just saying it could even make it happen.
There's a saying within the Asperger community: if you've met one person with Asperger's syndrome, you've met one person with Asperger's syndrome. . . Within this condition, beneath this label, the variety of personality, of humor, of behavior, is infinite.
You have to believe what you're saying if you're going to convince me. I just can't break that rule, even if I want to.
I always think it's better to be not taking drugs or drinking or anything. That's not saying I've never done it because I have. But I sort of learned I think after a while there has been - it didn't take me that long to realize that it wasn't a good thing.
I am not closed off to anything right now. That is what I was saying about not having any more walls up. I don't want to deprive myself of any bit of life.
As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction. But only when the reality has not been subsumed by foamy legends and fantasies that radiate outward from the actual event.
Hopeless cases: Executives who assert themselves by saying No when they should say Yes.
Actors tend to get in their own way, a lot. A lot of times you will do things that will screw up your audition process. I was very bad at auditioning, and I always went in to it saying ‘God I hope I don’t screw this up. ’ But at the same time, the directors are saying, ‘God, I hope this person is the savior. ’ You have to remember is that the worst thing that could happen is you don’t get the job you don’t already have.
I spent two years playing open mic nights in Brighton, and I heard more and more people saying, You should give it a go in London.
Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.
Ever since the days of Adam, man has been hiding from God and saying, 'God is hard to find.
