I think there's a lot of good and bad to L.A. One of the things you have to consider is that you can, if you're lucky, make a decent living here. That's a big plus. That's pretty positive. The weather is OK.
A good interpreter can take a piece of bad music and make it sound pretty decent, while a bad interpreter can take good music and make it sound cheap. I can tell that some people have a bad taste, and unlike on the piano, they smear around a lot, that is bad taste.
Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they might be able to make a good living and get married and have a family, a decent life, seems very remote to a lot of people in a lot of the world.
It's a pretty great thing to have a record that at the end of the day you're not totally sick of and you're actually proud of. We're pretty lucky, because a lot of bands come out with their first record on a label and they're forced to make decisions they might not stand behind because someone's telling them it's a good idea. We didn't have to do that. I think that's one of the things I'm most thankful for.
We often hear of bad weather, but in reality no weather is bad. It is all delightful, though in different ways. Some weather may be bad for farmers or crops, but for man all kinds are good. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating.
Lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles.
They are skilled at creating their own chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
I know a lot of people my age are still trying to figure out what to do, and I consider myself lucky that I can make a living doing something that I truly enjoy.
California is lucky, the East Coast is lucky because we get great seafood and a lot of produce from Florida, locally in good weather, but in the winter we have to buy it.
When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.
If the weather is sunny, it is good; if the weather is rainy, it is good; if it is foggy, it is good; if it is stormy, it is good; if it is damn cold, it is good; if it is damn hot, it is good! With a positive attitude of mind, all becomes good!
You know, I think a lot of times what happens when we as actors know we're playing a bad guy is we get into bad guy mode. You know what, man? In real life, bad people do good things too and good people do bad things. So you don't necessarily have to be the stereotypical bad guy to still do bad things.
I've had a lot more good luck than bad, and I've made a lot more good pictures than bad ones, and I'm pretty happy with what I have. I don't walk around regretting too many things.
The terms good and bad indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking or notions, which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf; it is neither good nor bad.
There's no such thing as good weather, or bad weather. There's just weather and your attitude towards it.
If you want positive search results, do positive things. If you don't want negative search results, don't do negative things. To some of my colleagues across the aisle, if you're getting bad press articles and bad search results, don't blame Google or Facebook or Twitter. Consider blaming yourself.
The power of your thoughts can influence how events turn out. I'm a positive person - when bad things happen, I can see the silver lining. As a result I think I am very lucky, even though I probably have as much bad luck as anyone else, and that translates into seeing opportunity.
What we'd consider a positive role model, I think it's impossible to actually be a role model. You'll have your flaws or defects of character, regardless. You just speak like a positive role model, and that's just something that you're being conscious of, and you make the decision, "I want to say positive things."