People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.
For all the drama we all have with our families and all the tension and hostility, I couldn't have done this without my family. Being the people that they are - they're crazy - made it possible for me to be crazy and to live a lifestyle of my own design.
I relate with military families and Gold Star families. Gold Star families are families where somebody didn't come home. My father died in 1949. He was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corp.
I'm just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.
A lot of times people will have after-parties or try and host an event for comedians, and they misunderstand us. They think it should be wild and crazy, or loud music, and comedians are typically pretty mellow people that just want to talk to each other. I think it would be highly unusual to find comedians who want to be at a loud, crowded party.
A lot of people relate my success now with The Voice, and it has nothing to do with that. I've definitely worked my ass off for a year afterwards trying to get that off of my forehead. If anything, it's actually harder to get labels to look at you when you come off a show like that, and it's harder for people to look at you like a real artist.
It's going to be crazy. The fans in Venezuela are tough. They scream. We get to face the Dominicans in the first game - it's going to be crazy, they're looking for revenge. Our fans are loud, so are theirs. But that's good. It's going to be crazy.
It is an awful lot harder, Tony told me, to convince people you're sane than it is to convince them you're crazy.
Crazy people who are productive are geniuses. Crazy people who are rich are eccentric. Crazy people who are neither productive nor rich are just plain crazy. Geniuses and crazy people are both out in the middle of a deep ocean; geniuses swim, crazy people drown. Most of us are sitting safely on the shore. Take a chance and get your feet wet.
What really motivates me to climb harder and harder is not necessarily that I want to push my limits or show who's best, but climbing harder and harder routes makes it more fun.
I'm most inspired by people who are doing what they love in a big, loud way. And big and loud doesn't always have to be big and loud. Sometimes these people can appear as a quiet storm, but in their full expression everyone feels the impact.
I think people respond to truthful, simple narrative, and the more you try to dress it up to try and do something else, the harder it is for people to relate to.
Do I see people working harder than me? I can't imagine that but if I do it inspires me to work harder.
With 'The Librarians,' we want to be a smart, fun, crazy, genre show, but we also want to be something that people of all ages can watch and enjoy. That, to me, does seem to be increasingly harder to find.
People didn't like me; I was loud and aggressive. People can take it from a 42-year-old, but when you're a little kid, and people are like, 'You're loud and awful,' you think, 'I guess I am awful,' so writing and figuring out how to put things into words was the way I felt better.
When I plug in my guitar and play it really loud, loud enough to deafen most people, that's my shot of adrenaline, and there's nothing like it. That's what it's always been for me - to be the flame the tribe dances around.