Bill Gates recently picked up the ukulele. And Warren Buffett is a huge ukulele fan. I even got to strum a few chords with Francis Ford Coppola. It blows my mind that these people, who have everything in the world they could want, have picked up the ukulele and found a little bit of joy.
It's hard to be depressed around a ukulele. You just pick it up and you're halfway home.
I like devilish, thorny, dirty, mean roles, muck and mire, unbelievably sad, unbelievably happy, burdened. Inner conflict - that's where drama is.
Growing up, the ukulele was always a respected instrument. It's a big part of our culture. It wasn't until I started traveling outside of Hawaii that I realized people didn't really consider the ukulele to be a real instrument.
I was done with my second major label deal, and I was doing a lot of urban sessions, and I had an acoustic itch. And you know, I picked up a ukulele. I always wanted one. And it just resonated with me. I would wake up with this uke in my hand. For me the ukulele just opened this door in my heart.
I can start playing ukulele and then I'll go to a note that I think will be there, but because of the tuning, it's a completely different note. That excites me. That's why I had the ukulele around in the first place, years ago. It was to just break out of habits.
Most of us wake up every day and make decision that will make us happy, and generally decisions that will make us happy right then in the moment or that day. We are not really on a truth quest.
Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.
A woman will toss her head and a man will say, 'Oh she's trying to pick me up,' when in fact she's not doing that at all. So, women actually have to be a little careful with what they do, because men will pick up things that they didn't mean.
One thing you might want to learn before you attend the world's largest ukulele lesson is how to say ukulele.
There's not much you can do with a ukulele that doesn't sound happy.
I play the ukulele. I have a great group of friends, and we do things like have battles of the bands - me sometimes on ukulele, but mostly on drums.
The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.
I think we have to pick up some sectors where we can make India the global hub in the entire value chain, and the most important sector to pick up should be electronics.
When I was in Toronto shooting 'Hemlock Grove,' I'd spend a couple of hours in the makeup trailer every day because my character had all these tattoos. I was telling one of the artists how bored I was - I didn't really know anybody - and he said, 'Pick up a ukulele and start playing. They're 30 bucks for a cheap one.' And I did!
Everything in life is made up...You make up that you are happy. You make up that you are sad. You make up that you are in love. If you don't make up your own life, who's going to make it up for you? It's bad enough when you die and everybody can make up their own stories about you. —Mr. Hooft