There's something in human nature, the trying-to-get-on-with-it quality of people, the struggle to maintain or keep the show going can be exhausting. It just seems like that element of trying to move forward while things are breaking down... Obviously, it's always been the backdrop for a lot of great literature and great cinematic characters, but aside from that, I'm just drawn to it because that feels honest to me.
It's not human nature to be great. It's human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it's the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.
I think when you win the national championship, it works throughout your team. Where human nature is to say, I did well. I got my quota this month. Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it's not to keep trying to be the best. That's not necessarily human nature.
Part of our business is that you read interviews with these people and they don't really talk candidly about what's going on and the struggle - the struggle to do what you love and to maintain body image and to maintain this sort of false stature of who you're supposed to be as a role model and also who you are supposed to be to yourself personally and privately.
Human nature doesn't change. When enough people are comfortable enough financially, there is going to be human nature that wants to spend more money on better quality and, to some degree, status symbols as well.
Do it right or don't do it at all. That comes from my mom. If there's something I want to do, I'm one of those people that won't be satisfied until I get it done. If I'm trying to sing something and I can't get it, I'm going to keep at it until I get where I want it.
A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it's going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, 'Wow, that movie' - or that show or whatever - 'turned out really well.'
The main criticism people have of me is, 'Why are you trying so hard? This guy's exhausting.' Yeah, I am! That's my way of trying to get love.
Leadership is by far the most important quality when it comes to making a show that's going to last and of superb quality, something classy and fun.
A show is exhausting when it stinks. It's exhausting when you have to work overtime to make something work.
In other words, it was a struggle with himself. And the product of that struggle: anger, bitterness, resentment, envy or transformation, aspiration, hope, decency..the product of that struggle is the quality of your life and the nature of your soul.
I'm always trying to improve on my overall package. Just try to get a little bit harder and maintain the same muscle quality.
On the show, we are not trying to get people to eat their vegetables; we are not trying to get people to become Democrats. We are basically trying to encourage people to get involved with public life so that politics isn't left to the wealthy and privileged.
I see my responsibility as to give people something they want to keep turning the pages of and giving people something to chew on, looking at some aspect of human nature that hadn't occurred to them recently.
When you write a program, think of it primarily as a work of literature. You're trying to write something that human beings are going to read. Don't think of it primarily as something a computer is going to follow. The more effective you are at making your program readable, the more effective it's going to be: You'll understand it today, you'll understand it next week, and your successors who are going to maintain and modify it will understand it.
We were trying to show that you should be hopeful, you should be optimistic, but you have to be consistent and persistent, because it's not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It's the struggle of a lifetime. And so you're going to have to put in 40 or 50 years to reach that high-water mark.