The President so far has struck me as a man who is trying hard to keep his balance. He certainly has been very receptive to all my efforts in these directions.
I think when he [Vladimir Putin] calls me brilliant I will take the compliment, okay? I mean, the man has very strong control over a country. Now, it's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system. But certainly in that system, he has been a leader far more than our president has been a leader.
The young mouse's eyes snapped open, clear and bright. He swung the ancient sword high and struck at the giant adder. He struck for Redwall! He struck against evil! He struck for Martin! He struck for Log-a-Log and his shrews! He struck for dead Guosim! He struck as Methuselah would have wanted him to! He struck against Cluny the Scourge and tyranny! He struck out against Captain Snow's ridicule! He struck for the world of light and freedom! He struck until his paws ached and the sword fell from them!
I can say that I'm a feminist and I try to be progressive and all that stuff. But I when I'm tired or when I've been thrown up on for the second time that I'm just a tired man trying to keep it together. I've had a lot of jobs over the years and people who make television - it's ridiculous how much they're lauded and paid. It's irresponsible and stupid. But it is hard work. It's very difficult to balance having three young kids and working like that. So I owe my wife an enormous debt of gratitude. I feel guilty that the kids had to be grown in her body and she hasn't been able to work.
I've been trying to find out what my wheelhouse is as an actor. 'Gilmore' was my first job, so only from there did I have a chance to really experiment and see how far I could stretch; I went maybe a little too far in certain directions.
It's very hard sometimes when you can't crack something or can't solve something and you keep trying and trying and you know it's falling a little bit short. That's very hard, but then when you finally do it, it's very rewarding and the process is good too, I like working with people this way.
I've certainly been very blessed. I can only say that I worked very hard in class and on set doing the best that I can at the moment. I was incredibly blessed with 'Battlestar'... I tried to work my little butt off just to keep up with everybody else and not too many people kicked me.
Without gospel truths, man's efforts to reach his goals are like the northbound explorer who drove his dog sled feverishly northward on an ice pack that was flowing southward - only to find himself farther from his destination at the end of a hard day's journey than he had been at dawn!
It struck me that Steve Jobs, known to be such a brilliant speaker, had a very difficult time explaining things when he was younger. He was describing technology that didn't exist. He had MIT engineers, and he was trying to tell them what he wanted; but there were no terms for what he wanted yet. I think a lot of his early frustration was trying to quickly get his vision to the finish line.
I've never been struck by lightning as far as I know, so the Higher Power is treating me as well as even those people who love him very much.
I can now see that our needs meshed perfectly: my need to be swept away by a man, to be held securely and adored by a man, and his need to find the girl who would be pliable and receptive to his idea of a couple, who wouldn't question his unspoken authority. I don't mean he wanted a mouse—and he knew very well he wasn't getting one.
Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I'm concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying 'I love you' is being a receptive listener.
I've been very blessed as far as my faith sustaining me because it's not like I haven't been challenged and I haven't been tested and disappointed. But my faith does really bind me and keep me.
I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among the people I knew.
When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.
Man always travels along precipices... His truest obligation is to keep his balance.
Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street thinks it easy for a millionaire to be a man of his word, aman of honor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity.