I'm really interested in the pleasure we get from stories and the pleasure we get from movies, and certainly the pleasure we get from virtual experiences. My complaint is against empathy as a moral guide. But as a source of pleasure, it can't be beat.
I don't think anyone could be the next Dick Vitale. I mean that in a good way. More than an announcer, Dick is an ambassador for the game. Dick is in class by himself. Like what he does or not, what he has done to expand the popularity of college basketball is phenomenal.
I live in a high-rise apartment building, so I just have two cats. They're both pound kitties. One of them, Dick, is an evil, foot-biting cat. When I write a tiger morph, I'm always imagining Dick.
I'm a natural piano player. So all the practicing I do at this point is in my head. If I don't play for a year, my chops aren't going to get any worse. I've spent my time playing scales, and I don't necessarily want to play any faster than I play. So everything I do at this point is more philosophical.
Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.
And then Dick called and said, I'm going to do a special called Dick Van Dyke and the other woman, that would be you, because every time I try to check into a hotel with my wife, they look at me as though I'm cheating on Laura.
I'm from Florida, so any time I get invited to come to Florida and play a show, I'm definitely always up for that.
When the Idea, of any Pleasure strikes your Imagination... let that time be employed in making a just Computation between, the duration of the Pleasure, and that of the Repentance sure to follow it.
That's what my music does for me. It makes people happy. When I play, I thank the Lord I've never seen someone walk away from a Dick Dale dance not having a good time. That's what it's all about.
Any time you get to do a David Mamet play, it's a great opportunity. His writing is such that I think it's a big challenge, but when you get it right, it's a great opportunity to play every night, really.
Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?
I don't play any role; I just play golf. I love the competition. For me, the pleasure begins on Thursday morning when a tournament starts. I come along and try to win. And that's what I enjoy.
NBC producer Dick Ebersol always taught me that if you can show the fans what the players are like - and get the fans interested in them - then they're more likely to watch. I've always taken that approach.
Dick Vitale always used to say to me, 'Remember, this is an entertainment medium.' People are not tuning in to a game to know how smart you are about basketball; they wanna enjoy it. And it took Dick years of saying that for me to settle in and say, 'It's also okay for me to have a little fun on the air.'
The purpose of art is always, ultimately, to give pleasure - though our sensibilities may take time to catch up with the forms of pleasure that art in a given time may offer.
I found Ricky Ponting the hardest to bowl to and it was a great pleasure to play against him as he was genuinely one of the best that's ever played and a really tough competitor as well. He hated you when you were on the field but he always shook your hand and was the epitome of 'play hard but play fair.'