It is brilliant going to the theatre and being forced to sit and listen and think about life. It can be almost a near-religious experience.

My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make and vice versa.

I've had a lot of experience in independent film and about how to choose. You've got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks and where you cut and what you don't cut.

You're creating an intimacy that everybody feels that it's their experience not yours. I'll never introduce a song and say now this song is about 'my' broken heart.

I had decided I wanted to write about food and I knew the only way to do that is to speak with authority which meant learning the language and knowing what that experience is like.

There are a lot of things that make up a performance a lot of technical things. It isn't always just about pulling it up from the darkest recesses of your mind or your heart. It's your experience and your observation.

I have been blessed in many ways and one of those is to have been born in Africa for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy reading about it talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience.

And then I went to 'Dawson's Creek ' which is a show that was for better or for worse all about the language. It was a word-perfect show which I'd never had any experience with. And it was really shocking for me. I felt really hemmed in. At the time it wasn't my favorite working experience.

There are a lot of impractical things about owning a Porsche. But they're all offset by the driving experience. It really is unique. Lamborghinis and Ferraris come close. And they are more powerful but they don't handle like a Porsche.

Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

The greatest way for people to experience a comedy is to go in not knowing anything about it. But because of marketing it's impossible. Marketing meaning that in order to get people to come you can't just go 'Hey there's a great movie - we're not going to show you anything from it but trust us!'

What's great about the geek spirit is that life never seems to stop us and they never seem to kill our enthusiasm our optimism and our hunger to experience the world. We keep our sense of humor we protect our dignity we talk to our friends about the experience and then we start again fresh the very next day.

People only talk about what a joyous experience it is but there is terror: Your life as you know it is over. It's over the day that child is born. It's over and something completely new starts.

When you're a soul singer I'm singing a lot of songs about love and relationships that I think a lot of girls really relate to. For whatever reason that seems to get 'em excited. The DJ everyone always says the DJ gets all the chicks but that's never been my experience.

I have my team. Like if you see everyone around me - I have my hair and makeup girl my assistant. They're very calm they're all about positive energy. There're no drama queens. Everyone wants everyone else to have a positive experience. There are no agendas. I think it creates a healthy environment and there are no boundaries to cross.

With 'Bright Star' and with 'The Piano ' too I felt a kind of sadness about it being in such a different era because of my lack of experience with the era. And one of the ways I'd get over it is to remind myself that every film even if it's contemporary creates its own world.