I was walking around legally blind. Now I have 20-20 vision. I can't believe I spent so many years blurry but I think that coincides with how I was feeling. Now I notice if people are watching me but I also smile right back if someone waves which helps.

I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not but the thing is I don't write about it.

I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science.

I had people in my life who didn't give up on me: my mother my aunt my science teacher. I had one-on-one speech therapy. I had a nanny who spent all day playing turn-taking games with me.

President Bush spent last night calling world leaders to support the war with Iraq and it is sad when the most powerful man on earth is yelling 'I know you're there pick up pick up.

Ray had so much love of life and the music. He had so much integrity. He treated the music with so much dignity and respect. I spent four and a half years as a sideman with Ray Brown's trio. Music was his life more so than anyone I could mention.

I've spent a bit of time with the Prince of Wales who I respect greatly. I'd give two cheers for the Monarchy.

The Arab League tells us to go in and take out Qaddafi. We've spent billions of dollars already with respect to the Arab League. Billions of dollars because they told us to do it. Why aren't they paying for it? They don't like Qaddafi Qaddafi's been a terrible thorn in their side.

I spent two years in the Army. And my older brother who was also a great positive influence on me encouraged me to think about law school and I said - well I didn't have any money.

Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.

There can only be democracy when money is not allowed to be spent in Politics.

Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

Time spent with cats is never wasted.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate very simple and emotional about that music.

The one regret I have about my own abortions is that they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable like taking the kids to movies and theme parks.

I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very very involved and interested in art and particularly in animated movies.

I spent all my time on my movies worried that people were eating and that the schedule was being kept so to have experts in those areas giving me the brain space as a writer and director is huge.