Me

Never forget me, because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

I'm the world's expert on sterotypes held by academics about athletes and held by athletes about academics. To me, both of them are caricatures.

It's difficult for me to feel that a solid page without the breakups of paragraphs can be interesting. I break mine up perhaps sooner than I should in terms of the usage of the English language.

For me, if something fits properly, it makes me feel good.

Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.

I'm starting to realize that people are beginning to want to know about me. It's a jolly strange idea.

It seems astonishing to be paid for indulging in pure pleasure. For me to go to Coburg is rather as if a trainspotter was sent for a few weeks to Swindon or a chocoholic asked on holiday by Green and Black.

My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.

Economy forced me to become a vegetarian, but I finally starting liking it.

For me, there are two types of people: the young and the experienced.

For me, there is no such thing as a negative experience.

One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts... to my surprise... almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias.

I joined the Madras Christian College but dropped out after three months. Telugu music director Ramesh Naidu asked me to assist him, and I did so for over a year. I did think of rejoining college, but by then, I was discovering the musician in me. I worked with Illaya Raja and Raj Koti and soon shifted to commercials. This led to movie offers.

If there is no criticism, you become lazy. But it should be constructive, and it should be the truth. If it's biased and there's no truth in it, then I don't care about it. If it's true, it helps me grow.

Some things are very low profile, but if they excite me creatively, I accept them. Sometimes there are high-profile projects, and you have to do it. We all have human limitations. It is a painful decision to turn things down. Even accepting 'Slumdog Millionaire' was a decision that I had to sacrifice another project.

While my mother wanted me to be a musician, I wanted to become an electronic engineer.

I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me, but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.

I'm not an atheist. How can you not believe in something that doesn't exist? That's way too convoluted for me.

Everything I do, I want to be A.J. Styles. When you see a guy come out with dry, long hair, I want you to be like, 'Hey, that reminds me of A.J. Styles.' That's what I want.

I always say when it comes to dream matches, that is not up to me: that's up to the WWE Universe. That's up to the fans. But there is a guy on 'SmackDown' that I have yet to wrestle yet that's certainly gonna happen at some point, and that's Randy Orton.

I've never really felt like a veteran. I've never felt like the guy who's like, 'OK, everyone needs to look up to me and respect me.' I've always just been one of the guys that people are excited to get in the ring with. That's all I want.

Sometimes I feel like if I'm not getting people to boo me, then I'm not doing my job right.

If I don't think about it, it won't drive me crazy.

Romeo Must Die came at the right time. It was the right vehicle for me.

There are certain things I want to keep to me. I don't discuss my private life.

No one pays me to be nice.

I was singing in a mall, and I picked a girl to come up onstage with me. As I was grabbing her hand, I fell off the stage. It felt like I was in the air forever, flying like Superman.

I've had my run in with trouble. Fortunately, you know, one slap on the hand is usually the last time for me... I learned my lesson.

I really want to bring ensemble playing back to the forefront - not just for me, but for everyone in jazz. When you have a group, a true co-op group, you can really heighten the possibilities of all the treasures of jazz.

My buddy tells me a lot of interesting stories about what goes on in prison - it just makes my head spin about what they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

It makes me feel good that I can now sit there and go, I've worked with Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, all the great actors that I've worked with... Sir Ben Kingsley.

Yeah, but there's nobody who represents romance to me like Cary Grant.

I get on fine with my mum and dad, but if they want to see the grandchildren, they come to me.

I don't like to be me. I'm not so comfortable being me on screen because then I'd be a presenter. I'm not Jimmy Fallon.

I was always told at school that you had to have a back-up plan, but all I ever wanted to do was act. There was no plan B for me.

I'm constantly trying to find something that's different from me, whereas some actors do the same thing, again and again. That's not for me.

'Pulp Fiction' was probably one of the first films I ever saw that really kind of took effect on me. I was about four years old - obviously wasn't supposed to be seeing that film, my sister kind of sneaked it out and we got to see it. She's older than me. That was something I always used to watch.

This work made me more and more interested in biological matter, and I decided that I really wanted to work on the X-ray analysis of biological molecules.

It's so hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of truth, I don't even know what people mean by it.

The idea of doing a production of 'Carousel' that doesn't feel like it's stuck in the 1950s really intrigues me.

A lot of my solo albums were produced by different people who had their idea of what songs I should do, and they had me doing a lot of ballads.

I know that God is good, and he saved me from hell and damnation.

I might see something on TV and get inspired to write about it. I can't sit down and plan to write. It has to come to me in my head like someone telling me the words.

I started listening to gospel when I was a little boy and my grandmother used to rock me on her lap.

I think the Creator renews me.

If you had told me I'd be making 62 tomorrow, I'd say you were lying.

I'm here now because of my faith. That's what got me singing and what has kept me singing. That is what I have: what has kept me doing right and has provided me with the chances and the attitude and the skills to do this.

It's up to God to do the judging. You haven't walked in my boots, so how are you going to judge me?

Me and my partners had been stealing cars for a while.

My favorite prayer is Footprints in the Sand. You know that prayer? I know the times that he carried me, you know? I kind of wore him out.

That's one thing you hear in my voice today. I could yodel from one octave to another octave. It always fascinated me.

The gospel music and doo-wop is what has informed me personally.

The music of the Clovers and Spaniels and the rest was like candy to me. I couldn't get enough, my teachers probably thought I had attention deficit disorder.

I always gravitate towards characters that are so opposite of me.

I love diving into different skins, skins that make me feel deep emotions.

My dad didn't want me to listen to Zeppelin, I think because it reminded him of his wilder days, and now he's a retired Southern Baptist minister.

My heart is in independent film-making. For me, it's where the fun, gritty storytelling is being told.

Thank you, Hollywood, for allowing me to be part of your group.

You've got to be picky in this business - if you're not, then I don't think you have the option of longevity. You've got to be choosy and try and do something that's outside of the box and dangerous. I love doing stuff that excites me, gives me that adrenalin rush.

That's what really motivates me: to make my coaches proud, my teammates proud, and the fans proud.

The majority of the time, they take air out of the football. I think that, for me, is a disadvantage.

Being an actor really, really strengthens me as a director. There's just a certain type of understanding that comes from having been there and knowing how much is really being asked of actors that helps me.

The mindset that I have on every project I take on is, 'How do I make this interesting enough for me to want to stop and look at it?' So in that regard, what I do behind the camera, whether it's still or motion picture, is the same.

There are a lot of hardcore 'Napoleon' fans, and they do the research and find photos of what I look like when I'm not 'Kip-ified.' Those fans recognize me. It happens maybe once a week, where someone will come up to me and be, like, 'Dude, you're Kip.' And I'm, like, 'Yeah, my name's Aaron.'

I've had Republicans come to me and say, 'Tell me how I should talk to young people!' as if it's some foreign language or something.

When I campaign with seniors, it's always, 'Are you a Democrat or Republican?' But when I campaign on college campuses, they ask me where I stand on specific issues. I think Millennials are much less interested in conventional labels. One thing that's universal among Millennials is a distinct frustration with Washington, D.C.

Almost inevitably there are tensions in the picture, tensions between the outside world and the inside world. For me, a successful picture resolves these tensions without eliminating them.

First scenes are super-important to me. I'll spend months and months pacing and climbing the walls trying to come up with the first scene. I drive for hours on the freeway.

I desperately need the love of complete strangers. That's one reason I overtip. I love when skycaps, waiters, and valets are happy to see me.

I feel like the better version of myself is on paper... I'd rather have people know me on paper.

It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other, and I think that should change.

My parents took me to see plays, starting from when I was very little. Oftentimes, I was too young to understand. I don't know what my parents were thinking - 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' when I was eight years old, that kind of thing. So lots of times, I didn't understand what was going on, but I just loved the sound of dialogue.

When I was starting out, William Goldman took me under his wing, and he's still the person I show pages to.

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct 'The Social Network,' when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct 'Moneyball,' or when Danny Boyle wants to direct 'Jobs'? Hallelujah. I want them directing it.

But it's true, when you see some television, you carry it with you. It's like 90210. Tell me what young shows were being done then... We were thrilled about the ratings around the world.

I think there are two ways to depict a family. One is what it's really like, and one is what the audience would like it to be. Between you and me, I think the second one is what I would prefer.

One thing my wife says is bad about me, is that I still care too much.

Normally, I just sit in my quiet little room and do the small things that bring me pleasures. I read my books, I answer email, I write a little bit.

If you agree to do a sex scene, you have to be willing to not be awkward about it. C'mon! I don't think of it as anything other than a dance, really. I don't see that person. I don't think of me being me.

The problem with independent films is that they can be hit or miss. I've seen scripts that have blown me away. But there have to be all the right ingredients in place to make them work: the director, cast, publicity, distribution.

Whenever I read a script, I start recasting the role that I might play. I'm like, 'God, this should be played by Domhnall Gleeson, not me.'

People saw me as just a singer - yeah, a pretty face who could sing - and not more than that.

My mom always knew I was going to be an actor because I was a ham from the very beginning, so she would push me toward it, which is really unconventional for Indian families to do.

So many of the recipes that I come up with have a story. I'm a blogger. It flowed very naturally out of me, but I also knew this was a way to set my recipes apart. A, they are always using interesting ingredients but B, there is always a story behind it.

I rarely went to the mosque, I never fasted, and I only prayed namaaz on the holy nights because my mom bugged me about it.

That's the Indian in me - you must put spices on everything. As a kid, whenever we got sick, my mom would take milk and put turmeric in it. That was our medicine. That was the cure-all. Some people turn to Robitussin.

Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.

Illness has always brought me nearer to a state of grace.

Providence was well aware what lay ahead for me, and my Capuchin training was to prepare me for it.

But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes, not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying.

It's a spirit that was given me and the relationships and meeting all these great people, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, through Max I met a lot of people too. My first album was with Benny Carter.

When I was a teenager, me and a couple of my friends entered a couple of modeling competitions just for fun, and one of those got me an agent in Sydney.

Any little touch a defender can make on me when I'm in the air literally moves me. On the ground, I can use my muscle, but in the air, it's harder to fight that off.

I have a unique ability to predict the flight of the ball, and my teammates have a unique ability to find me.

I'm a pretty decent cook. I like to grill. I have a smoker that I love. I love me some steak. And I'll make a huge salad with a ton of vegetables.

I'm honestly not the kind of person who wants to step up to a podium, test the microphone and be like, 'Hey, I'm homosexual and this is who I am, hear me roar.' That's not who I am.

I've always been motivated more by negative comments than by positive ones. I know what I do well. Tell me what I don't do well.

My parents, they're the kind of people that didn't want me to get a big head, so they just kept challenging me and challenging me.

Sometimes there has to be a goat on some level, and I'm totally fine with that being me.

You know me, I'm not that kind of person that cares to unveil all of my personal things to the world because frankly, in terms of my soccer, it doesn't matter.

And as an American colleague said to me several months ago, he said, 'I think the challenge in Jordan - and, again, this is for the rest of the Middle East - we need to define what center is. And once we can define what center is to a Jordanian, then we can decide what's left and what's right of that.

Anybody who has interacted with me will definitely find me to be a chirpy person.

I've always basically done everything that's been offered to me. I'm one of the few actors who enjoy working a lot.

When you make your first film at 47 and anybody but your mother goes to see it, to me, that's a miracle.

'Halo' I wrote with my grandpa in his nursing home. When I went to visit him, he'd often comment on my halo. But of course, I couldn't see. And he always - he had pictures of Jesus with these beautiful halos. And so I asked him if he'd write a song with me about Jesus' halo.

For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me.

I feel like the one insight that's extremely comforting to me about the world is that we all share the same pool of emotion that we draw from.

My father was a factory worker, and we were really poor. But everything I earned peddling papers and working in stores, he made me put aside for education.

There is always going to be a little bit of me in each character.

It is not enough for me to ask question, I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.

Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder.

Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

I'm someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.

There's something universal about illness... Whether you like it, at some level all patients are saying, 'Daddy, Mommy, help me, tell me it's going to be alright.'

Yes, sir, a patrol car came and took me down to a station where they were trying to develop films, but they hadn't got the facilities to develop colored film.

Every time Paul and Gene use my makeup, they have to pay me a royalty check. I think they changed the makeup so they didn't have to pay me.

If I'm so popular, why did they replace me with Tommy Thayer?

Did I collect baseball cards? I've got 10 books full of plastic in my mother's house. All the Upper Decks, the Fleers, the Fleer Ultras. My grandfather brought me to the trade shows. I collected Marvel cards, too.

Everything is creative. It's all relative to me. No matter what, you've gotta use your imagination, use your senses.

I have to be able to rap. I don't have the look. I don't have the typical slim-dude, fancy-clothes look. That's not me. I have to be able to rap - there is no other choice, or else I get eaten alive.

Penmanship means a lot to me. I don't have cursive penmanship, though. I've created my own penmanship. It's very clear. Everyone can read it. I write things down all day long.

Anyone who sits in our jails who is not just a criminal but what we call a terrorist, with or without blood on his hands - and these definitions are also unclear to me - should not be sitting in our custody.

I don't distinguish between men and women. This is irrelevant to me, and I don't think in these terms.

I was described as a dreamer, a fantasist, even as the village idiot. I didn't care. What I cared about was convincing people to allow me to go on with my work.

People weren't buying as many records. My record company did not want me. I went through three record companies, went on tour at the wrong time. It destroyed me.

To me, style is consistency.

I can't imagine that I would have been cast in the role, without Jamie Lee giving me a thumbs up.

The place was crawling with youngsters. It was good, because the kids were good. I can't make a general assumption. Again, you're probably getting, as a general theme from me, that I don't make a lot of broad, sweeping rules about movies.

I'm like a fungus, you can't get rid of me.

Stillness as a technique is still really captivating to me.

I feel I will always have that spirit bear with me, so I will always feel protected.

Each of the bracelets I wear is from a long trip I've taken. One is from Nicaragua. One is from Nepal. One is from Guatemala. One is from Laos. They don't come off. I walk into a lot of very high-level boardrooms now, and I present to distinguished conferences, but these bracelets remind me of the places I've been and the people I've met.

I always enjoyed movies and in hindsight I realise how captivating they were to me.

Well, I guess most people would only know me from The O.C. I did a few episodes of Gilmore Girls before that. I was also a client on a lot of lawyer shows.

I've never necessarily chosen to be a bachelor. I've had girlfriends throughout the last 20 or 30 years. It's just that there were times when I met people that fascinated me and times I didn't.

The drums tell me everything. Everything else registers a millisecond later.

There's one guy who inspired a nation of golfers, and that's Greg Norman. He's been incredible to me and all the great golfers.

I tend to have a lot of jokes about ex-girlfriends. They always ask me if they will be the subject of a joke, and I always tell them they won't. Unless they do something crazy. They all tend to, so you know where that goes. There are no closed doors. The 'art' will suffer.

When I was a teenager, I was an umpire for a competitive league for 8- to 9-year-olds. I was really bad at it because I didn't know all the rules, and all these kids were better athletes than me. I made a bad call, and this dad snapped on me. Then he dumped his trash from his cooler, and I had to kick him out of the stands.

Acting, to me, has been many things: It's a business, and it's a craft, and it's a political act - it's whatever adjective is most applicable.

Costume people are always saying they don't have clothes big enough for me.

It was very clear to me I wanted to be an actor when I got out into civilian life.

My grandpa was in the Navy, but it wasn't something that was expected or planned for me to do.

When I read for 'Girls,' I was like, 'The script says 'Handsome Carpenter,' so someone else is going to get the part. They'll have someone handsome, not me.'

For me, songwriting is something like breathing: I just do it. But that doesn't mean you're fantastic.

I don't care if people think I'm gay. I know I'm not, so it doesn't bother me.

I started with ballet and then my cousin Sarah introduced me to her tap teachers.

I'm not sure if being known opened or closed doors for me.

Nothing surprises me when it comes to people in the entertainment business.

The act of song writing and recording became one and the same to me, because I essentially recorded everything I did from the day I began trying to write songs. I've always had a lot to say. I'd always written poems.

'E.T.' was the movie that made me want to make movies in the first place, and it was the first movie that made me focus on writing instead of what happens in the movie.

I like that conventions want me to appear and festivals want me to come speak because they like the climate I attract. It's a good feeling.

If there is one constant to my life, it is that you cannot tell me 'no.'

I live in Las Vegas with my family, and I never realized what my parents would go through to get me to a five-minute audition.

My parents are my major supporters. I look up to Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson and Jim Carrey. They have all opened my mind and helped me with my craft.

We don't have performances as big as 'Lemonade Mouth' on 'Zeke and Luther,' but they're both amazing experiences, just, 'Lemonade Mouth' was a bit bigger. It was different for me.

I thought twenty was pretty scary, like, not being able to call myself a teenager anymore, and feeling like an adult - that kind of made me nervous.

Bowie's been a huge influence on me.

'Come out' is so funny to me because I've never been in.

I'm proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It's just another part of me.

There's no regrets for me.

There's not a blueprint for me to follow.

Before I go on stage I pretend that everyone loves me.

My mother is really the person I learned to curse from. She discourages me from saying that in interviews. But it's true.

To me, 'The End of the Jews' - both the title and the novel itself - is about the end of pat, uncritical ways of understanding oneself in the world.

Any time Chris Nolan wants to call me for advice, he can.

Bush already gave obscene tax breaks to people like me and Warren Buffet, and we are saying it's not fair.

For my money, I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.

I hired a personal trainer to help me lose 25 pounds and get from obese to fat. My next step will be to get from fat to chubby.

I'll tell you one thing... no doubt about it, my favorite kind of comedy is talking head comedy. I mean, if it were up to me, I'd do a whole entire movie that was just around a dinner table.

Matt Braunger really makes me laugh, I like that guy a lot.

My wife is pretty geeky and will occasionally quote 'Anchorman' at me.

Nothing is more enjoyable for me than when I'm watching a movie or a TV show and there's that sense that anything can happen. It is the most fun feeling in the world.

There's nothing more fun to me than new characters and a new world.

I was 19 years old, pumping gas and going nowhere. I was kind of a high school dropout at that point because I had left school to play hockey, but no one drafted me.

You know, sometimes I get moments of inspiration when I'm writing something and then the task seems so daunting that it just kind of scares me away.

Ever since I did that 57.9 last year, the Americans have been analysing me in detail. You can see on the swimming web pages. They are breaking it down in every detail. How many strokes I take. How quick I am in and out of the wall.

Grime reminds me that swimming is very gladiatorial.

I enjoy racing because I want to do it. No one's forcing me.

I like the dark undertow of grime, and it gets me aggressive. You need that aggression.

I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

There was a kind of physical anarchy that dominated most of my younger life. I was always too skinny, not hairy enough, my voice jumped around. It was a thing that drove me away from towel lines in gym class.

The biggest audience for Off Broadway is mostly coming in on a train - either Upper East Siders or Metro-North. I go to the theater, and everyone around me is over 50. How interested will they be in my kind of work?

I certainly have a sliver of me, which is definitely American, and feels a great pull towards where I spent time when I was very young, which is in California.

Who knows - I would like to think that I'd be a fantastic president, and I'd be extremely levelheaded, and I'd be very fair, and I wouldn't persecute people, and I'd listen to the people that disagreed with me and all the rest of it, but who knows.

Don't get me wrong, some of the mis-informed articles I have read over the last few weeks have been incredibly frustrating, but for my part I fully appreciate the opportunity I have been given and want to grasp it firmly.

I don't honestly know why they offered me the part in Rent.

Fortunately I'm Latin, and I'm born with a little bit of rhythm by default. It's in the DNA. I have that going for me, but I've never been considered one of the world's greatest dancers.

I don't know what drives me to succeed.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.