Obama might do well to remember that his fast rise from the Illinois state Senate

was due in large part to an uncanny ability to make friends and find mentors.
Ron Fournier

I thought marriage was something very quiet and very regular and very bourgeois.
Carla Bruni

The Supreme Being I would sign up for would not prove his omnipotence by saving one life while ending dozens, or hundreds, or thousands. Nor would he summon an angel to heaven by ending a first grader's life at the hands of a gunman or sadist.
Jeff Greenfield

I knew it would break his heart if I didn't go into the business.
Ida Lupino

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
Joseph Heller

You don't have to give birth to someone to have a family.
Sandra Bullock

I love the way Pharell is laying down great drum tracks. He is a great drummer.
Matt Cameron

I can't get too offended when somebody parodies me.
Al Yankovic

Art hath an enemy called Ignorance.
Ben Jonson

I am a child of the 21st century.
John Shelby Spong

Gemeoss

I have not made any suggestions about climate change. This is more about blending or

shifting the conversation about the environment versus the economy. It's just such an old, outdated conversation. Jennifer Granholm Sometimes shooting on a smaller scale, as long as things don't blow out of proportion, is very liberating. Daniel Craig Because I'm so known as a meat-chef, when I talk about Meatless Monday some people look at me like I've lost my mind. I'm like, look, I'm not saying beef and pork is bad, I love it and I eat it six days a week. Michael Symon I think character is permanent, and issues are transient. James Stockdale It is true that I was born in Iowa, but I can't speak for my twin sister. Pauline Phillips I came from a town of maybe 30,000 people. Jim Caviezel The rights of homosexual people are human rights, and human rights are for everyone. Ricky Martin I'm pretty much honest to a fault. It's my best and my worst quality. Jennifer Westfeldt I loved Australia. I was very successful there. Todd B...

I worked with Ismail Merchant on 'The Mystic Masseur,' I did 'Sakina's Restaurant,' I've done

plays, I've been on Broadway, I've done movies, I've done TV... but nothing has had the pop culture penetrative impact as 'The Daily Show' has. It's the nature of the beast. Aasif Mandvi Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society. Noam Chomsky There is a difference between executive producing and producing. Producing, you have no life for two years. You take everything personally, you want to kill everyone, you're depressed and angry, and then in the end you feel excited when it actually works. But executive producing, you can go home at the end of the day. Sandra Bullock One of the things you can always depend on - this is one of the truths of the universe, and you heard it first from here - whatever we decide we want to do is what we do. Morgan Freeman My dream is to be able to make something in Baltimore that's just there. Make a movie or make a show there. I...

I don't really know why I'm so busy, but I like it. Sometimes I think

I need to slow down. And then I'm even busier! Brianna Brown Frankie is my baby. He is the sweetest dog in the world. Frankie is like the son I never had. He keeps me healthy; I walk and run him. I always feel that I need to spend more time with him and give him more attention. I find myself unloading my emotions on him. Esai Morales There are so many ways to characterize evolutionary success. If one criterion is the number of millions of years that the species persists, we're still just infants. We're way too young of a species to tell if we were a creative fluke or if we have any staying power. Greg Graffin I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood. William Devane The people who are the most successful in life are not stopped by fear. Iman One song I do is 'The First Cut is the Deepest.' I try to remind people I wrote that song, not Rod Stewart. Cat Stevens Little do we find any Phoenician architecture or plastic ...

I mean, I kind of remember... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for

me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to. Liz Phair In the last four years, I heard the same thing over and over again from people: 'We've had enough,' 'Our country is drifting,' 'We've lost our way.' Ted Yoho I desire an special interest in your prayers that my faith fail not in the day of adversity. John Hawley There was never a golden era of American radio as far as I can tell. Michael Stipe The world invited me many places. Leon Wieseltier I just like making people laugh. Isaiah Mustafa As an actor, to play someone who's at war with himself, that's so interesting. Hugo Weaving Plumage features constitute a major component of courtship signals. Peter R. Grant Some people don't even know my name, but they know I am the man with the red soles. Christian Louboutin Salvatore Fe...

The bigger you become of a celebrity, the bigger the expectations,

the pressure on you - to make change, to say what people want, to target the people they want to target. Fame is toxic; it is quite toxic. Bassem Youssef I taught English, first at a Catholic school and then at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif. Elizabeth George I wasn't instructed to do any special training for 'Hawkgirl,' but I had started boxing a few weeks prior and stuck with that for several months leading up to the start of production. Ciara Renee If you are in Bangkok, you will find that people there will never speak to you without joining their hands. It's not that they are speaking to you like that because you are tourists. They even speak at their home like that. Akshay Kumar I think my father is nearly perfect. I think he's quite handsome, except a bit fat. Gina Rinehart I believe that each fight teaches you something, and a new history is written in each fight. Juan Manuel Marquez When I auditioned for 'Pitch Perfect,'...

I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's

me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer. James Turrell The only thing we know for sure about superiority in sports in the United States of America in the 20th century is that Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics teams he led stand alone as the ultimate winners. Frank Deford I love yoga. There's a lot of stretching involved, which helps with my flexibility and injury prevention. Vinyasa is my favorite as a recovery tool and for me to continue having my legs feel good. Alex Morgan When you get on the back side of your 60s, most people aren't working. Tom Petty God doesn't give you more than you can handle. Leanne Caret For as long as I can remember, I've just loved Chanel. Lily-Rose Depp I always dreamed of going to the Olympics. To be going to the Games in your own country is another thing; to do it as a potential medallist is another thing again. Hannah Mills To me, Berlin is as much a conceit as a reality. Why? Because t...

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society

that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll. Joshua Oppenheimer Someone once accused me of slumming. I don't know what that means. I play basketball. And through that, I get to see a world that is not smart-kid world. Nick McDonell My father had a piano that was a nickelodeon - put a nickel, and the roller would play. Frank Sinatra As a child, I spent a lot of time at the library. Tracy Chapman It's such a cliche thing to say. I want to choreograph, I want to direct, I want to act, I want to write music, I want to play music, I want to sing. For me, it's never-ending. I want to do it all, really. Derek Hough Before someone can change his ideas, he has to open his heart. Maajid Nawaz In the IPL, you are often single-handedly responsible for the fortunes of your team. It makes you more ...

The New Testament is of full authority and open to the understanding of simple men

as to the points most needful to salvation. John Wycliffe It's funny, because there are so many stereotypes out there about actors and movie stars in general, but I've had a great opportunity to meet a lot of them, and maybe it's just because they don't behave that way around me, but I rarely see that kind of abuse of power. Ryan Reynolds At the suggestion of Professor Itaru Watanabe, and with his help, I left Japan at the age of twenty-three to pursue graduate study at the University of California at San Diego. Susumu Tonegawa Not everybody is a great rapper; not everybody lives for the art of lyricism. Wale From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest. Jane Goodall You must make some decisions Wall Street dislikes. Nelson Peltz Debt, we've learned, is the match th...

Focus on what you want to do. Don't be scared to try stuff. You only

live once. Get your mind towards what you want to do and you'll achieve it. It makes it fun. You gotta take risks at times. Risks pay off. Mark Zupan I think for any actor to say they don't like attention is ridiculous. Of course we love attention. But getting attention is different than pretending the attention means something. Ellen Pompeo A lot of comic conventions go way beyond comic books and include other parts of pop culture, like celebrities and science fiction and movies and books. So I go to them either as a celebrity, or as a fan, because I'm a big sci-fi geek. Jane Wiedlin Just like I find men who talk sports who don't really know sports annoying, I think men might find women who don't really have a true passion and knowledge of sports maybe not so attractive. Gabrielle Union I have a brother who's a psychologist. He says three-quarters of the world are born feeling that they will be affected by the world; one quarter are born knowing tha...

I don't understand what's happening in 'Mr. Robot' all the time, and I'm really actually

intimated for the second season. I'll have to rewatch the first season, I think. Portia Doubleday It is scary to write - period - for me, but once you get past the idea that it's scary to write, I still can only be who I am. As a writer, my job, to me, is to expose myself - to really sort of dig in and find out who I am and then put it on the page. Jason Robert Brown My first encounter with science fiction was reading the work of H.G. Wells when I was nine or ten, and I don't believe 'The War of the Worlds' or 'The Time Machine' have ever been bettered. Plus, I have always had a liking for Victorian and Edwardian clothes and contraptions, which tends to color the worlds I dream up. Philip Reeve The first drama thing I really got stuck into was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' I played Puck. That's when I said, 'I want to be an actor.' Ed Speleers I never thought of myself as a Broadway actress. I'm not really a singer or a...