They think the banjo can only be happy, but that's not true.

So it doesn't have to be happy music to be inspiring.

They think the banjo can only be happy, but that's not true.

I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.

I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.

I think the Flecktones are a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz.

My most powerful memory was hearing Earl Scruggs on 'The Beverly Hillbillies' as a 5 or 6 year old. That sound just blew me away, shook my head up.

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

One might expect that the families of murder victims would be showered with sympathy and support, embraced by their communities. But in reality they are far more likely to feel isolated, fearful, and ashamed, overwhelmed by grief and guilt, angry at the criminal-justice system, and shunned by their old friends.

I love the feeling of having as close to a steady job as you can ever have as an actor. I'm not an extravagant spender, so when I work on a TV show for a season or do a bunch of episodes as a reoccurring, I try to spread the money that comes from that out so that I can do these movies that are important to me.

The way to encourage people to be accountable is to engage the responsible, accountable, trustworthy part of their brain.

Strengths are not activities you're good at, they're activities that strengthen you. A strength is an activity that before you're doing it you look forward to doing it; while you're doing it, time goes by quickly and you can concentrate; after you've done it, it seems to fulfill a need of yours.

Mathematics is as much an aspect of culture as it is a collection of algorithms.

Rumors about me? Calista Flockhart, Pam Anderson, and Matt Damon. That's who I'm dating.

There is no other way to change something or someone for the better except to occupy it first. The only person you can occupy is yourself. That is why the only person who can change you for the better is you. Without your decision to change and your commitment to change, you will not change.

Christianity taught men that love is worth more than intelligence.

The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which, nearly or remotely have been the fertile source of their possessions.

Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own, which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique, but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.

Coming from a farming background, I saw nothing out of the ordinary in running barefoot, although it seemed to startle the rest of the athletics world. I have always enjoyed going barefoot and when I was growing up I seldom wore shoes, even when I went into town.

I think that I have a sensitivity toward people, and that is a strength.

I've got three sisters, five aunties, and my mom. It must have had an influence on me growing up.

Civility, politeness, it's like a cement in a society: binds it together. And when we lose it, then I think we all feel lesser and slightly dirty because of it.

Guys are just too fast and too big in the NFL.

We are all different. Yet we are all God's children. We are all united behind this country and the common cause of freedom, justice, fairness, and equality. That is what unites us.

There are a number of golfers who are playing great golf in their 40s.

I definitely don't sit down every day and make a new song.

The most beautiful words in the English language are 'not guilty'.

There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.

The purpose of random testing is not to catch, punish, or expose students who use drugs, but to save their lives and discover abuse problems early so that students can grow up and learn in a drug-free environment.

So when I got out of the military, I went back to school in biology, and earned a biology degree at the University of Texas, and then did some graduate work in it.