Milk Duds kept me going.

I prepared for the part by drinking, but I was sober when I was performing.

When I'm with my friends I'm funny, but I don't feel like I'm a funny clown.

Years ago I was a runway model, and I used to get laughs. I thought it was a joke anyway.

As an actor, you have to have your history.

The gun issue is a big, unresolved issue in this country right now. I think it's out of control.

I never thought I was funny, but I enjoy being funny.

Milk Duds kept me going.

I love improvisation.

I can play the flute. Music was my favourite A-level, and I used to love composing my and stylising my voice to sound like 90's singing sensation Tori Amos.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

It cannot be when the root is neglected that what springs from it will be well ordered.

Begin, be bold and venture to be wise.

The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.

Since the end of the Cold War, metropolitan elites everywhere have identified progress and modernity with the cornucopia of global capitalism, the consolidation of liberal democratic regimes and the secular ethic of consumerism.

I travel fairly lightly because you have to these days. I always take a laptop and an iPod so I can watch movies and listen to music. And my Gameboy. That's a good time-killer.

When it comes to consumer electronics, I'm a big fat sucker, because even though I know you should never, ever buy anything until the second version of it is released, I just can't resist. I live in a state of perpetual Beta.

I don't like sticking to just one thing; it bores me.

Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives wont have a title until much later.

When you write a novel, you never have to be in the service of the reader. My only concern with my books is that the world that's created be as logical and whole as possible.

In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense.

Only someone wishing to disappear would ever strive to fit in.

New roads; new ruts.

President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future so we can create new opportunities so the next kid can make it big and the kid afer that and the kid after that, that's what President Obama believes.

I cry all the time.

I write what I think is funny and I write from a sense of popping a balloon or a sense of injustice, whether it's about yourself, or whether it's about something else. It's my worldview; it doesn't mean that everybody has to agree with it.

I can't play on a full stomach, so I save my eating for after the concert.

The hard part about writing about a guy like John Brown is that he was so serious, and his cause was so serious, that most of what's been written about him is really serious and, in my opinion, a little bit boring.

I love my dad and we have a very good relationship now.

I don't have time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.

Cooking is like making love you do it well or you do not do it at all.

We need to align the incentives so that colleges have an incentive to keep down their costs... to graduate students on time with degrees in areas where they're going to be able to get jobs and going to be able to pay back those loans.

When I see someone in a military uniform I make it a point to approach them, shake their hand and say five words... 'thank you for your service.' 'Stars Earn Stripes' is a high energy, fun, action show, but at its heart it is all about those five words.