CALLS and MEETINGS on Tuesday/Thursday: When possible, I avoid phone calls and meetings because I find them typically unproductive and often easy to solve via email.

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?”

People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.

The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

99% of your thoughts are useless.

You have the ability to decide what you think. Or, you can choose NOT to think.

“How do I train myself to stop thinking useless thoughts?” Awareness. That’s where it starts. Every time you start drifting off, become aware of it. Just observe your brain. Step outside yourself and just observe the crazy shit you’re thinking about.

Set priorities on Sunday. I outline my weekly priorities and what I want to have accomplished by the following Sunday.

Map out work, play, fit, and push. Work: For each day, I outline my “Top 3,” meaning the three most important things I will have accomplished by the end of the day.

Play: Play enables me to self-express, reflect, and give my ideas space, which shows up positively in my work.

Fit: Movement keeps ideas moving forward so I aim to move my body for at least 30 minutes each day.

Push: Since learning and growth is important to me, I do something that scares me (almost) every day. This may be asking someone whom I deeply respect for an interview or writing about a topic that makes me feel vulnerable.

Batch your days. Batching actions into specific days and creating time for creativity.

CREATE on Monday/Wednesday/Friday: I create holes in my schedule for thinking and creating. On these days, I pay attention to my body and take breaks as needed.

SPONTANEOUS Saturday: With so much structure, I make room for spontaneity. On Saturday, I let go and go where the day takes me. Balancing structure with a day of free-spiritedness makes me feel whole.

INTENTIONAL Sunday: Plan for the week ahead.

With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.

Well, it all depends on how you, you know, perceive the religion angle. I always say to each their own and I'd much rather have a guy that's going to be preaching religion as oppose a guy who's going to be shooting himself in the leg.

I like blue a lot, and greens. Earthy blues and greens.

America says we are a great democratic society and other people should follow our example. Well, I say we benefited from slavery, and as a nation, we never faced that because the people in power chose not to.

The auditory perception is not sufficient for our knowledge of the world; it does not have vastness.

Myths about the dire effects of genetically modified foods on health and the environment abound, but they have not held up to scientific scrutiny. And, although many concerns have been expressed about the potential for unexpected consequences, the unexpected effects that have been observed so far have been benign.

Skills rest in your mind, not in the props you make use of.

The difference between management and administration (which is what bureaucrats used to do exclusively) is the difference between choice and rigidity.

There is just no comparison between having a dinner date with a man and staying home playing canasta with the girls.

On the football field, you're still going out to there to win. And if you're not going out there to win, what are you going out there for?

It's never too late to change your luck.

Getting married is an incredible act of hopefulness.

Is it 10 years, 20, 50 before we reach that tipping point where climate change becomes irreversible? Nobody can know. There's clearly a probability distribution. We need to ensure this planet, and we need to do it quickly.

Shoutout to Latinas! You've been great at supporting me, and I appreciate you!

I was a left handed dentist who made people cry.

I don't see people. I don't see men and women at all. When I see them, I see... their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that's who I talk to.

On some level I walk through the world like the adult human version of the baby bird in Are You My Mother Subconsciously waiting for someone to see that I am very take care of able can I live with you now I know you are my age but have you ever thought of adopting an adult.

You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes right in the bin.

In the entire history of the human species, every tool we've invented has been to expand muscle power. All except one. The integrated circuit, the computer. That lets us use our brain power.

Revenge is a way of life and definitely some thing that we identify with. We all feel cheated in some way about some thing and how nice it would be to do something about it. I mean ultimately it's not the most Christian of sentiments.

I had a lot of different thoughts and ideas and always to transform, but I'm trying certain things that I feel my heart is really going for and that was one of the things that I initiated a few months ago.

Everything's completely different, and it's been hard. Fortunately, I have a lot of wonderful people around me, and I think I'm handling things pretty well.

I still regret that I never played soccer in high school. I chose basketball over soccer.

Think about a guy like Bob Mitchum, with his kind of chest gut not defining itself one way or the other. Was there anybody tougher? Lee Marvin was a marine sniper during the Second World War. They had this sense of themselves, and they had this product of being a man in a masculine way.