The intellect is not the means of creation, and creation does not take place through the functioning of the intellect; on the contrary, there is creation when the intellect is silent.
The North thinks it knows how to make corn bread, but this is a gross superstition. Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern corn bread, and perhaps no bread in the world is quite as bad as the Northern imitation of it.
I'm not a writer, but today I think you have to be everything. As an artist you have an obligation to let people know what is on your mind and why you're doing this.
Personally I think that private property has a right to be defended. Our civilisation is built up on property, and can only be defended by private property.
[I was raised in] West Texas where people can dream big dreams and achieve them. But where people also have a great sense of community. They cared about their neighbors. And those values, I think, have stood me well.
A political consultant, when we first started thinking about Senate race, said, "You can have one funny name. You can be 'Barack Smith.' Or you can be 'Joe Obama.' But 'Barack Obama' - that's not gonna work."
I think it's hypocritical and inconsistent for us to attack this one group of people over any other group of people that are within our churches today. If we were talking about one of their sin issues we wouldn't have addressed this at all. I find that hypocritical and inconsistent.
Exemplary people concern themselves with virtue,
small people concern themselves with territory. The ruling class
thinks of punishment, the lower classes hope for benevolence.
I wouldn't want to manufacture cigarettes. But if I owned - we do own Costco. Do they sell them? Yes. So I don't have a problem owning stock in that. But I just wouldn't want to - I wouldn't want to do it myself. I basically think, if anything is sufficiently antisocial, society should do something about it. But that's a separate question. But - and I don't think there's any company that I have seen that's 100 percent pure.
I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.
All human beings have an innate desire to overcome suffering, to find happiness. Training the mind to think differently, through meditation, is one important way to avoid suffering and be happy.