I can only write a book like 'The Tin Drum' or 'From the Diary of a Snail' at a special period of my life. The books came about because of how I felt and thought at the time.
Within my own life, I read all the beloved novels by lamps of vegetable oil; I saw the Standard Oil invading my own village, I saw gas lamps in the Chinese shops in Shanghai; and I saw their elimination by electric lights.
No one really has a bad life. Not even a bad day. Just bad moments.
You don't make movies to be art movies. You make movies that move you emotionally because if you're going to commit five years of your life to a movie, you need something to keep you going.
I was a cub reporter on a local newspaper in Limerick city, and I used to cover the district court meetings. All of life passed through the Limerick courthouse. Misery, malevolence, the dark side of humanity... I tell ya, it made 'Angela's Ashes' look like 'The Wonderful World of Disney.'
A film has its own life and takes its own time.
In Hollywood, you're always playing roles... It's like going through the motions. But in real life, it's like, you gotta take care of business. It's not just the movies.
Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
I thought if I looked back and evaluated my life, it would help me in the future.
I've always used my own personal emotions and things that I've gone through in my life to build a character. The work that I do before a film feels almost like therapy, between me and whoever I'm playing.
I realized so much of my life hasn't been in a well-lit room, and I realized the importance of documenting my experiences as a way to memorialize them.
There are a lot of 'chicken Christians.' Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.
First, Resolve upon, and daily endeavour to practise, a life of seriousness and strict sobriety.
But the whole point of liberation is that you get out. Restructure your life. Act by yourself.
I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
I have seen in my life, I have struggled so much. I did not get support from anyone.
My whole life I've been trying to prove I'm not just yesterday.
I want to reveal in a simple way the usual - and unusual - life of the city; the corporation workman, the busmen, policemen, the civil servants, the theatres, Moore Street and also, what occupies so large a place in Dublin's life, the literary and artistic.
Reality TV is to popular because it allows so many people to sit on the sidelines and just watch somebody else's life. God is saying, 'Don't sit on the sidelines of life. I have put so much in you, but you have got to be strong and very courageous. You have got to step out in faith.'
I've struggled with gender norms my whole life, always feeling like I wasn't black-and-white; I was in this gray area, and gray areas really scare people because you can't define them.
I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled, and thanks to money and fame, I didn't have to go far to find them.
My only regret in life is that I didn't spend as much time with my kids as I now wish I had.
Anything for a quiet life.
My life was filled with family in South Sudan. I am the seventh of nine children, and we grew up in what would be considered a middle-class family. We did not have a lot, but we did have more than a lot of other people.
Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.
I was always a happy and loving person. Many would say that I was living an idyllic life.
That's a central part of philosophy, of ethics. What do I owe to strangers? What do I owe to my family? What is it to live a good life? Those are questions which we face as individuals.
I have a real problem with watching movies where I see this perfect woman who is married to the man in question, who has a perfect life, who has perfect hair, perfect clothes, and doesn't give you any of the kind of reality that you're used to.
I live a dramatic life, it's just not on TV yet.
There's nothing more ironic or contradictory than life itself.
In another situation, and in an active station in life, I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an order would have never come into my head.
Recovery is an ongoing project that is really discrete from everything else in my life. It allows me to be an agent, allows me to write, allows me to be married, allows me to be part of a family. The writing is not a support beam of recovery but a happy consequence of it.
Remember, I'm the kind of kid who used to get stuffed into a locker by school bullies. I've never felt like I'm a big star at any level of my life.
As I moved to less and less diverse places in my life, I realized that white people don't talk about race amongst themselves!
I know I was very unstable and unhappy all through my life. I lost my mother and then my father. Losing Dad was like losing the bearings of my life. My sisters took it badly, but I took it worse. Throughout my lean phases, Dad was like a solid rock, supporting me, whether it was work, or my jail term.