Quotes About Perspective

I've never in my life categorized a year of my life as good or bad. I just think I'm living a good life, warts and all.

That's what I love about history - nuance. I don't believe in unalloyed heroes. Everyone's got warts, and everyone's got a surprise side.

Joanna points her camera at a section of society unused to having cameras pointed at it. But I don't know about categorizing them in terms of class; I'm a bit wary of that. My dad is the son of a shipbuilder.

Something like your parents divorcing never quite leaves you. What you thought was real isn't real anymore, and that changes your perspective. It makes you more wary but also means you are better equipped to deal with challenges.

Americans should be wary of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt but not scared of them.

I'm always wary of the lessons of the past. There's a lot of past out there, and you can draw whatever lessons you want.

I'm always a bit wary when people say in interviews, 'I'm at the happiest place of my life that I've ever been.' I think, 'Really? Are you?' Life is a mix, isn't it?

When someone praises me, I get wary. If someone has something negative to say, I invite them over for a long chat. They are important for my growth as an actor.

When a new manager comes in you are naturally wary and it does cross your mind that you might not figure in his plans.

They tend to come out a colour called 'Pants left in wash'

I'm not the king in my own house. I have to wash the dishes and take out the trash and say, 'Yes, baby.' I'm 6-foot-5, but I kind of walk around hunched over.

Sex in a dance is in the eyes of the beholder. I never thought my dances sexy. I suppose that's because I see myself with my face washed, and to me I look like a rabbit.

Washing dishes as a 17-year-old in an Oxford college and seeing the privileged lifestyles of the undergraduates there convinced me that a system that allowed luxury for the few at the expense of the many needed to be challenged.

I never thought I'd be one of those old hams who favours theatre over everything, but I'm getting that way. Telly and film seemed more fun when I was younger; turning left on planes and washing up in nice places. But there are things that you only learn in theatre.

I want to aspire to something like what Denzel Washington does, which is try to find scripts written for white actors - or Jodie Foster, who reads scripts for male actors.

In America, we may acknowledge Washington and Lincoln as great men, and probably Franklin and Jefferson and maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt and possibly even several more, but we would probably disagree about precisely what it was that made them great, what it was that enabled them to give a lasting direction to the course of events.

I grew up in that world of power and politics in Washington, but when you grow up around it, you are completely unfazed by it.

I didn't grow up in public life. I lived with my mother in Boston, not in Washington, DC, so I was somewhat sheltered from that.

What I love about L.A. and Washington, D.C. is that they're almost the opposite of each other. L.A. is a very creative space while D.C. is a very cerebral space. So, they're the ying and the yang in my world. I like them both for their own reasons.

Art is a conversation we are all invited to and are all worthy to participate in. Yes, great works can be intimidating, but no one else in the world has what you have—your voice, your eyes, your feeling and perspective. Other people have written great books, but no one else will ever write YOUR book. It's worth writing. That is the belief that carries me through.

He was exactly my height, which surprised me; my awe of him had made him seem taller.

The world is seldom so simple that it hinges on us alone.

It is permissible to be the god of your own metaphors.

A single action could derive from many motivations. I should never assume.