Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness.

Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

I am particularly pleased to see that the Bendheim Center for Finance is thriving.

People used to ask me for advice, and I'd say, 'Please, don't ask me!' Yes, I did economics at Oxford, but that's not the same as having a broad knowledge of personal finance.

I wanted to make Jerusalem as feature film. But we couldn't finance it only through theatrical release, we couldn't get all the money we needed. We had to get some money from television. So we said, ok, let's do it both ways. So we did it in four parts.

Self-acknowledgment boosts your emotional and spiritual immunity, giving you the strength you need to release the past and rise above fear, doubt or resignation.

You may be educated abroad, you may be a great scientist, politician, but you always have a sneaking fear that if you don't go to temples or do the ordinary things that you have been told to do, something evil might happen, so you conform. What happens to the mind that conforms? Investigate it, please.

Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyone... Bad food is fake food... food that shows fear and lack of confidence in people's ability to discern or to make decisions about their lives.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.

People are getting famous now for serving food out of a truck, or for, well, pork buns. I don't know if I'm really pleased to be a part of that. I'm somewhat terrified of what the future holds, especially in America.

Maybe Elvis was inhibited by inbred religious prohibitions or an Oedipal complex, or maybe he simply preferred the thrill of a denied release. Whatever put the brakes on the famous pelvis, it ground to a halt at a certain point, and that was it.

I don't mean being famous is a perk, because one knows that it's not necessarily a perk, but there are certain perks to being well-known and respected in one's field. Public perks. Like, I don't know, general friendliness and willingness to please, just to point out two.

My family never owned a home. We leased.

Hollywood, we get it. The Christian faith just doesn't work for you 'in the long run.' However, for a large percentage of this country (the same country that makes your movies millions of dollars), it does. So please, for all of our sakes, keep your 'beliefs to yourself' and just 'stop the hate.'

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

A famous man once said, 'A sure formula for failure is to try and please everyone.' Some might say I built a career on doing just the opposite of pleasing everyone.

You can't please everyone, but I've always felt you cannot ultimately lose if you give everything you try 110%. You'll always learn something useful, even from a failure, that can be applied to the next challenge or project.

Don't think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success.

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.

I've learnt so much over time and with the experience that I've gained. You can't please everyone.

Feminism is nothing but equality, and actually, feminism benefits men because it liberates us and it releases us from many stigmas imposed by the macho culture on us as well. So if more of us could understand that it's nothing but equality, I think many agendas in terms of equality would have advanced quicker because it really helps us as well.

Yes, the '60s went too far, but we were trying to find new ways, better ways, to do things. And great seeds were planted: civil rights, the peace movement, the environmental movement, feminism. They're big seeds. They take a long time to come to fruition. Please, let's stop fighting, and get out our water cans.

The first time I was ever impressed with Patagonia as a brand was when they released the 'Don't Buy This Jacket' campaign. That campaign highlighted their understanding of their role in a larger environmental justice space.