As you mature and gain a semblance of wisdom and a sense of what life is all about... this is by no means true of everyone, but a lot of actors like to escape themselves. Inhabiting another person's persona is often a good way of escaping yourself.

Shopmas now begins on Thanksgiving Day. Apparently, escaping the families you cannot stand to spend another minute with on Thanksgiving Day to go buy them gifts is how some Americans show their affection for one another. Weird.

Team sports are very important for shaping personalities. It's important that kids understand the mentality behind playing team sports and playing for one another and playing with friends.

The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants.

The Internet: transforming society and shaping the future through chat.

Is this not the true romantic feeling; not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you.

A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.

We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat.

The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.

Habit allows us to go from 'before' to 'after,' to make life easier and better. Habit is notorious - and rightly so - for its ability to direct our actions, even against our will; but by mindfully shaping our habits, we can harness the power of mindlessness as a sweeping force for serenity, energy, and growth.

So I suppose poetry, language, the shaping of it, was and remains for me an effort to make sense out of essentially senseless situations.

It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

All the lessons are in nature. You look at the way rocks are formed - the wind and the water hitting them, shaping them, making them what they are. Things take time, you know?

Let me tell you, it is still morning in America. It just happens to be kind of a head pounding, hung over for four hours in America - and it's shaping up to be a nasty day, but its still morning in America.

The first breath of adultery is the freest; after it, constraints aping marriage develop.

I'm very happy at home. I love to just hang out with my daughter, I love to work in my garden. I'm not a gaping hole of need.

I went home and went to Mustang, in the mountains between Nepal and China, and was so inspired by the landscape and the rich culture and heritage. I loved the textures, the draping, the palette. Everything was so beautiful. This little kingdom wasn't open to the world until 1991.

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.

History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images.

Life is short, youth is finite, and opportunities endless. Have you found the intersection of your passion and the potential for world-shaping positive impact? If you don't have a great idea of your own, there are plenty of great teams that need you - unknown startups and established teams in giant companies alike.

I understand the law of sowing and reaping. It is a spiritual law that has tremendous physical implications. Every time that we delay or frustrate what we can do today, leaving it till tomorrow, we hold back the future. We, too, must reap what we have sown by experiencing delays.

That was the day I began cutting classes and returning to TV tapings; it ultimately led to a friendship with Johnny O, and an increasing fascination and respect for what he did.