Asked Quotes

Producers on Broadway approached us with an original script after relaunching ourselves as 'A Great Big World,' and wanted us to write the music. They asked us to make the music we would sing if we could, and so we can go a little crazier. We refer to it as 'our music on steroids.'

But you have to understand that I consider myself a very modest artist, or whatever, and not of importance really at all - it is quite embarrassing to me to be asked my opinion about things. I am only a wee Scottish poet on the outside of everything.

When George asked me to be the prequels, it was the same kind of meeting - it was very short and to the point. It was nice to see him after a long time, and we met in a hotel room.

When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.

Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.

When I've been asked what should be on my gravestone, I've said: 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out.' Two big achievements.

I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.

I had never come across the 'X-Men' comics till I was asked to play Magneto, so I just jumped into that job.

It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.

I'm often asked how I write books, but I don't think my approach is suitable for everyone. If I walked into a creative writing class, all I could say to them was 'I tend to make it up as I go along.' I'm not sure that's brilliant advice.

Somebody gave me this drum machine and somebody else asked me to program something for a project. I really liked programming and I was really interested in using the drum machine.

One afternoon, on my way to the campus - I was majoring in political science at Nairobi University - a photographer by the name of Peter Beard stopped me in the street and asked me if I'd ever been photographed.

I was invited to photograph Hollywood. They asked me what I would like to photograph. I said, Ugly men.

No one in my family wrote. And there was no real introduction. I suppose I somehow blundered into it when I was about six or seven years old. I was asked what present I would like, and, without knowing why, I responded that I would like a journal. It was a beautiful journal - so beautiful that I didn't want to sully it.

I asked my parents for permission to study in America and they were so sure that I wouldn't get in and get a scholarship that they encouraged me to try. So I applied to Yale and got an excellent scholarship. I then worked for the Boston Consulting Group for six and half years.

In captivity, one loses every way of acting over little details which satisfy the essentials of life. Everything has to be asked for: permission to go to the toilet, permission to ask a guard something, permission to talk to another hostage - to brush your teeth, use toilet paper, everything is a negotiation.

Being asked to support humane meat means being asked to support the suffering of animals in transport, to approve of treatment that causes them palpable fear, their bodies shaking and their eyes wide as saucers, as they are slung by their legs into crates that are slammed onto the back of a truck.

I'll meet listeners who tell me what a great voice I have. But I don't have a great voice for radio. My voice is the utterly normal voice, but sheer repetition has made them think it's OK. Mick Jagger once was asked, 'What makes a hit song? He said, 'Repetition.'

I hate to see people frustrated or leave a company for an opportunity they could easily have had at their current company if they had only asked.

After working as a journalist I went to a writing program at Johns Hopkins. It was interesting because it was neither journalistic nor historical, but it emphasized writing style, and afterwards I was asked to write my first book.

Food is a big part of my culture, so everyone knows how to cook. When I came to America and asked a babysitter to softboil an egg for my son and she didn't know how, I was shocked.

By the time I was successful with covers of 'Vogue' and 'Harper's Bazaar' and 'Vanity Fair' and the Lancome contract, someone asked how old I was. They almost fainted when I said 33.

At first, when we got engaged, I asked him if we could just go to Vegas and get married by Elvis, just because I didn't want to deal with planning a wedding.

I was on my way to law school when a friend of mine at an extras agency said, 'Do you want to come to this movie set and get paid $100 bucks a day to pretend you're at a party?' And I was like, 'Yeah, summer holiday, let's do it.' So I went, and on lunch, the writer asked me to audition for a role, and I got it.

We were asked to believe that the variety and the novelty of even the crude films of the early days would provide a means of entertainment which would cut out the stage.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

I once asked Ozzy Osbourne, truly one of my favorite people in the world, if he was cool with singing Black Sabbath songs year after year, whether he was performing with Black Sabbath or out on a solo tour. He said it was great.

It's mainly been the case where I do very few live action roles - not out of choice but more out of not getting asked.

It is only the forcible propagation of conventional Christianity that makes the agnostic so bitter toward the church. He knows that all the doctrines cannot possibly be true, but he would view them with toleration if he were asked merely to let them alone for the benefit of the masses whom they can help and succour.

I'm often asked, 'Why didn't Benjamin Franklin ever become president?' My short, easy answer is: He died.