When people ask me, I tell them, "Hey don't believe all that mess. We're close and people took it the wrong way."
When I went to shoot the film I was very nervous. I kept telling myself, "This is it. This is what you've wanted, this is the real deal. Now you've gotta do your thing. You've gotta put all of you in this and hopefully they'll like you." And for people to say it's impressive and "You're so natural", I mean, it's the best feeling in the world. I feel like hard work, you know, payed off.
He understood whatever those hidden mechanisms are that convince people to trust you. I kind of watched him and absorbed what I could from him.
Life isn’t like the movies. People don’t change overnight. people don’t go from arrogant and self-righteous to ashamed and remorseful. They don’t suddenly give in when they’ve spent years taking out. No doesn’t magically become a Yes.
Some people are uncomfortable with gays, but your discomfort with my sexuality should not translate into me having less rights as an American.
Life without literature is a life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable.
Despite the immense challenges that we have faced and continue to face, we refuse to indulge in negativity or pessimism. We are an organization that believes in empowering people to be their best.
Throughout all the years and in everything we do, we have focused most of all on the development of human capacity, beginning with our own professional staff, and leveraging their expertise to enrich the Arab community. We have embraced the concept of the ‘knowledge worker’ and have sought to empower our people and the Arab world’s people to dream, to imagine, and to create.
The goal of providing basic literacy and education to all the world’s people is still the most basic development challenge.
