I follow a simple formula when I compose. I ask myself, 'What would the audience want to hear?' and 'Why would they buy my CDs?' And the process of answering these questions through music follows. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it backfires.
A. R. Rahman
I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's.
Adam Driver
I grew up obsessively collecting Queen T-shirts and concert posters and rare U.K. imports of their CDs.
Adam F. Goldberg
I have OCD and, literally, walking on the left, needing things to be in even numbers with few exceptions. One and seven, any number that ends in seven, that's all me. All the tics like the pulling of the ear and scratching of the palms, all me.
Adam Silvera
Let me clear something up: I don't like KFC. Or McDonald's.
Adebayo Akinfenwa
Building on the work of George Macdonald, William Morris and Edward Plunkett, what became known as high fantasy was more or less invented by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Adrian McKinty
In today's world, America's soft power is commonly thought to reside in the global popularity of Hollywood movies, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Starbucks.
Ahmed Zewail
I've thought about doing it as soon as it is possible with this new CD getting some wings and getting out there. I don't know how soon that will be.
Al Jarreau
More live recording. I have missed the boat over my career by not doing every second or third CD live because things happen onstage that don't happen in the studio.
We'll see if we ever do another Ministry gig again or not. I'm not saying yes or no yet. All I'm saying is I know there's no new Ministry studio CDs coming ever again. I promise.
Al Jourgensen
I have one of those Garmin watches, and I'm OCD about downloading my runs no matter where I go. I used it on an 18-mile run in Paris, a 12-miler in the mountains of Montana, a couple of runs in the Bahamas. Wherever I am, I try to run. That's what's so great about it.
Al Roker
I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.
Al Yankovic
I was raised on John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. Something about this genre - hard-boiled-private-eye-with-heart-of-gold - never failed to take me away from whatever difficulties haunted my daily world to a wonderful land where I was no more than an enthralled spectator.
Alan Furst
The fan base that I've had all these years has come along. Some of them are not as plugged into the digital world, so they want to go out and buy the CD at Walmart or something.
Alan Jackson
About 100 things that your kid will do that will surprise you and break your heart and it will be a combination of fact based therapy, medically advised kinds of passages accompanied by celebrity anecdotes and just some funny stuff to lighten the load.
Alan Thicke
I thought my Beatles LPs sounded pretty good on a record player, but that was before I had heard a CD.
Alastair Wood
I had a little radio next to the bed and I'd just listen to the top 10 - I mean, it was crap but I was young - and I would get up in the dark with the moon coming in through the window and I would just dance in my pajamas in the dark to the top 10. I didn't have a CD player... so it was kind of all I had, you know?
Aldous Harding
I'm the most organised person in the world. Apparently, I'm just like Monica from 'Friends' because I am hyper, hyper organised. It's probably bordering on OCD.
Alesha Dixon
I was a math whiz who stunk at English, so of course I wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. I performed impromptu plays for my grandmother's sewing circle but forced my little sister to ask for ketchup at McDonald's.
Alethea Kontis
I'd rather eat a cow-pat on a bun than a bloody McDonalds.
Alex Kapranos
A guy came up to me in the park and asked if I wanted to buy his CD. I said sure. He got panicked and told me he didn't actually have a CD, and he started crying and then told me he never made it and he's really sorry and called me 'Ralph.' New York's a really weird place.
I can eat anything. After practice I can stop at McDonald's. I don't have a problem with gaining weight, thank God.
The worst thing that happens to you at college if you fail to get out of bed in time is that you will miss two hours of someone reading scintillating anecdotes about Medieval Ireland. The worst thing that happens to you in life if you fail to get out of bed in time is that you might lose your job as a first responder.
Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.
Food should be cheap, and labor should be cheap, and everything should be the same no matter where you go; whether it's a McDonald's in Germany or one in California, it should be the same. And this message is destroying cultures around the world. Needless to say, agriculture goes with it.
The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. It's pure government policy.
People keep saying I'm westernizing Chinese food. No I'm not. McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, have done it big time, way before me.
Southern politicians who have tried to rise above the passionate rhetoric surrounding the Civil War have frequently found themselves dragged back into the mire. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, was forced to apologise when his proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month failed to make any reference to slavery.
McDonald's is good for me.
My first encounter with Wu-Tang Clan came when I ordered six CDs from those throwback catalog orders, from Columbia House or something, and '36 Chambers' was one of them. It was on from then.
Even if I earn millions, I will probably do the average things, like live in a dorm and work at McDonald's.
I've always bought CDs and even when I was young and at primary school I had a massive collection of CDs. I just like the excitement of opening it, reading the book, learning all the words and things like that. Hopefully I'll always be like that.
There are some people who are Burger King people, and there are some people who are McDonald's people.
I've never been a Burger King person. I'm a total McDonald's person.
The reach of Coke and McDonald's is undeniable, and I'm thrilled these iconic brands are joining forces to inspire local communities through messages of peace and motivation in unique ways. It's an added bonus that they are using the lyrics to 'Rise Up' as a part of those messages.
I was scouted working at the register at McDonald's in Melbourne, Australia. I worked there as my first job, and a guy walked in and gave me his card. I was 16. I was skeptical, but I looked it up when I got home, and it was legitimate.
McDonalds used to be my favorite place to eat, until my metabolism changed in my late 30s. Before that, I would have no hesitation about walking into McDonalds and getting two cheeseburgers and fries and enjoying every last bite.
In a typical day, I would wake up about 8 A.M., pile all my stuff into my mom's minivan - my guitar, my amp, CDs to sell, a table and a rug - drive it down to the street, and unload it all. I'd wait until about 12, then play for two hours. You could only play in two-hour intervals, so then I would move it all somewhere else.
It sucked to make my own CDs. I'm bad at that. It sucks to figure out how to power my amp. I don't know that stuff.
A lot of people don't know what I do. In the industry they take credit for work because to some degree it makes them feel worthy or greater. I am not a ghostwriter 'cause it is on the CD covers who wrote and did what but people don't care about anything they can't see. The work gets unnoticed and the credibility goes untouched.
Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.
It's like an OCD thing, it's not as much something I enjoy. If I see a chapstick that I've never tried, I have to buy it. And then once that door's been opened, I have to check the whole store to see if there are more chapsticks that I don't have.
I actually love actresses who look like they feel really natural. I like Patricia Clarkson, Laura Linney, Frances McDormand. Those are actresses where the second they show up on screen you're like, oh my gosh, this movie just got so much better.
I think there are rock stars within every subgenre, and for people who are obsessed with musical theater Sutton Foster and Audra MacDonald are like Beyonce to them. I'm sure the a cappella world has their own version of that, and that exists in every geeky subculture.
Like most people my age, my job is the main focus of my life. I don't have some kind of jet-setting fabulous lifestyle where I'm constantly in situations to acquire amazing anecdotes, that's it.
The only person I think I actually do dislike is John McDonnell. I actually do think he's a nasty piece of work because he's an IRA apologist.
I wanted to make a classical piece that was actually designed to be a CD, not designed for performance.
That the CDU has different political views on the topic of redistribution, on the topic of uniform social standards... than the French have, that is nothing new.
The CDU is a party with more than 400,000 members. The fact that each one has a different opinion is what makes us interesting.
The CDU is willing to continue to take responsibility for our country. We want to do justice to the government mandate.
