I kind of assumed all of Australia was like the Gold Coast - so I was telling people Australians just work out and go to the beach. Like, Australia has it figured out! But then I went to Sydney, and it was nothing like the Gold Coast - but I still loved it.

I'm from a place where young people traditionally do not have resources.

If you look at the story of 'The Get Down,' it's the story of young people, unknowns thrown together by their resources, trying to create something.

I just want to do work that gets people excited and makes them feel things, no matter their economic or racial background.

“Despite all odds we have emerged as one people and one country.”

“If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye-to-eye.” 

“Decisions are best made by the people affected by them.” 

“Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.” 

“Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.”

“There are people who have money and people who are rich.”

“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.”

“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.”

“None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.” 

“My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.” 

“It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on.” 

“I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is.”

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

“The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.” 

“If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.”

“There’d be a lot less scandal if people didn’t idealize sin and pose as sinners.” 

I am a romantic, but I do put up a barrier around myself, so it is hard for people to get in and to know the real me

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

I thought this should be a travel show, because a lot of people with physical disabilities get discouraged.

What I don't like about the way the media portrays religion is that they seem to weaponize it and use it as a tool to divide people.