Born on September 16th

"In the field of mindfulness & peace, be present in this breath, for it is the only moment where life is actually happening."

"Peace is not the silence of the storm, but the calm center you maintain within yourself. As a creative innovator, this is the foundational truth I have observed."

"Let go of the weight of yesterday, and receive the clear canvas of this present day."

"I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed."

"It is futile for an artist to try to create an environment because you have an environment around you all the time. Any living organism has an environment."

"My art will reflect not necessarily conscious politics but the unanalysed politics of my life."

"I mean, art for art's sake is ridiculous. Art is for the sake of one's needs."

"Matter as matter rather than matter as symbol is a conscious political position, essentially Marxist."

"Every time you work, you have to do it all over again, to rid yourself of this dross. I suppose for a person who is not an artist or not attempting art, it is not dross, because it is the common exchange of everyday life."

"My art springs from my desire to have things in the world which would otherwise never be there."

"A place is an area within an environment that has been altered in such a way to make the general environment more conspicuous."

"If you're not buying recycled products, you're not really recycling."

"I can trace my environmentally-friendly lifestyle back to my childhood. My father was a conservative Republican that liked to 'conserve'."

"I ride my bike for transportation a great deal - occasionally I ride it for fun. But I also have a generator bike that's hooked up to my solar battery pack, so if I ride 15 minutes hard on my bike, that's enough energy to toast toast, or power my computer."

"I bought my first electric car in 1970. Its top speed was 15 mph and it had just a 15 mile range - it was essentially a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn."

"By 1990 I went back to no gasoline; I was just riding around on my bike, taking the bus. I had a tiny little electric car that didn't go very far or very fast. People thought I'd lost my mind. Even my own family thought I'd lost my mind."

"People don't want to give up their SUVs. They don't want to turn the thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer."

"I was a typical Valley teen, in smoggy Van Nuys."

"I've been in movies with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson - but I was on 'The Simpsons,' and finally, in the eyes of my children, I was a star."

"The environmental crisis is all a result of rushing."

"For decades, community colleges have been the backbone of American workforce training. Because they are nimble and closely attuned to local community needs, they are inherently positioned to be influential leaders of the movement for a sustainable economy."

"As someone who has grown up living in Southern California, I know all too well about the costs and scarcities of water."

"The film 'Tapped' illustrates quite clearly how we've been getting 'soaked' for years by the bottled water industry."

"I've lived a slower and less expensive life going off the grid, and I'm happier because of it."

"I'm a strong proponent of green tech for anyone who can afford it, having spent the last 40 years working toward achieving a smaller and smaller eco-impact for myself."

"Los Angeles is a city known as much for it's sun as for its stars and it's dirty air."

"California has always led the way on environmental protection and always reaped the benefits, pioneering everything from catalytic convertors on cars to stationary source reduction."

"I started composting in 1970 by taking my food scraps out behind where I lived and burying them in a hole next to the railroad tracks - and green things started to grow there!"

"My father also encouraged my love of nature. He urged me to become a Cub Scout, and later a Boy Scout, and I found I really liked being outdoors."

"My favorite form of transportation is walking. I live in a neighborhood where you can walk to restaurants, banks, and shops."