Hayden Panettiere Smarter Than Nearly All Brunettes

“I know I have a higher IQ than 99 per cent of the brunettes out there. It gives me more of a sense of accomplishment when I achieve things after people have underestimated me.� —Hayden Panettiere, on being labeled a dumb blonde [Visimag]

“[The song] ‘Close Call’ was nearly five pages that involved a rival Gypsy gang and a ceremonial burning of the pier in Brighton that inspires the heroine to flee for California and willfully enter into the sex industry. The challenge for me is the simplification of the story so that it fits into a pop structure.� —Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis on distilling all her ideas into a three-minute pop song [LAT]

“In New York, you’re a student forever. You can be doing Broadway at night and doing soap opera during the day and a commercial on the weekends. There’s no prejudice or class system. We’re all actors, we’re all just going to dig in there and keep learning and keep working and keep growing.� —Ted Danson on why Los Angeles sucks [Philadelphia Daily News via PopMatters]

“This is a personal triumph for me. I beat the record companies. Sony Music may go out of business, but I’m not going out of business. And Tower Records, I walked down the street six months ago and saw the boards on the walls, and I went, ‘I’m still here, and they’re gone.’� —Daryl Hall on not being a slave to corporate music [Pitchfork]

“If they think it will help them, God bless them.� —Dan Rather, responding to network staffers dancing to the “Thriller� video at a CBS Evening News pep rally [NYP]
—Elizabeth Black