Henry Thomas

I understood why films were made, and if they made a lot of money, they were successful. All of these things I knew. As a ten-year-old boy, I didn't really think a lot about finances or celebrity. I always viewed films as kind of what I imagined a summer camp to be like.

I would inevitably get the girls who were interested in me because I was the guy from E.T. It was kind of tough. I can't deny ever capitalizing upon it but on the whole in my teens I was pretty virtuous.

I don't know if I was so much of an outsider until after I started doing films. That put me on the outside. I grew up in Texas, and I wasn't the child of industry parents, and I didn't have a lot of friends in the industry or anything like that.

I don't think even when you find a person, you can be completely honest, ever. There's still pieces of you that you don't give away. I do believe you always need that place where it's just you, your thoughts, no one else's judgment or anything.

Finding a 'sacrificial lamb' on whom to tag blame for complicated problems is an important instrument in the toolkit of politicians, because it deflects blame for the nation's economic woes away from their own regulatory lapses, economic mismanagement and coddling to labor unions.