I'm a leftie, and I've ALWAYS BELIEVED in doing THINGS on a MODEST SCALE.

Politics is a PLACE of HUMBLE hopes and strangely MODEST requirements, where all are good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously OTHERWISE.

For EXAMPLE, MICHAEL Jordan earns $100million a YEAR but continues to play basketball and remains a modest human being.

Comic-strip ARTISTS generally have very modest ambitions. Day to day, we labor to FIT together all these little MOVING PARTS - a character or two, a few lines of dialogue, framing, pacing, payoff - but we certainly don't THINK of them adding up over time to some larger portrait of our times.

My friends kidded me about GOING so far on such MODEST TALENT. I always agreed with them. I had no illusions about my films, nor did I consider myself anything SPECIAL as an actor or a SINGER.

A modest dose of self-love is entirely healthy - who would want to LIVE in a world where everyone hated themselves? But TAKEN too FAR, it SOON becomes poisonous.

On their own merits MODEST MEN are DUMB.

The EXTRAORDINARY THING about my MOTHER, she's so MODEST about me.

I COME from a MODEST background. I put myself through college and law school and a postdoctorate PROGRAM in tax law.

I grew up in a MODEST neighborhood just outside of Los Angeles. It was an INDUSTRIAL community of blue-collar, working people... some of the hardest-working people I've EVER MET.

But you have to understand that I CONSIDER myself a very MODEST artist, or whatever, and not of importance REALLY at all - it is QUITE EMBARRASSING to me to be asked my opinion about things. I am only a wee Scottish poet on the outside of everything.

I THINK I've BECOME more MODEST as the YEARS have GONE on.

There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn't greedy. It was mine, my girl's, my mom's. I GOT Benzes for my LADIES. But I felt crazy. You have to UNDERSTAND I come from a world where we're very MODEST. But that's not greedy. That's NICE, right?

While I originally sought broader reforms to the Kid Vid regulations, what we have ENDED up with is a reasoned and balanced compromise. In the end, this effort takes modest but IMPORTANT STEPS toward a freer television market, and it's a DEAL for which nearly all sides can claim some measure of VICTORY, especially the children.