Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The first time I came to New York in 1952, I was busy with music. I made the acquaintance at this period with John Cage, and also the acquaintance of Varese for the first time. We were very good friends. He gave me some scores, and we recorded them a little later.
I was in 'Seussical,' and I was in a cage onstage in a purple yarn suit singing backup, and I was like: 'I've had it. I can't do this anymore.' I will say for the record that I did love the show, but I was like: 'I want to do something else. I need a little more.'
A breeding sow spends most of her life in a tiny cage. It's usually about seven feet long and two feet wide. She cannot turn around. She cannot scratch herself. She must urinate and defecate where she stands. Simply put, I believe she is tortured, day in and day out.
There is a great suspicion of saying that anyone, especially a child, is 'the product of destiny,' or 'formed by fate,' or 'predestined for a certain life.' I am suspicious, too, of efforts to cage children or adults in preconceived ideas of who they are or should be.
A Home Run Derby is fun. It's just like taking batting practice, and you just want to go deep. Guys do it every day. Yes, there's a little more pressure when they pull that cage back, but if you practice properly, it shouldn't affect the second half of your season at all.
Somebody with a huge brand like Bellator under an even huger brand like Viacom, to have them put their faith in me, to put me in so many things, to put me in commercials, send me to all these events, and just to continue to put me in the cage with great talent, it's great.
Luke Cage isn't going to throw a pity party for himself. He literally says to himself, 'This is the world I'm in. These are the circumstances I have.' He's a self-made man. He's trying to continuously build, and that's what's interesting about him. He's a work in progress.
I have this creative mind where I can create a lot of different things, but a lot of people never really gave me the chance and opportunity to do that because when they see me, they just see this dumb fighter that fights in the cage and howls like a wolf and knocks people out.
My role models are every single woman that steps inside of the cage - inside of an octagon, inside a ring, or on a mat - and proves to themselves and to others that they can do what they need to do. Those are my heroes. Those are my sheroes. Those are the people that I look up to.
If I could sum up 'Shadow's Claim' in six words: cage fights with hot alpha males. Seriously, though, while the fights are the backdrop for Trehan and Bettina's love story, the main emphasis is on how Trehan - a pitiless master assassin - wages the ultimate battle to win her heart.
I listened to a clip someone had put up of me singing 'I Am What I Am' in the musical 'La Cage aux Folles.' I thought I was absolutely dreadful. It's like when you see photos of yourself at parties - at the time you thought you looked so cool and glamorous but you just look a bit drunk.
Really, the arc for the first season of 'Luke Cage' is 'hero.' How does one become a hero? What does one feel about being a hero? How does one live their life and eventually go through the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages of grief until the acceptance is, 'Fine, I'm a hero.' This is what it is.
I wrote this 12-page 'Luke Cage' comic book for Marvel once, and I got to create a villain. His name was Lone Shark, so there was this running thing of whether it was spelled L-O-A-N or L-O-N-E. I like the idea of 'I'm a lone shark,' and then people are like, 'You are here to collect a debt?'
When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I saw chimpanzee eyes for the first time - the eyes of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked in a bare, concrete-floored, iron-barred cage in one of the nastier, old-fashioned zoos. I remember looking at the chimp, then looking away.
I don't like the way the cage is set up. I think it's really dangerous that the metal comes up about three inches off the ground. People were putting their foot on it. I can see it. And I was worried about being taken down and landing backwards with my elbow. and damaging my elbow or even my head.
My relationship with my dad was complex, especially when I came out. The years of verbal abuse, all of it drink-fuelled, were difficult. Later, though, he came to see me on stage in 'La Cage aux Folles' - one of his favourite shows - and loved it. Theatre won him over and he accepted me in the end.
When I face an opponent in the cage, it doesn't really matter who they are. Whether they're my buddy, like Scott Jorgensen, or someone I don't like, like Dominick Cruz, I'm going in there and realizing this guy is trying to hurt me, and that's what I'm going to do to him. I try to keep it real basic.
When you fight me, you aren't going to be able to be so careful. They better block their face and knock me out. I'm going to hit them, kick them. I'm going to come forward. They'll have to run, literally run, backwards. That's the only way to get away from me. And eventually you're going to run into the cage.
I feel I represent my country: not only my country but all former U.S.S.R. countries because I have very big fan base here, and I have more than a billion Muslim fans. I feel I represent these guys all around the world. My fans. This gives me very good energy. When I go to the cage, I think about these people.
Horseracing already has the highest mortality rate of any sport in the world per capita to the people who do it. If you crash in Nascar you still have a roll bar, and a cage, and a lot of protection. It's built to crash, but if you fall off a racehorse we all know what can happen, so it's tremendously dangerous.
I wanted to have no ribs. I wore what was called a waist-nipper in those days. My mother made it. It's a piece of rubber band I wore around to hold my rib cage in. I don't know why I always loved that. I guess I was a glutton for punishment. I think I was born one of those people who loved swords and fought in armor.
My talk is inside of the cage. This is my real words where I talk every time. I think this is really important. You can speak before the fight on whatever you want, but inside of the Octagon, inside of the cage, it shows who you are. You can speak whatever you want, but who you are is who you will be inside the cage.
Because Pilates requires you to press your abs toward your spine, you don't want to allow your lower belly to round and press out as air comes into your lungs. You also don't want that abdominal lock to force you to breathe shallowly. To breathe correctly, you must expand your rib cage, primarily through your midback.
There's a bit of a new guard of contemporary classical musicians in New York, and we play a lot of different kinds of music together. We do pop studio sessions, and we'll also play John Cage and more avant-garde work. We're developing a language of music that comes with a lot of different styles, different kinds of work.
'Luke Cage' is about a reluctant superhero who lives in the shadows in Harlem. He has to decide if he's going to step up and fight for the heart of the city and defend the people against Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes, my character, who kinda wants to keep everything in order and intact. I'm the criminal element in the story.
If you're a classical actor, every Shakespearean part you play, you then say, 'McKellen did it this way,' and, 'Jacobi did it this way.' There's a whole list of Oliviers and people, whether you play Hamlet or Richard II or Richard III, any of those roles. And I found that a bit when I did 'La Cage.' It didn't bother me one bit.
When I turned 12 or 13 years old, even as a dad, you can't make a kid play anymore, but up until that point, he pushed me to keep playing, and when I turned 13, I didn't want to do anything else. He was just there with me at the cage every day because I wanted him to go with me and throw to me and work on what I needed to work on.
When I head into the cage for an MMA fight, for that time inside the cage, I hate the person standing across the cage. I want to beat him up and beat him up to the point where he never wants to go against me again. After the fight, I can shake his hands, and he - we can be best friends. It's the same thing in professional wrestling.
'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world was coming into being.
My husband recently made me try on a bikini. A bikini is not so much a garment as a cloth-based reminder that your parts have been migrating all these years. My waist, I realized that day in the dressing room, has completely disappeared beneath my rib cage, which now rests directly on my hips. I'm exhibiting continental drift in reverse.
What's easy to forget once you're minorly famous is how nerve-racking it is to walk up to someone famous and interrupt them. When I'm taking a picture with a fan, it's not uncommon for their hands to be shaking or for me to feel their heart pounding through their rib cage. But the best part is how easy it is for me to make someone's day.
I think it's funny, if you look at Brian Cage, the guy calls himself 'The Machine.' 265 lbs and spends a lot of time in the gym and eating chicken breasts. The guy comes in Impact Wrestling and instead of going after a guy like Moose or Killer Kross, who is he beating up? A bunch of guys half his size? Walking around like he's a big man.
Actually, when I was young, I believe I met Nicolas Cage. I think I was probably eight, and I remember seeing him at somebody's house - it was an event and he happened to be there. People would ask me if I was his son, because I looked like him at that point, so I do remember feeling some connection and just wanting to say, like, 'Papa!'
In my early work, my time in the batting cage, that's serious, and that's when I feel like I'm really working. That's where I have to lock in on my approach, make sure my mechanics are right, and make sure my mindset is right for the upcoming game. But then, when the game comes up, it's a game! You're supposed to have fun when you play games.
What I like about my character: Luke Cage is a person first and foremost. We do have other black superheroes, but he's important because he's touchable. Luke has moments when he has to try to forget his pain, but then, unlike the rest of us, he's also able to channel that frustration into fighting bad guys. Real martyrs aren't trying to be martyrs.
