Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think the first three Rickenbacker basses were imported around 1964. Pete Quaife, the bassist for The Kinks, bought one. Then John Entwistle from The Who bought one. As for the third one, I asked the manager of the store if I could get an employee discount. He said I could, and so I picked up that one.
I think burnout is a big thing. If I could do it over again, I'd probably do it the same way, playing other sports when I'm younger. I see a lot of parents really push their younger kids really hard, and you want to see your kids do stuff, but there's a point where they really should have fun at that age.
As I look back on the day I signed my professional contract in 1973, I've never gone to sleep wondering if I could pay the bills or take care of my family. That's what basketball has done for me. It's given me the greatest of thrills from high school to college to the Olympics to coaching to broadcasting.
It's possible I'm a weird person, you know, and if I could only write for people who are like me, I wouldn't have any audience at all. Ultimately, I'm my audience. I'm writing stories for myself. I don't have kids of my own, and I don't hang around kids all that much. Maybe that puts me at a disadvantage.
I've got this inflatable Darth Vader that I stole off the roof of a Burger King. I went in and asked the girl at the counter if I could have it, and she said she didn't care, but she wasn't going to get me a ladder or anything like that. So I just kind of pulled myself up there, cut it loose and took off.
I was in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on a scholarship. I was - still am - an artist. They were looking for an actor for 'Take a Giant Step,' and a producer liked my look and asked if I could act. I said, 'Yep!' Then I got into acting more or less just to make money for paints and canvases.
If I were able to write, I probably would. But movies have given me a part of my life where I can express feelings and bring convictions to an audience as if I could write. So I made 'Gandhi' about human relations, prejudice and the empire. In 'Cry Freedom' I expressed my horror and disgust about apartheid.
When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.
Queens is so often treated as a stepchild and labeled as an outer borough. At the very least, if I could help bring more attention to what we need, and what the federal government needs to do to improve the quality of life of people right here in Queens - any way that I can do that, I'm very happy to do that.
I stood in front of a mountain and was overwhelmed by the beauty and energy; I had goosebumps. I thought, if I could record this feeling, go back home and pour it out again so other people can have that feeling, this I would want to be my work. I knew it was acting - I wanted to be like a messenger or medium.
If I could go back in time, I would have loved to have done more with Triple H. He blossomed into a bigger star after I left. I regret, looking back now, that we didn't have more matches or better matches or at least one pay-per-view match where we could have really showed our best stuff - or, at least, I did.
107 caps isn't bad for someone who isn't 'a top, top player', is it? I never expected to get that amount of caps. When I made my debut, I set myself the personal target of trying to get 50 caps and score 10 goals if I could. So to have 107 is something I am really proud of, particularly being among those names.
Some people say that you should read people who think completely differently from you so that everything you read and everything that they say is a challenge to you but there's something to be said for reading people where you think, 'Yes, that's how I would have said it if I could have found the words for it'.
What's very interesting is that when we look at human bodies, we look at our body as a singular entity when it turns out, no, if I could reduce us to a small size as the size of a cell and put you inside your body, rather than seeing a singular entity, what you would see is a metropolis with 50 trillion citizens.
My sister was born a couple years after I was, and I realized that I wasn't getting enough attention, as much attention as I used to before she showed up, and then I learned pretty early on that if I could do a silly dance or make grown-ups laugh, then the attention would come back to me, and I would be accepted.
'MAD Magazine' put out a book that was a collection of Trump cartoons, and they asked me to do the forward because they knew that I was a fan because I'd done stories and tweeted about 'MAD.' So I did the forward and asked them if I could do a cartoon. They let me, and I did caricatures of myself and Wolf Blitzer.
If I could only have one grooming tool, it would be floss. I don't want to have broken Cheetos in my teeth. To protect myself from the sun, I can find shade under a tree. To moisturize my skin, I could get really sweaty and then just rub it on myself. But how are you going to clean between your teeth without floss?
I don't know if this is the kind of retrospective analysis that people are fond of applying to their work or actions, but it feels like I knew I was going to be famous and I knew that an element of that would be traumatic, so that if I could make myself something big and otherworldly, it would be a kind of defence.
I don't really know what 'selling out' is exactly. I would sell out if I could, but nobody's buying it. I would love to go mainstream, but my comedy is too edgy. It's always too dirty. It's always too filthy. I'm dying to sell out. But I love doing comedy, I love touring, and I think I would do everything for free.
If I could be like any other quarterback that played in the National Football League, I would have to say Brett Favre is the guy. Besides the injuries and the hits and everything, he had a pretty successful career. He's a Hall of Famer for sure, multiple Super Bowls, and that's something that I look forward to doing.
If I could eat whatever I wanted every day, I would have Domino's pizza with pasta carbonara inside every slice. And at night, I would have Neapolitan ice cream until I felt absolutely toxic. And then I would drift off telling myself, 'It's going to be O.K... It's going to be O.K. you're going to train in the morning.'
If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I've never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.
When I heard that there were artists, I wished I could some time be one. If I could only make a rose bloom on paper, I thought I should be happy! Or if I could at last succeed in drawing the outline of winter-stripped boughs as I saw them against the sky, it seemed to me that I should be willing to spend years in trying.
When I started, I was a theater actress, and there were roles that I couldn't imagine not playing, like Rosalind in 'As You Like It.' I used to think I would die if I could play that. But then I started doing movies, and I had children, and I moved to Los Angeles. And now I kind of can't remember what those roles would be.
The battle against cancer has made me strong. It's like winning a war! When I was diagnosed, I was told by doctors my kidney, liver and other organs could fail. It was tough. I didn't know if I could save my life. But I was positive, and because of that, the doctor told me that I would be a man who would never have cancer.
Even though I was dealing with all of these health issues, I was still doing well during my season. It wasn't the best season, but it was consistent. And I figured if I could be this consistent when I'm not my best, what happens when I get better, where could I be? So I wanted to see what I would be like on the other side.
My aunt is the director of the acapella group Black Voices. I was so struck by them as a child. They sang with such passion and conviction. By the time I turned 15, I had plucked up the courage to ask if I could join the group. Acapella is a different discipline from singing with an accompaniment - it is much more exposed.
If I could have gotten my way at an early age, I would have entered the priesthood, but my mother informed me that I could not become a priest because I was a girl. It really was the biggest blow to my ego, because it was my calling. When she told me I'd have to be a nun, I looked at her and said, 'I'm not following anyone.'
I was good at math and science, and it was expected that I would attend the University of Washington in Seattle and become an engineer. But by the time I was seventeen, I was ready to leave home, a decision my parents agreed to support if I could obtain a scholarship. MIT did not grant me one, but the University of Chicago did.
As a 4-year-old, I saw two men competing in the ring, and I thought it was martial arts. I asked my parents if I could do martial arts. So, I was 5 or 6-years-old, and I was doing karate and jiu-jitsu. Later on, I started kickboxing. Then, it just progressed. I did a little bit of everything, but predominantly, I did kickboxing.
I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea, and it would change things. That's a harmless conceit. With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.
If I could have the tabloids stop writing as much about me, and still get paid the same amount that I do, then I'd be quite happy. But I suppose it comes with the other things. If I'm not in the public eye, and then I'm not wanted, and I'm not getting endorsements, I'm not being talked about, my records aren't going to be bought.
If I could distil the relevance of Bruce Springsteen's music to Australia it would be this: don't let what has happened to the American economy happen here. Don't let Australia become a down-under version of New Jersey, where the people and the communities whose skills are no longer in demand get thrown on the scrap heap of life.
We never went into a game that we did not feel sure of winning, and when we lost, we blamed it on hard luck or the umpires. We never gave any other team credit for being able to play ball, and the result was that we were hard to beat. If I could get my team to be confident, I think we would work our way to the front pretty quickly.
I had always been interested in the space program, and I didn't know if I could be an astronaut like I'd dreamt about when I was a little kid - to me it sounded kind of silly, someone grow up to be an astronaut - but, when I was in my 20s, I thought maybe I can get a job with NASA or a contractor, do something with the space program.
I don't raise my daughter differently than her twin brother, to the point where she only wanted to wear his clothes - sweatpants, baggy T-shirts, and high-tops - for a year straight. She claims it's because she needs to be 'comfortable and functional,' and who can blame her? I would wear a tracksuit seven out of seven days if I could.
My life has been many examples of shortsighted goals that I thought would fix things. You know, if there's something broken inside me, if there's a hole in there, I thought: If I could just write a good song someday, then I'd be OK. You know, if I could just be on stage in front of people I'd never seen before and be validated by them.
I re-mastered 'The Conversation' a few years ago for DVD. 'The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way. Truth be told, I couldn't.
I know for a fact that if I could do only music, I'd be out of my mind, insane. I'd be stressed-out; there's so much work. I mean, you work constantly; there are no breaks, really. If you're not promoting a record, you're making one. If you're not making one, you're touring. If you're not touring, you're doing photo shoots and prep work.
I do two cups of coffee with a little bit of raw sugar and soy creamer, and then I do a bowl of plain oatmeal with walnuts and blueberries. Now, if I could do what I really wanted to do with my life, every morning I would have a salami-and-cheese omelet with hash browns and a buttermilk biscuit - and pancakes. But my heart would explode.
I could name you a dozen superheroes whose powers I'd like to have. But if I could have any power in the world, it would be the power to read or watch a creative work and absorb the technical skill of the people who made it. Because then I could have even more fun writing. That's my core identity. I'm a writer. I just love telling stories.
For my 23rd birthday, I received a nylon string guitar. I told myself that if I could play Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven,' then I could play the guitar. I practised every chance I got, driving my housemates insane, until several weeks later I had a shaky version of the song down. I wrote my first song on the guitar a few weeks after that.
If I could throw my phone away, I would probably do it. It's always on silent, and I don't like when it rings and people are calling. We could live without those things in the past when we just had a phone on the street somewhere, on the corner or at the house. I have no interest in telling all the people what I do every day and where I am.
I studied in New York. I fell in love with an Australian-born, half-Filipina girl. So we moved to Australia when she went to her university and I moved with her. We moved to Montreal because she was going to take her year abroad, and I wanted to see if I could keep on writing there. It's really hard to make it as a writer in the Philippines.
Well I was eight years old, and I have an older cousin who is three years older than me and she was doing acting, commercials, and modeling at the time and... to see my cousin doing that was really inspiring and I wanted to do it. So I went to my mom and I asked her if I could do it, and for the acting part of it, she made me study for a year.
The first house I bought was a little Spanish bungalow on Clinton Street in West Hollywood, right behind the Improv. I was renting it, and I asked the owners if I could buy it, and they were really nice and let me work out a deal. And I fixed it up and later sold it. That was when I realized that if you make some improvements, you can make money.
I was in the business school. I was on the executive board of the business school and I kinda gave all that up and forewent a full scholarship to walk on at the University of Maryland. I just wanted to challenge myself, play at the top level and see if I could hang with the big boys, kinda get that national spotlight and play in prime time games.
I was really unfit for a while, so once I began running, I developed an obsession with it and started feeling really good. Then I thought I'd run a marathon after watching the London Marathon on TV. So I did it and had a good time. And then I ended up doing a bunch, and I was like, 'What if I could go further?' So I found out about Ultra Marathons.