Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I just do not see myself playing for Madrid. They do not attract me, especially because of my past with Atletico.
I sit down with my coach to watch past performances. But I can be very critical. I don't watch myself very often - it makes me cringe!
People associate me with being pernickety and down. In the past, I was guilty of keeping myself like that just to maintain my comic persona.
When I look back at my past mistakes, I realise that there were times when I wasn't myself, and that's why certain styles did not work well for me.
In the past, I have not been able to hear myself. I play with feeling so I need to hear what is coming out of the amplifier to inspire me; I don't just play mechanically.
I realised, 'I'm not going to dribble past five payers and score', so for me it was about having something different, and being two-footed was it. I pride myself on that now.
I do write about people who are complex and are striving with something and can't quite get past their own stuff, which would be a proxy for myself because that's what the deal is with me.
For me, the teen years were all about searching for a place for myself, wondering why I seemed so different than everyone else, wondering especially why no one could look past the surface and figure out who I really was underneath.
It is scary to write - period - for me, but once you get past the idea that it's scary to write, I still can only be who I am. As a writer, my job, to me, is to expose myself - to really sort of dig in and find out who I am and then put it on the page.
Around 2001, I went to rehab in Arizona, and I started to see what was going on and how the past affected me. I started to get a grip on it. But over the next decade, I reverted to the behaviour I used to protect myself when I was young - being mindless, being defeatist and full of bravado.
Sure, I went through my 'J'accuse' phase. I was so angry for so long, I could hardly have a conversation without getting into an argument. And it was only when I felt I could finally distance myself from my past that I began to write about what happened - not just to me, but to lots of young people. I think my story is a cautionary tale.