Muhammad Ali was my idol, and I always say, if Muhammad Ali had told me the exact same thing my mother, the principal, the security guard, my brothers... you know, the same thing they were telling me that I didn't listen to, I would have listened, just because it came from Muhammad Ali.

People will come at me telling me to wear this or wear that. If I don't like it, I don't like it. They couldn't pay me to wear it. If it's something I can rock with, I'll rock it. I'm more interested in being completely authentic to me. In my opinion, being myself is making a statement.

There are some projects where you have to just start doing it, and, after a while, the show starts telling you what it wants to be. You put your spirit in and, after a while, something bigger takes over, and it turns out to be much more fun and creative than what it was at the beginning.

I didn't really think I was really good, I was just playing the game because I enjoyed playing it with my friends. Then once I started playing organized soccer, parents, coaches and other teammates were telling me to keep going and that I could become something so I started believing it.

Growing up, I've had plenty of obstacles, but to be honest, I didn't always have doubters. I was a standout athlete, so when that happens, you don't have too many people telling you 'You can't do this,' and 'You can't do that.' I've always been a bit of a people person and a hard worker.

I literally remember when I made my audition tape for 'Buffy'. I went to the Arsenal Mall. I got my outfit at Contempo Casuals in the Arsenal Mall and put some safety pins in my jeans. I remember telling whoever the clerk was that I was making a tape for 'Buffy', and they were so excited.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It's a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we're telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

It blows my mind when I actually consider that men are as human as I am. How can you possibly be as human and have all of the thoughts and feelings that I have and never be able to talk about it, ever? Guys are in desperate need of truth telling. They are in desperate need of a revolution.

Within months after reading the novel 'The Hunger Games,' I went from telling my mom that I could see myself as this character to actually getting the role. My mother reminds me that if I could manifest such an important role just because I wanted it so much, all of my dreams are possible.

The bravery of Stanley Kramer's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' amounted to two Hollywood legends - Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy - telling the world that a black son-in-law is something they can live with, and so should you, especially if he looks like Sidney Poitier and has degrees.

A certain number of people seek power over other people in a desperate attempt to find themselves. They fail, for self-discovery is spiritual in nature, not social or political. Authoritatively telling other people what to do is their distraction from an inner emptiness they can never fill.

I am not sure how much good is done by moralising about fairy tales. This can be unsubtle - telling children that virtue will be rewarded, when in fact it is mostly simply the fact of being the central character that ensures a favourable outcome. Fairy tales are not, on the whole, parables.

My mother was asked to be a model when she was younger, but my father had not let her, so she was quite keen on me becoming a model. I just went off without telling my dad. I took off to Paris and never came back, but when I became a success and started making money, he was very proud of me.

My agent said the part was that of an eccentric old grandfather-come-professor type who travels in space and time. Well, I wasn't that keen, but I agreed to meet the producer. Then, the moment this brilliant young producer, Verity Lambert, started telling me about 'Doctor Who,' l was hooked.

I've been telling my students, 'Imitate, imitate.' And they say, 'Well, what if I plagiarize, or what if I'm not original? I want to be myself.' And I always tell them, 'Your self will shine through'... If you allow yourself to feel deeply and honestly, what you say won't be like anyone else.

Instead of making people victims of people who are successful, we should be telling people, 'Look, you are having a hard time, I feel bad for you. Let's look at what you're doing, let's teach you how to succeed. Let's give you the tools to succeed as opposed to turning everybody into victims.

The pancreas releases insulin to make you ready for fight or flight when you're scared. So if you don't fight or flight - if you stay onstage, telling jokes - then your body stores more fat in your tummy which makes you insulin resistant. All comedians have fat bellies, even if they exercise.

When you finish a series like 'Ugly Betty,' there are so many voices around you telling you what you should be doing next and what would be good for your future, sometimes you can't hear yourself. I've gotten pretty good at tuning everyone else out. Now it's just me; what pleases me creatively.

I was very small, about 3 or 4 I think, and just wanted to be the people on telly telling these wonderful stories. Obviously the idea grew and matured with me but I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else. I've just sort of taken it for granted all my life that that was what I would do.

We shouldn't force ourselves to do something that really is just painful to us. If there is a discrepancy between what we are doing or putting our bodies through and then what our minds are telling us, you really have to look at yourself, and the most essential part of it is the pleasure aspect.

No element gets people telling crazy stories like mercury does. People have told me tales about pharmacists waxing floors with mercury, mothers rubbing it into babies' skin to kill germs, and 10-year-olds coating dimes in it to make them shine, then blithely carrying them around in their pockets.

The way 'The Icarus Girl' came about was by me just basically bragging it with a literary agent and telling him I'd written 150 pages when I'd only written 20. And I think it was when the agent e-mailed me back right the very next day after sending him the 20 pages and asking to see the other 130.

All my life, I have been a positive thinker... I have always been able to survive by telling myself that no matter how bad things are, they will one day be better. And that out of every event - no matter how tragic - one can always find a way to survive and even, perhaps, to be a little bit happy.

I'm quite into fitness, and I have a fantastic personal trainer who knows me, knows my body, knows when to push me, and knows when not to push me. She doesn't make me do 20 burpees in a row and instead focuses on strengthening my core, telling me we need to focus on making me into 'a tall giraffe'!

I am, 'Guardian' readers keep telling me, a xenophobe. Never mind that I speak French and Spanish, that I love Europe, that I've lived a high proportion of my life abroad. The fact that I oppose the political amalgamation of the European Union's states is ipso facto proof that I dislike foreigners.

To recruit staff, I traveled all over the country talking with people who had been working on one or another aspect of the atomic-energy enterprise and people in radar work, for example, and underwater sound, telling them about the job, the place that we are going to, and enlisting their enthusiasm.

I feel like I've kinda danced around telling the truest story I can for many years of my life. I've been a little distracted by trying to be shocking or edgy or cool or whatever, and by letting go of that and telling the truest story I can - even if it's about aliens and talking raccoons - it works.

I get messages from people telling me all the time through Twitter or Instagram about how my path has inspired their path. It's good for them, for people who have a certain amount of mental problems, suffering from depression or anxiety, being able to have someone who recognises them and helps them.

The beauty of the horror genre is that you can smuggle in these harder stories, and the genre comes with certain demands, but mostly you need to find the catharsis in whatever story you're telling. What may be seen as a deterrent for audiences in one genre suddenly becomes a virtue in another genre.

The feminist movement is not about success for women. It is about treating women as victims and about telling women that you can't succeed because society is unfair to you, and I think that's a very unfortunate idea to put in the minds of young women because I believe women can do whatever they want.

All mental hygiene is based on the core practice of doing nothing. Most of us are good at wasting time, staring at the wall while telling ourselves we should be working. We call this doing nothing, but our brains are furiously active. We think constantly, and our thinking is often rife with distress.

I just wanted to finally release something that sounded really fun, and 'Must Be Love' is that song! I'm telling you, I went to the Philippines and sang that live for everyone, and everyone was singing along, and I thought, 'Wow!' Everyone was singing this song back to me because everyone loves love.

I remember telling my mom, 'Mom, I'm gay, but I'm not going to march in a parade or anything.' That's what I was telling my parents and all my friends and everything. I'm gay, but I'm not going to be on a float or something. Cut to five years later, and I was the grand marshal of the gay pride parade.

Once you have somebody that is telling you, 'We are interpreting God for you,' it seems like you either agree or you don't. You either say, like Martin Luther, 'I'm going to have a direct relationship with the word of God,' or I'm going to go through a conduit of God on Earth,' which would be the Pope.

I had someone call me this morning telling me they had somebody who would only work a certain number of hours a week because if they worked too many hours a week then they couldn't get their government assistance. And that person has multiple cell phones, and gets them new every month with new minutes.

My father always taught by telling stories about his experiences. His lessons were about morality and art and what insects and birds and human beings had in common. He told me what it meant to be a man and to be a Black man. He taught me about love and responsibility, about beauty, and how to make gumbo.

Instead of locking people up and throwing away the key, it's important to invest in them and show them another way - show them what they can do, instead of telling them what they can't do. Because by investing in youth, we're investing into the future of this great nation of the United States of America.

God's plan for enlarging His kingdom is so simple - one person telling another about the Savior. Yet we're busy and full of excuses. Just remember, someone's eternal destiny is at stake. The joy you'll have when you meet that person in heaven will far exceed any discomfort you felt in sharing the gospel.

I think of being an actor as kind of a young man's gig. It's emasculating, in a way, people messing with you and putting make-up on you and telling you when to wake up and when to go to sleep, holding your hand to cross the street. I can do it up to a certain point, and then I start to feel like a puppet.

I personally think that gentrification happens long before you start seeing white people in formerly people-of-color neighborhoods. It starts happening when we start telling the young, hard-working, quote-unquote 'smart' kids that they need to measure success by how far they get away from our communities.

They didn't tell me what type of cancer I had. They didn't tell me what stage I was in. They just told me, 'Mr Gomez, you have cancer.' My life flashed before my eyes. I thought about my kids, I thought about my wife. Nothing prepares you for the shock of someone telling you you have that horrible disease.

My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the left, so people expected of him a kind of 'Les Miserables,' in which the underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not - and was not interested in - telling a lie.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

Everybody has the clarity of telling I haven't seen a player like Lionel Messi, and I am fortunate for training and seeing him every day at the training field. And even sometimes he surprises you with some good performances. There is not comparison with other players I have seen along my life. He is unique.

I can't pick a favorite animal; I love so many! But I guess if I have to choose, I pick bees! There's this brilliant documentary called 'Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?' I think it's important for people to be educated about bees - they pollinate almost all the food we eat. They are amazing!

I think when people begin to tell their stories, everything changes, because not only are you legitimised in the telling of your story and are you found, literally, like you matter, you exist in the telling of your story, but when you hear your story be told, you suddenly exist in community and with others.

Gribenes have been referred to as Jewish popcorn or kosher pork rinds. It's basically chicken skin fried in schmaltz. They're crispy and mixed with fried onions. I'm telling you, when you have it with chopped liver, it's the most incredible thing because you get this crunch and this surge of chicken flavor.

I'd say, 90 percent of the time, I get an idea, like, within 10 seconds of somebody telling me what their whole thing is about. And usually that flash of an idea, it's what I always go with. It might change slightly, but in general, that's pretty much it. To get me to change the entire idea is pretty tough.

Maori get pigeonholed into the idea they're spiritual and telling stories like 'Whale Rider' and 'Once Were Warriors,' quite serious stuff, but we're pretty funny people, and we never really have had an opportunity to show that side of ourselves, the clumsy, nerdy side of ourselves, which is something I am.

I feel like there's a voice in my head, always, telling me every idea is brilliant, and another telling me every idea is the worst. And they argue in my head until somebody wins, until I solicit an audience to be, like, 'Will you help me figure this out? Is this the best or the worst idea?' And they tell me!

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