For my writing, and because I love talking to young women about life, I often asked them which would they rather have - a father in the house with them while growing up or a big butt? I tell you 86 percent of the time, girls say a big butt because it gets them further.
My parents divorced, and I didn't have much of a daddy growing up.
I wasn't allowed to watch regular television when I was growing up, only PBS, so I watched 'Masterpiece Theatre' and a lot of Jane Austen. I loved stories where the girl is attracted to a man and it looks like it's not going to work out.
I've never been a fearful person. When I was growing up, I wanted to be an actress, a writer, and a musician and I never really processed that those are the three hardest jobs - I just never even processed it.
There are two types of Chinese growing up in America. One is the kind that does really well in school, with thick, thick glasses. And the other is involved with the gangs.
Growing up, I was into 'Power Rangers.'
The music that I chose during my life, it wasn't arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn't heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn't do it authentically.
I don't really have an issue with showing certain parts of my body. I'd rather not, but it's not a big deal. Growing up in Sweden, it's natural over there.
My grandmother was born in 1900, and she would regale me with tales I call 'Little House on the Prairie' tales, but they were tales of segregated and racist America growing up in Alabama and Mississippi, where she came from.
I guess I'm growing up in the film world.
Growing up, I never gave a thought to being a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a traveler and explorer. Science-fiction allowed me to go places that were otherwise inaccessible, which is why I started reading it. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got saved.
Growing up, sports was my outlet, my way to portray a personality. I was very shy around people but, through sports, something I was good at, I was able to make friends.
When people see what I have now, they have no idea of where I came from and how I didn't have anything growing up.
As a brother and sister, our tastes were pretty different growing up. He liked a lot of early hip hop. My dad didn't understand it and would try to talk him out of it.
When I was growing up, my father helped kindle my passion for innovation and technology. He was a high-ranking executive at AT&T and used our family dinner table as a focus group.
My dad's French, and I spent my summers in France growing up. So I speak French fluently, and obviously, I speak English because I was raised in New York, and I grew up here.
Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn't accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else's insistence or someone else's whim or convenience.
I don't understand anyone thinking I'm sexy at all. I don't get it because, growing up as a kid, I wasn't. I was like a dork, fat, so for me it's really weird. I became famous in Australia when I was 18, and I was still a little bit chubby.
Living in Sydney, I've taken the chance to start surfing again. One of my best memories of growing up is catching my first proper wave and surfing across it and my brother cheering at me from the shore.
Growing up, I was a big Red Sox fan and looked up to guys like Dustin Pedroia, who's obviously not the biggest guy, but the way he competes, the way he works, it was motivating for me.
When I look in the mirror I see the girl I was when I was growing up, with braces, crooked teeth, a baby face and a skinny body.
I was a hockey player growing up. Being a big guy and being imposing, I had to use my size to protect my teammates.
Growing up, my dad drank a lot of wine, so I got a taste for, and learned how to enjoy it. He spoke a lot about flavors and differences in tastes of wine. Also, our manager, Rick Sales, is a big wine drinker; he goes to a lot of wine-tasting classes, and he's taught me about the qualities of wine.
I think it's very important that we instill in our kids that it has nothing to do with their name or their situation that they're growing up in; it has to do with who they are as an individual.
Growing up, I was on film sets occasionally, when my dad was acting, so I got to run around and do odd jobs on films like 'Labyrinth' and others... I seemed destined to make films.
I wasn't a dancer learning to play Baby Houseman. I was Baby Houseman learning to play a dancer. I was someone who'd never done any Latin dance. I'd taken jazz classes and ballet growing up in New York, so I had dance in me, and I knew I loved it, but I'd never done a dance audition.
When I was a young boy, growing up in Durham, North Carolina, the women in my family were truly passionate about their clothes; nothing was more beautiful to me than women dressing with the utmost, meticulous attention to accessories, shoes, handbags, hats, coats, dresses and gloves to attend Sunday church services.
I can only speak for myself, but when I was growing up in Memphis - and having the Martin Luther King holiday and the moment of pause on April 4th - he was just a statue to me. I wanted to make him a little bit more real to me as a human being.
As a Latino growing up in Spanish harlem, it's not easy trying not to be hot-headed.
Absolutely the worst thing about this job is the travel and being away from family. I have a wife and three wonderful children, the kids are all active in sports and it's very difficult to up and leave and miss them growing up.
Growing up in Canada, I used to love a walk in the early morning, when the streets are quiet and the sun was shining. Walking in the morning is still very refreshing... and if I can, I will walk to my first meeting or appointment.
I knew who Buckley and Vidal were growing up, being a political junkie.
Comic books and The Chronicles of Narnia. My mother used to read those to me and my twin brother growing up.
As a kid, I was growing up in an era of celebration of the Civil War centennial, with a lot of 'Lost Cause' emphasis on the Confederacy. I used to play Civil War soldiers with my brothers as a child, and my older brother always insisted that he got to be Lee, and I got be Grant. I never knew that Grant won until quite some time had passed.
I love movin'. I was observant growing up, watching Michael Jackson and John Travolta. I'd close my eyes, see the moves.
The best gift I was ever given was the arts. My mum gave me those on a silver platter. Growing up, her and my grandmother would take me to ballets, classical concerts, even smoky jazz clubs I wasn't supposed to be in!
