I've realized that I owe people a look behind the scenes of my own story, because I don't think anyone can have a true understanding of the music without an insight into where it came from.
While I was doing these plays in the beginning, I wasn't getting paid. I thought of it more as a hobby. Then I realized how seriously a lot of these people took what they were doing.
It wasn't until the second half of my first year that I realized you have to try to make friends and meet people at Harvard; the chances don't come to you.
Prior to SunRun, I was headed toward a career in venture capital and then realized I wanted to apply my knowledge of finance more directly to helping change the world.
Doing a musical is not just acting. It's total theater. When you have to justify the enormous projection of energy it takes to just go into song and dance, you realized why it's such a humbling experience every time you go into a show.
I'm a very private person, so I didn't like this idea of tweeting about me. And then I realized, 'Oh, this is actually a brilliant device in terms of interacting with the fans.'
I've stopped war reporting. I realized that I'd answered all of my questions about war and about myself.
Unlike uranium, plutonium was created in an American lab in 1940, but scientists soon realized that it could produce even wilder chain reactions and even bigger explosions. In fact, fearing another country would create it, too, the American government went to great lengths to keep even the existence of plutonium a secret.
I'd never get elected if people in North Carolina realized how liberal I am.
I've realized I have to be very careful in what I say. I speak my heart out. Such honesty is not appreciated in the film industry. Instead, it is twisted and distorted. A lot of what I say is lost in translation.
Growing up in Europe, tight clothing is pretty standard. When I got to college, clothes were loose, so I was going toward more loose stuff. As soon as I got back to New York, I started wearing suits 25% of the year. Then, I realized how important it is for the suit to really fit you and be tight.
At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.
Autobiography is awfully seductive; it's wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass - the slave narrative - speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying 'I,' meaning 'we.'
Hollywood has successfully produced many films framed by anti-racist or pro-integrationist story lines. I'm going to guess that since 'Gone With The Wind,' Hollywood realized films about racism and segregation pull at the heartstrings of everyone and hopefully serve to purge a sense of guilt.
I realized that even though I had this urge, this longing, to write about other people, in order for it to be emotionally gripping, I needed to be in there somehow.
The ship's transporters - which let the crew 'beam' from place to place - really came out of a production need. I realized with this huge spaceship, I would blow the whole budget of the show just in landing the thing on a planet.
I realized my calling was to use the arts and ministry to help young people.
One day I looked at something in myself that I had been avoiding because it was too painful. Yet once I did, I had an unexpected surprise. Rather than self-hatred, I was flooded with compassion for myself because I realized the pain necessary to develop that coping mechanism to begin with.
I realized that, after tasting entrepreneurship, I had become unfit for the corporate world. There was no turning back. The only regret I had was having wasted my life in the corporate world for so long.
My spiked hair goes back about 15 years ago. I had long, curly rocker hair then. The woman who cuts my hair thought I needed a new style, so I let her surprise me. I flipped when I first saw it, but I soon realized the look was really me. I've always been a little crazy.
The big turn in the late '90s was that I realized I was going to be doing this for a long time. I was fairly sure I was going to be an actor for the rest of my life, which I think calmed me down.
I had about four days of like, 'Pity party, woe is me, it's all over.' Then I did some research and spoke with doctors and got in contact with people who have MS, and I soon realized it's actually a lot more manageable than the kind of public perception of it is, and that's part of the reason why I've been so outspoken about it.
I always thought that I would spend the first half of my life making money so I can spend the second half of my life giving it all away. And one of the defining moments of my life was when I realized that I could do both at the same time with TOMS.
I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them assignments and hope they will write them.
When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.
Eight was about the age I was when I realized that people actually produced books, they didn't just spring out of the library shelves.
My daughter loves to cook. At first, I found myself making her be really neat and precise. Then I realized it's OK if things get all over the floor and counters and ceiling. We're making memories.
I really didn't like the academic structure of science, but I realized I loved science and missed science.
I started playing golf when I was just out of college and starting my career with KPMG. I took a few lessons, and my husband has always loved to give me pointers - for better and for worse! I realized that you could really enhance relationships by being on the course with clients. In fact, my very first golf game was with some clients.
Eventually, when I started studying Egyptology, I realized that seeing with my naked eyes alone wasn't enough. Because all of the sudden, in Egypt, my beach had grown from a tiny beach in Maine to one eight hundred miles long, next to the Nile.
When I graduated from high school, I weighed 125 pounds because of wrestling. Suddenly, I realized I could eat whatever I wanted - plus, creatine was new at the time. I went from 125 to 175 pounds, working out like crazy. I was yoked. But I wasn't drinking enough fluids and ended up with a kidney stone - and 3 weeks of pure hell.
I tried to reject everything I knew as a TV writer when I decided to be a novelist, and the books didn't work. Finally I realized I should go back to all the techniques I'd learned.
Lana Turner was adorable and funny. Jimmy Stewart was such a nice person. I quickly realized that if you're not a nice person, you're not going to last in this business. I mean, once your box office starts to drop off, like Veronica Lake, they'll get rid of you fast.
I went to college because my father thought that I should learn engineering, because he wanted to go into the heating business with me. There, I realized I wanted to be a physicist. I had to tell him, which was a somewhat traumatic experience.
My very first products were hand-made, one-of-a-kind pins. When I finally realized I could repeat a phrase to make multiples, 'intellectuals gone bad,' a fairly succinct description of my own life, seemed appropriate.
When I was young, my mom realized I could dance and hold a beat, and I really danced just for fun. It was good exercise.
