Writing 'Fast Life' has been an incredible experience. It's something totally different from what I am used to.
Close interaction with farmers and scientists can expose the chef to new flavours that can be used to delight diners.
I used to be really scared to voice my opinion, whether it was with the other girls or just about an outfit I didn't like. I kept worrying what other people would think of me if they didn't agree. But I learned that I was just hurting myself.
The South is like my favorite pair of blue jeans. It's shrunk some, faded a bit, got a few holes in it. it just might split at the seams. It doesn't look much like it used to, but it's more comfortable, and there's probably a lot of wear left in it.
I was a horrible limo driver: I ran out of gas with passengers in the back and I used to get lost on a regular basis.
I was always doing something physical. My brothers and I used to have handstand contests. We'd walk around the projects on our hands and see who could get the farthest. I was always playing football with them, basketball or racing in the street.
When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people.
I used to play football for Real Madrid, and to be on stage for two hours, I can tell you it takes the same amount of strength.
I never really told my parents that I wanted to be a pop star or anything. They just knew that I was totally obsessed with music. Funnily enough, my father always used to say that he didn't think I could sing.
Pictorial is something that I am not used to. You have to pose, smile, bend your arm, straighten up, look to the left.
It was one of my dreams as a child, growing up in my little village with my cousins. We used to walk together, and I used to say, when you look at the world map, 'This town is there, that town is there, that river is there.' I used to say, 'One day, I'm going to travel these places.'
It used to be that you would go in to see a CEO, and you would ask them, 'Is your company for sale?' and if they said 'No, we have no interest in selling,' that was sort of the end of the conversation.
Technology and the Internet are not just changing politics here in the U.S. It's also happening abroad. In the Philippines, where I grew up, grassroots organizers used text messaging to help overthrow a president.
I used to think you should keep on experimenting and seeing new things. But after seeing a lot of the world, I now tend to return to the same spots. I enjoy the familiarity.
I have used Lenovo since I wrote my first novel. My old laptop broke, so I bought a new one, but still a Lenovo. It is one of my most essential devices.
I never sleep before 4 A.M. and usually play 'Sonic the Hedgehog' computer games before bed. I like Sonic - he reminds me of Happy, my hamster that died. I used to stay up and watch Happy.
The FHA literally drew up the redlining map and then basically distributed - I'm sorry, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation actually did it, and then distributed to banks who used that as policy to determine how they would lend and who they would lend to. The racism in the system was pervasive and total.
The world that I am coming from, hip-hop, is so regurgitated and repetitive that some people are used to that and they don't want change, they don't like change. And I get that, that's cool. Luckily for me, I'm confident in myself as an artist where I can do what I want, and as long as I'm cool with it, I'm cool with it.
I used to listen to 'Perfect Day' by Hoku every single day in high school! 'On this perfect day, nothin' standin' in my way... Don't you try to rain on my perfect day.' It pumped me up when I was feeling down or defeated, whether it was from the cool kids making me feel left out or feeling overwhelmed with homework and mean teachers.
My parents always used to tell us not to complain about things but do something about them, so 'Can't is not an option' was almost a way of life.
I once used a fork to comb my hair because there was a time when I didn't own a hairbrush.
I used to be monastic, almost. Now I'm like a Tibetan that has discovered hamburgers and television. I'm catching up on Americana.
I used to go over to Gene Kelly's house and play volleyball, and Paul Newman and Marlon Brando were always there. You kind of took it for granted because I was 20, 21, 22, and they were a bit older - well, Gene certainly was. But it was just part of daily living. They were in the same profession, and you didn't think that much about it.
Because Bin Laden's culture doesn't permit the worship of images, they understand how powerful images are. We wouldn't have thought of creating a visual bomb. In a way, he's chopped down two iconic buildings, and used our very truth imagery, to express himself. It's fascinating... I mean, dreadful.
People are so used to reading novels now, they just read a poem straight through to get the meaning. And that's something totally different from the slow way you read something if it's a tune; which to me a poem has to be.
London has been used as the emblematic English city, but it's far from representative of what life in England is actually about.
The older you get, the more you find yourself looking for things you used to see and liked when you were younger.
I used to sit on the couch, and I could go through a pound of Brie cheese and a movie. I was like, 'That's enough,' because it feels like a bowling ball in your stomach.
I grew up in London, one of four children. We were a very loud family, not a lot of listening, plenty of talking. My mum was a hearth mother: she loved to gather us all around her - Sunday lunches were a big thing. She was very good at thinking on her feet - people used to say she should go into politics.
Being a literature major, you know, I'm very familiar with the ways symbolism is used in our sort of mythic tales of society, so anyone who is consciously trying to pull that off I think is really interesting and clearly very smart.
I'm not used to going out every single night, which you can do in New York.
It's not as though we can keep burning coal in our power plants. Coal is a finite resource, too. We must find alternatives, and it's a better idea to find alternatives sooner then wait until we run out of coal, and in the meantime, put God knows how many trillions of tons of CO2 that used to be buried underground into the atmosphere.
Every team has a person who is used as a reference, a player who stands out more than others.
My original name was Juaquin, and my cousin couldn't pronounce my name right. So he'd just be saying 'Waka! Waka!' So when I was younger, I used to always laugh, then my man Gucci gave me the rest of the name.
I don't think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller - I mean, really good jobs, and people are still gonna look at you and be like, 'You used to rap; what happened?'
Characters I've played, they used to impact my paintings, like 80 percent of the time, and especially when I was doing an action film.
