When I started out in the early 1930s, there were a great many magazines that published short stories. Unfortunately, the short-story market has dwindled to almost nothing.
I never thought of having platinum albums and winning awards. I just wanted to write songs and sing when I started out in the music business.
I started acting when I was, like, three. My brother was really smart, and he wasn't being challenged enough, so my mom put him in the theater class. And I obviously followed him.
I started doing my own animated movies when I was in ninth grade; that's when I got the filmmaking bug. When I was about 16, I started writing jokes for doing stand up, and then I was 19 and started doing stand up.
Most of my friends from college became dental hygienists or went into retail, a lot went into sales. They all started getting married and having kids and buying homes and I was still living like a college student.
I was lucky to get into drama school and become a professional actor. No-one ever mentioned the colour of my skin. It's only when I came out of RADA - the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art - that I suddenly realised people started to refer to me as a black actor.
When I came out of the military, I had a club in Memphis and I started using the The Bar Kays as my club band. They were still only in the middle school - but I'd take them on the road with me on the weekends, sometimes.
I started feeling secure in every way once I began to accept myself the way I was. Whether that was emotional, financial or professional security, all of it came and embraced me because I embraced myself.
When I started acting, I was told over and over again, 'You're no good.' But I said to myself, 'You've got to keep it up.'
I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.
When I started writing a business column 15 years ago, I knew I'd found the perfect job for myself. As a columnist I could pick my own topic, do my own analysis, say what I wanted to say and attribute it to myself. Best of all, I could write in my own voice.
I lost that excitement I had when I first started out. It was all about the need to just get a job, and so I found the joy again when I was writing Deuce Bigelow. I was laughing so hard and along with my writing partner at the time, simply laughing until we cried.
I started my own business because my parents had no dowry for me, and I was worried. I ran it from their Martha Vineyard's summer house. I baby-sat for a 14-year-old boy all summer and was giving him time-outs, even though I was two years younger than him.
I started out in theatre, and there's no better feeling than the adrenaline of being on stage.
Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.
I once started a small business when I got out of college and enjoyed the stress of making it work. High-stress situations clear my head, and I love the challenge of getting along with many different kinds of people. I'm scared of routine.
When we started doing YouTube, the goal was, hey, let's make stuff that we want to see, that entertains us.
South Park started as a little video Christmas card.
Existence is a party. You join after its started and you leave before its finished.
I started getting letters from college in the tenth grade.
Of course when I started, it's not because I was such a brilliant actress. I didn't know I was good. I thought I was really bad. I was very shy. I was 18 and dreaming of becoming an actress.
My real training as an actor was when I started doing theatre.
I started as a journalist for magazines in New York City, so it was always storytelling. And moving into movies was a natural transition.
Then I started graduate school at UCLA. I got a part time research assistant job as a programmer on a project involving the use of one computer to measure the performance of another computer.
I was pretty rubbish when I first started dancing. I didn't understand the discipline of working on one step over and over again. If you look at it from the outside, you'd think, 'Why would anybody want to do that?' But you just want to get it perfect. It is that constant inner striving that you fall in love with.
Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big.
I learned when I started to study piano that I could play by ear. I could hear a song on the radio a couple of times and hear the song and the lyrics and sing it for you after a couple of plays.
That is a reward that humbles me: the fact that immigrants coming to America, much like I did, can come into a Forever 21 and know that all of this was started by a simple Korean immigrant with a dream.
My old man was a musician - that's what he did for a living. And like most fathers, occasionally he'd let me visit where he worked. So I started going to his recording studio, and I really dug it.
It's funny, though, because when I first started going to races after we met, I was extremely nervous. It's like being backstage and hoping you don't trip over something or break an amp or accidentally speak into a live microphone, so I was really hesitant.
My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever.
For me, it's all about the Canadian tuxedo, and maybe a bolero. The province I grew up in in Alberta is pretty much the denim capital of Canada. The first premier of Alberta started Grand Western Garment, which Levi's bought later on.
I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.
Often I had to imagine the things I needed. I learned very early to read amidst noise. And so I started writing and drawing at an early age.
'Scrubs' has always had a very loyal fan base. When it started out, it was an explosion because it was after 'Friends,' but I think there have been times where it has peaked and valleyed.
My feeling is, from when I started on 'Breaking Bad,' there's no reason to pick and choose because every episode is great. Whatever episode you get, you're lucky to do it.
