Before the surge started, frankly, after I left Iraq towards the end of 2006, I was worried that we were losing the war. But after the surge, I felt that we succeeded.
I think, to give our bookshelf a little credit, our area of the library and the bookstore has attracted stronger writers as it's started to thrive.
When I started 'CNN,' I made the decision to stay out of endorsing candidates, and let the doers make up their own minds about politics, that it wasn't going to come from me.
I think for the wounded, ill and injured warriors, they need the best possible care that we can give them - a continuum of care that not only started on the battlefield and extended all the way to the wonderful medical facilities that we have here in the United States - but beyond.
I get bored easily, so I need to do a lot. I've started a record label, so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music, which is a passion of mine. I've written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show, which is always really fun.
I met Quincy Jones in Seattle. We were kids together... liked each other when we met and have been close ever since. He wasn't writing when we met - in fact, I more or less started him off to write; voicing, harmony, and stuff like that.
Whether looking at pop music, hip-hop or R&B, it's rare to find an artist who hasn't been touched or affected by the power and soul of gospel music. In fact, many of today's popular artists such as Whitney Houston, John Legend, and Katy Perry started their careers in the church choir.
My way of remaining French was the financing scheme I used for Quest for Fire, with Fox funds, since it started as a 100% American production. The film was not in French and yet was French in style, reflecting my personality.
I started experimenting with jewelry in my 20s - I was playing around with gemstones and painting things in gold leaf, and it turned into this huge obsession for me, so I launched my first jewelry line, Jade Inc.
I started out with almost entirely black fans except for a little handful of people in the horror writers' community, and those people really liked horror, you know. They will go to any lengths and read whomever they can find because they like that feeling of being scared.
A lot of these artists are out here don't stay true to why they started doing this in the first place.
The meditation traditions I started and have continued practicing have all emphasized inclusivity: anyone can do this who is interested.
I started off as an Australian model. I had so many knockbacks, having short hair and being rejected, and I always thought: I'm never gonna get to where I want to get unless I start looking more feminine.
Because we had no money when I was growing up, when I started dancing, I wasn't allowed to be frivolous - my mum made me go to every lesson because she was paying for it.
It was right after I dropped the song 'Don't,' and it started to go viral a little bit. That's when I was like, 'Alright, I might have something here.' Actually, I wasn't even going to quit my job, but Timbaland called me - we have a mutual friend - and he was like, 'Yo man, you need to work in Miami.'
I had started writing as a poet in a closed, post-Revival, claustrophobic world, where the shadows of the national upheaval and the intense effort - the intense self-conscious effort - to make a literary movement were still evident. Now we lived a life as writers that was more cosmopolitan, more open, that had more travel and exchange.
The U.S. has a law on the books called the debt limit, but the name is misleading. The debt limit started in 1917 for the purpose of facilitating more national debt, not reducing it. It still serves that purpose. It's unconnected to spending, hurts our credit rating and has been an abject failure at limiting debt.
When we started Appaloosa, we were going to name it Pegasus because everyone was using Greek names. We filed the name. We paid $300, and they said you cannot use it because it is taken. Pegasus Funds. Then we said Pegasus is kind of a horse. We did not want to be the Unicorn Fund. So we pulled out a horse book.
I actually just started home schooling. And it is great.
It was in the first Abe administration that we started the mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests between Japan and China.
I started writing poems, and when I first tried prose, I wrote bad articles and essays and columns, and I didn't have a handle on it. I didn't go to a school that really taught you how to write that stuff.
When I started my company in the U.S. I was always told by my mentors, 'If you want to start a tech company, you need a technical co-founder,' because outsourcing just doesn't work. It is too slow, it is too expensive, and the product is going to change a lot.
I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.
I can play the trumpet. Before I became an actor, I wanted to be the next Louis Armstrong. I started young and got to grade seven. When I turned 13, everyone started whipping out guitars, looking cool and joining rock bands, so I stopped playing.
I've always been involved with charities and things like that, but when I started communicating with the fans and hearing their stories about the lives they lead, it really made an impact on me.
My writers on 'Liv And Maddie' have started a running joke to try and sneak as many 'literally's into the script as they can to throw me.
I want to go back to the format that radio started with rock n' roll, with country artists and rhythm and blues with that oldies type feeling. I want to put it all together and create a Top 40 of rhythm and blues and country and straight blues with Wolfman at the reins.
I always thought that life is full of stories and characters that feel like literary stories and characters. So when I started making documentaries, they weren't humble empirical things, just following people around. I was always trying to impose a story.
Ever since I started using guys, I feel so much better about myself. I feel so much more powerful.
It's something that I learned even before I started acting: the movement, the dance of the body, is very important, and it comes before words.
Jeremy Stoppelman started Yelp. Max Levchin started Slide. I started LinkedIn. It was a mininova explosion of folks jumping out to doing other entrepreneurial activities.
What is the art world? I never really understood. I started doing this stuff to do what I want to do. Not to be this or that.
When I started my hotel company, Joie de Vivre, at the age of 26, I saw this venture as my ticket to freedom.
In January 2012, Google Plus started to roll out support for nicknames and pseudonyms, but those registering with a name other than their real-life one must be able to prove that they have been using that alternative name elsewhere, either on the Web or in real life.
You know, I started my career in politics in 1967. I'm not new to this. I did not just fall off the Christmas tree. I understand the world is complex. I know that there are people out there who want to hurt other people.
I was very ambitious. It all started because my first boyfriend dumped me when I was 14. I'd always wanted to be a model and thought, 'Right, he's going to see me everywhere.' I was relentless in my pursuit of modeling. It was revenge.
