I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident.
My family was always supportive when I decided that I wanted to pursue this thing called acting.
When I was 11 years old, I wanted to sing Tosca.
My mom told me to cover up my arms ever since I was little because I was muscular. She wanted me to be feminine, which did not come easy to me. My body was what it was, and I worked it to be a better tennis player.
When I was a little girl growing up in Elmira, I always wanted to be a lawyer.
I just always wanted to be a baseball announcer. I'm a huge Mets fan, and I wanted to be the next Bob Murphy. As far as careers go, that was the first career that I really thought about. Well, before that, I wanted to be a Mello Yello truck driver.
We wanted 'At Dawn' to be what it was: kinda spaced-out.
My mother never asked me whether I wanted to go to college, but told me I was going - to the University of Maryland on an academic scholarship.
When I first moved out to Los Angeles I was thinking, you know, I wanted to be an actor but I didn't really know what acting was about. I thought if I could be a model, or even do commercials and stuff like that for the rest of my life, I'd be happy.
I loved Interpol when they came out, but I never wanted to be in Interpol.
I'd seen so many people become stagnant in New Jersey - I had this fear I'd just stay there. They'd come out of high school, get a job, get married, have kids and die in Jersey. I wanted more.
I knew from the age of four that I wanted to preach. I didn't even consider it strange that grown people were listening to this kid preaching until I was around thirteen. I have never believed in limitations.
I try to sign for as many kids as possible. Kids come first, and I'll always sign for a kid before an adult. It's funny, because I was never big into autographs as a kid. The only player who I ever wanted an autograph from was Dave Winfield.
From earliest times, humans - explorers and thinkers - have wanted to figure out the shape of their world. Forever, the way we've done that is through storytelling. It is difficult to let the truth get in the way of a good story.
There was a small point in my life in law school, right before I moved to Newark, when I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I felt so lost.
I've never seen myself as a pop singer. I grew up listening to gospel, soul and rock. My approach to pop is that, when I was doing my album, I wanted to have raw, genuine lyrics, but wanted it to be easy to process.
When I understood the rudiments of what nanotech was all about, I knew I wanted to participate.
My daddy wanted me to be a farmer; feel the smoothness of Alabama clay and become one of the first blacks in my town to own land. But, I was worried about my history being caked with that southern clay, and I subscribed to a different kind of teaching and learning in my bones and in my spirit.
I like to learn about things. I could learn about business, which I knew nothing about. Since the age of 7, I wanted to be a doctor and nothing else.
Between 21-30 women go through humungous changes. After that, they've generally achieved what they wanted, and they're more settled.
I've always been a big fan of Rachel McAdams. I saw her for the first time in 'Mean Girls,' then I saw her in 'The Notebook.' I've always wanted a role like 'The Notebook,' this heartfelt love story. I think Rachel's so incredible.
I still love playing music. It was all I ever wanted to do, and I got the chance to do it.
To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car. The only reason I wanted to make money as an actor was because I'm passionate about food!
I wanted to be a bus driver when I was a kid. I look at bus driving through the eyes of a little boy. I see it as glamorous.
The Cubs, we built one of best farm systems - I think for a while there, it was the best farm system in baseball. And that was great. It got a lot of attention. But we didn't want the credit for the farm system. What we wanted was to see if we could do the tricky part, which was turn a lauded farm system into a World Series champion.
When I was younger I wanted to be an airline pilot, but that lasted for about 30 seconds.
I wanted to put the national interest before my personal interests.
I wasn't that great in sports. I started doing children's theater and loved it. I thought I had a great thing going with musicals. I thought, 'I can do this. It's fun.' I wanted to go for it, and I thought I'd like to make a living doing this.
I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
I've wanted to go to space, really, since I was a little girl.
I love my life. I'm really grateful. My biggest dream come true is my daughter. I've wanted her since I was a little girl.
I always said I wanted to be scientist, but I didn't really have the staying power.
I wanted to make a record that people could put on year after year after year, and it would never feel dated.
Both my parents were very supportive of me in whatever I wanted to do.
Our dad introduced us to all of it - to the weights, to eating healthy, all that good stuff. He introduced it, got on us every once in a while, and left it up to us if we wanted to do it. And seeing my older brothers do it right in front of me, I wanted to do it because I looked up to them.
What we really wanted to call it was 'I Rhoda Book.'
