I always wanted to be a filmmaker, but I started acting when I was 9 years old. I looked a certain part that I wasn't, really. I played, you know, a high school jock with a lot of attitude or a spoiled rich kid, and I was neither of those things. I was from a very working-class family in Van Nuys.
I was standing onstage last year, and I felt like I wanted to be somewhere else. No matter how many people were out there, it all just felt like a blank sheet of paper.
Conventional forms of narrative allow for different points of view, but for this book I wanted a structure whereby each of the main characters contributed a distinctive version of the story.
I think there's something really painful about your identity being entirely composed of ghosts. For me, I didn't want to be this kid whose Dominicanness was something caught utterly in the past, is an abstraction, the thing that I write about. Instead I wanted it to be, first and foremost, a thing that I lived.
I wanted fans to know that I'm human and not perfect.
I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem.
I remember watching the 2000 Sydney Olympics, with my nose right up to the screen, knowing there and then that I wanted a sporting career.
I have always wanted to do a show where I could stay home. When you make movies, you might as well take a dart and throw it at a map.
I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else.
Twenty years ago I wanted to move to a nice place so our Charley would grow up a nice boy and learn a profession. But instead we live in a jungle, so he can only be a wild animal. D'you think I picked the East Side like Columbus picked America?
I've often heard people say that managing creative people is the hardest thing in the world. 'They're never happy, they drive up the cost of things, blah blah blah.' I just manage people the way I always wanted to be managed. That is, to be creatively challenged, but never to be told what to do.
I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.
I'm very much interested in music specifically and wanted to make a film about it, but not in an atmosphere of censorship.
I had no desire to be an upward-mobile-rising yuppie with a trophy wife, a trophy house, a trophy car. I wasn't looking for any of those things. I already had what I wanted.
I didn't have children, but I never wanted children.
I know my body. What happened is that I got so caught up in the applause I forgot how I should dance. All my life I've been what others wanted - in dancing and in life. Now I'm doing it my way.
I've always wanted to be independent and answer for myself. That probably is the part of me I would class to be feminist. I'd like to have children; marriage I have a bit of an issue with.
At home, growing up, we weren't really poor. We had everything we needed, we just didn't have what we wanted.
I wanted to represent minorities in the respect of people who had been bullied in school or people who were gay or lesbian or trans or people who aren't blonde haired and blue-eyed. I have short hair, and I am covered in tattoos. I like showing people that it's within their rights to be different.
I was a musician and did moderately well at that. I made an enjoyable living as a very young man, but I think as I became more comfortable and knowledgeable about myself and what I wanted, I moved into acting. I came to it rather late - later than most. I just really wanted to try my hand, and thankfully, it worked out for the most part.
I loved doing casting because I love actors, and I am very conscious of what actors do. But I always wanted to be a producer.
I'm the youngest of five kids, and I wanted attention. And in Santa Barbara, there was lots of theater going on, so for that area, it was a little bit like playing Little League baseball. There were dance classes, theater classes, and I just loved it.
Running for office was definitely something I've thought about. When I was younger, I wanted to major in political science. And I've been engaged in current events since I was a kid. If I can make a difference and feel passionately and capable, then I would. Why not?
All I ever wanted to do was write songs, and I just dreamed of putting out an album and having a single that maybe did alright.
I would ask to tweak stuff during the action, because I thought Elektra would more likely express herself with a slap, for example. I wanted to keep the characteristics of my character even during the fights and express the violence as she would do it, not like somebody else would.
Our first two records are a lot quieter and more studio-based. We kind of had this feeling like we wanted to make a more quote-unquote 'rock' record. Then Patrick joined and really brought a new Herculean power to the band.
I think my parents had in mind that I would settle down at quite a young age, but I decided that being a housewife in a big country house wasn't for me. I wanted to leave the country, head for London and see what the world had to offer.
I wouldn't say there isn't a direct path to a successful career. There are people who knew exactly what they wanted to do from a very young age, weren't going to be diverted, and then they just went out and achieved it.
I'm not sure many writers are trying to reconcile all the things that are separated in our culture - body and mind, urban and pastoral, lyricism and hardboiled, men and women, joy and grief. I tried to do quite a lot, but I wanted to create a serious work of literature.
My intent was to go to law school... And then what I realised quickly is what I wanted was to be on L.A. Law.
I've always loved reading and always loved the movies. Storytelling is one of the oldest of human endeavors, and they give us our understanding of the world and our place in it. When I discovered that there were people who professionally were involved in the creation of stories, it was game over - I knew what I wanted to do it.
I remember, when I was modelling in Japan, the agency would tell us that some guy wanted to take all the girls out to dinner, and I would be the one girl who didn't go - I didn't want to go out with a stranger.
All I've ever wanted to do is design and make; it's what I love doing.
My four sons all knew I was a Jew, but they were allowed to be whatever they wanted to be. The only thing important to me was that they be good people who help other people, because all religion should try to make you a better person and a more caring person. Whenever religion does that for you, it's a good religion.
I was never really attached to a clique, and I wanted to be in all the different groups; I was never a one-group kind of person. I think that's still part of my personality today.
Once I dedicated my time to mixed martial arts, I became careful about what I let into my mind. I made a goal of being the best on Earth in mixed martial arts and fighting. I wanted to build my mind into something good, not just of the world. I wanted to be different.
