I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.
I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college.
Because I grew up on 'Star Wars', that was the best example of creating a full and rich world to me as a writer. When I was watching those movies as a kid, I wanted to know more about every damn character in that universe. There was always a hint that there was a story there that you just weren't getting to see.
When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education.
I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.
My parents wanted to name me Karim Hill. My aunt always liked the name Dule, from this actor Keir Dullea, who was in '2001: Space Odyssey.' That's how I got the name Karim Dule Hill. Growing up, I never liked the name Karim because people would ask me, 'Could you dunk like Kareem Abdul Jabbar?'
We didn't wait for the renewable heat incentives to come into place; we wanted to be first to provide consumers with alternative ways to heat their homes.
I wanted to be a novelist for so long.
When I was a kid, I read books that made me laugh but also made me shiver in terror. I wanted to make books that made other people feel the same way.
It was important to me to become day-to-day fluent and functional in another language, and about 10 years ago, I went to Rome for the first time and felt an instant gut connection and wanted to get to know the city.
To be honest, I think I'd become a bit selfish with memories of my father. I wanted to hug them close to me.
I barely knew I wanted to be an artist. I liked my art classes and painting was fun, I guess, but I didn't realize that seeing the country was going to inspire me to further explore that... but that's what it did.
I always knew I wanted to be in television when I was a kid, and I knew I wanted to model.
I'd pretty much given up hope of being published, so I just wrote the book I wanted to read.
I wanted to get on with my life when I was 16. I knew I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to get out of Detroit.
Easy, simple and great laws, which await nothing but a sign from the lawgiver to spread prosperity and vigour throughout the nation, laws which would earn him immortal hymns of gratitude down the generations, are those which are least considered or least wanted.
I try to keep things as varied as possible in my career, and after playing something as fun and over the top as Maryann on 'True Blood,' I wanted to find something antithetical to that.
I was an only child of a father who loved me deeply, but we didn't play catch, even though I was an athlete. We didn't go fishing or hunting or any of the things I wanted to do. Why not? He just didn't do that.
I was inspired by lots of people, certainly in acting and in writing and stuff, but I never wanted to be somebody else.
When I played at Minnesota, Green Bay, those northern cities, Buffalo, they wanted to have those championship games at home. It was going to be an advantage to be there with their fans and the cold weather and all that. But when you've got a Super Bowl, and it's the two best teams, you want ideal conditions. You want to play a great game.
I've calmed down. Looking back, I was engaged more in dramas than I was in relationships. I've spent a lot of my life being in it for the plot, and I don't do that anymore. I'm satisfied. I'm not competing with myself. I accomplished things I wanted to do, so everything I do now is because I want to, not because I'm trying to prove something.
When I was young, I was an academically oriented guy like most academically oriented guys. I graduated in science, did an MBA. My dreams as a young boy were I wanted to be an industrialist, or I wanted to be a scientist.
I will say, there's not an episode in existence where whatever didn't come out the way I wanted it to or is an actual mistake that won't nag at me until the end of the time.
It's lovely to be considered pretty and lovely to do photo shoots, and I just love fashion. But I'm proud that I did the characters I wanted to do.
One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I write. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have wanted to translate it. There are no one-liners. It's much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit.
I don't want to give advice to people about their religious beliefs, but I do think that it's not smart to bet against the power of science to figure out the natural world. It used to be, a thousand years ago, that if you wanted to explain why the moon moved through the sky, you needed to invoke God.
I wanted to be an actress. I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time my dad would stand up to talk people would applaud... that was pretty cool.
I went to work in accounting at Arthur Andersen. At one point, it was the creme de la creme. I wanted to work there because it looked like the hardest thing I could find, and I loved being on a steep learning curve. I progressed quickly, and two years out of college, I was managing a small team of people.
When I was growing up, golf was the geeky sport. No one really wanted to be associated with it.
I thought I was going to be a theater actor. I moved to New York after college and did some plays and worked a lot. Once the realities of living as a theatrical actor hit me, I realized I wanted to start making a little bit of money and not have to bartend and work in theater.
I never wanted to be defined by what I did for a living.
To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.
In middle school, I was boy crazy and it was the worst! I would always lose, too. I was more into the competition than the boy by the end of it! I just wanted to win!
My first failure was to be born a child not wanted by his father or mother, as they parted shortly after I was born.
I always had this vision of what I wanted to do in life.
On my first trip to New York in the 1980s, the first place I wanted to visit was the Plaza Hotel, home to Kay Thompson's Eloise.