When the mayor of Sao Paulo wanted to increase bus fare by 21 centavos in 2013, the country erupted in the largest mass protests in its history. It wasn't a dramatic hike - just nine cents - but a perfect symbol of the increasing burdens on the working poor, forced to fend with an inadequate system, insensitive to their plight.
There were probably a few games I played where I should not have played, because of some nagging injuries or something. I used to always talk the managers into playing me, because I wanted to play so badly.
I was under contract to Paramount. They wanted to make me into somebody which I was not. So I got so scared and rebelled, so they threw me out of the studio.
I never identified with anybody. I have always been very sensitive about my color, because everybody called me 'yellow gal.' I was caught in between both sides - nobody wanted me. I love that my audience is there, but I always feel as though I have to fend for myself.
I've never met a politician I haven't wanted to walk away from, and I've yet to hear a politician speak and actually believe the words coming out of his mouth.
I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.
My parents must have done a great job. Anytime I wanted to pursue something that they weren't familiar with, that was not part of their lifestyle, they let me go ahead and do it.
All I wanted was to connect my moods with those of Paris. Beauty paints and when it painted most, I shot.
My grandmother wanted my father to be a teacher because she was a teacher. He didn't go down that road until much later in life; he just kind of retired after almost 20 years as being a visiting lecturer at Stanford, where he got his graduate degree.
I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.
My mother always wanted me to be glamorous. When I thought about that, it really fired me up, and once I lost all those pounds, I started to feel really good about myself.
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
Then after I saw the scoreboard that we were tied, I was really happy, because I really wanted to win.
I kind of got my big break with 'The Princess Diaries' and during the press rounds for that everyone asked me: 'Did you always want to be a princess growing up?' And the truth was, no I wanted to be Catwoman.
When I started, there was a phase where I wanted to be a cowboy star. I didn't want to do deep, serious parts.
I was thinking of applying to the 'Guardian' for a job after university. Yeah, I wanted to be one of the people who writes stories in G2.
Not until, years later, I found my true interest in life did I discover that I could master a subject, no matter how difficult, if it helped me in what I wanted to do.
Years ago, I tore out a Nike ad featuring Allyson Felix and Maria Sharapova looking super fierce and tough. I always told my family that I wanted to be like them someday, so to come home to my apartment and see boxes of Nike gear stacked higher than my doorknob is pretty much a dream come true.
My mom and dad decided to homeschool us - I'm one of eight - because they really wanted us to be outside and learn some other fundamentals instead of it being school all day in a classroom.
After high school, I enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but I stayed only a year and a half. I felt college was a waste of time; I wanted to start working.
A lot of times, in the beginning of my career, I put pressure on myself just because I wanted to perform so well. I just wanted to be perfect.
When I first started out in this music industry, I was most concerned with freedom. Freedom to produce, freedom to play all the instruments on my records, freedom to say anything I wanted to.
I proved myself in Barcelona, and after I proved myself in Germany, I wanted to prove myself in England.
I've often felt I've been born out of my time, and when I started Fairground Attraction in the 1980s, I wanted to be a 1940s jazz singer.
My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument.
I have always done what I wanted to do.
I wrote 'Reaching for the Moon' because I wanted to tell kids that all of us have a moon, a dream, that we can strive for. Even if you don't attain it, you can at least reach for it.
I always wanted to get into politics, but I was never light enough to make the team.
I had daydreams and fantasies when I was growing up. I always wanted to live in a log cabin at the foot of a mountain. I would ride my horse to town and pick up provisions. Then return to the cabin, with a big open fire, a record player and peace.
I wanted to look at the upper-middle-class scene since the war, and in particular my generation's part in it. We had spent our early years as privileged members of a privileged class. How were we faring in the Age of the Common Man? How ought we to be faring?
I wanted all my visits to be official. When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president. I found out years later that it did.
As a little girl, my destiny was stamped onto the canvas of my imagination at 5 years old. I was watching soaps with my grandmother... The most gorgeous black women I had ever seen in my life came out, and I knew that that is what I wanted to do - be fabulous and black and on TV.
I wanted to be like my friends. I hung out with girls who had blue eyes and blond hair and I thought, 'I want to look like them!'
My parents wanted me to solace them for sorrows they denied having had.
It's a compulsion. I'm always changing parts of me. Even when I was young, I wanted to change my hair color. I was so determined that I dyed my hair with Kool-Aid.
All I really wanted to do was wildlife photography.
