It's funny because looking back at my first contest, I was 15 and surfing the Haleiwa contest wearing this tiny bikini. I remember not even thinking twice about wearing it - I just thought it was normal.
We are not quitters. Britain has always gone out there; we have probably been more influential than any other country in shaping our world and the way it has thought about itself, the way we interact as nations.
If it happens, I'll be proud, and it would be a dream come true, though I doubt I ever thought I'd be a Hall of Famer when I started. It wasn't until late in my career that people started to mention it, and you start thinking about it a little bit.
I wanted to write a very simple story about a boy, a wolf, a girl, a bear and a forest, so I thought I might set it in the past. I didn't realise that it went back to when I was 10: I used to love the Stone Age when I was a kid and wanted to live in it, and I got rid of my bed and slept on the floor, but I didn't remember it.
I dedicated my 20s, my passion and energy to the name 'Rain.' I always did my best, and I thought if I did, it would eventually show, and even if it didn't turn out well, I wouldn't have any regrets.
For years, I've been interviewed, and they write what they thought I thought or what they thought I said. Sometimes it's accurate, and often it isn't.
I remember growing up thinking that astronauts and their job was the coolest thing you could possibly do... But I absolutely couldn't identify with the people who were astronauts. I thought they were movie stars.
I like What Goes Around Comes Around for old concert tees. Oh man, I got this 'Sgt. Pepper' cartoon Beatles shirt there; it was, like, $300. I didn't even know how much it cost - I thought it was gonna be, like, $80 at most - till I got to the register and was like, 'Oh mah gawd!' Good Lord. But it's classic vintage rock, you know?
When you start with next to nothing, all you've got is a lot of thought, a lot of innovation, figuring new ways to do things without using a lot of money.
I never thought I would end up being the Senator from New York.
Ever since I learned about the concept of garbage collection in 6.001 at MIT in 1984 while using Scheme on HP Chipmunks, I've always thought of dreaming as the same as garbage collection for a computer.
As I said, I spent most of my adult life thinking I didn't have a vote, and therefore that what I thought didn't matter.
I was going to design sports cars, but my father came to my college to visit me. At the time he was making a picture in Sweden and he took me there with him. I got to see Ingmar Bergman's company and I thought, 'Gee, filmmaking is a lot more fun than sports cars,' so I decided to follow him and go into acting.
I met a 13-year-old black child, Raymond, who had never been to school and had never learnt any words, yet it seemed to me that he was intelligent. It became apparent after a short period that Raymond thought in terms of visual signs and movements.
I wanted to be an actor when I saw the movie 'Die Hard.' I saw Bruce Willis shooting guns and blowing stuff up, and I thought, 'I wanna do that.' It really had nothing to do with acting; I just wanted a job that allowed me to do fun, bigger-than-life stuff.
While we are being fascinated by the tales of famous serial killers and how they were brought to justice, the real serial killer goes about his business with hardly a thought to being caught.
What's interesting is, say, the O.J. trial and when the verdict came out, and there were people who celebrated, and there were people who thought that he's guilty, and it's a crime. Those reactions tend to be filtered through our own experiences.
I've always dreamed of becoming a mother. I thought I would get married and do it all the traditional way, but life kept going on, my career kept me busy - and I had not stopped to become a mommy.
I have always thought if there is a game, and there have been a lot of fouls on me, then I have been playing well for the team, so that means we're having a good match. You can win a free-kick when there's a foul, and that's a chance to score a goal.
We never thought that there would be another Sachin Tendulkar. But Virat Kohli has changed this mindset. I think Virat can surpass Tendulkar's records.
I remember when we first bought Teleflora, I made a very expensive mistake when I produced a brochure with the slogan, 'The way America sends love.' The bouquets and prices I pictured could not be duplicated by the florist - they were too expensive. I had relied on people I thought were in touch with the marketplace.
I was a big Mickey Rourke fan in his first incarnation. I thought that at the time he was America's greatest screen actor.
I thought about trying to do a strip. I even tried to do it, but I felt I didn't have the voice. Even though I liked that form, I didn't think I thought in the form of the three panels.
When I got divorced, I thought 'Well, there goes my act.'
I didn't really like reading much before I did 'The Golden Compass'. But then my teacher told me to read it. And I thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to read a whole book by myself!' It's not that I couldn't read, it's just that I didn't really like books very much. But the book that she lent me I really enjoyed.
My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.
I think an actor's process should be very personal and private, and sometimes I have thought, 'Oh, please, put it away now.'
I tried playing for the public, and I selected music that I thought would be pleasing to them. Times are different now. Today, I play the music I want, and I just try to do my best.
When I first got to L.A., I thought every person in a limo was a star.
Even I have been at that point in my life where I thought I didn't have enough extra money laying around to start investing in stocks for my own retirement plans.
In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.
When I saw 'Chess' in London, I thought it was horrible. It was so static. People were coming down front and just facing the audience, singing.
Getting older doesn't bother me. When I was 30, I thought I should have achieved more, but you get more comfortable and think it's time to stop putting pressure on yourself.
I never even thought about playing professionally. I didn't think that was a possibility for a little kid from Illinois.
I went to the U.S. for business because I thought America is a big consuming country, although it's not an overconsuming country.
I went in, and there, in the front room, a converted bedroom, sat the first radio I had ever seen. The equipment was so bulky that it took up one entire wall of the bedroom. The set, which could send or receive signals, was tuned to KDKA in Pittsburgh, and I remember being completely flabbergasted at the thought of sounds coming from that box.
