I was born in Hereford, England, in 1944. We moved when they had an opportunity to get a visa, about 1950. My dad always thought Europe was a bit too small for him. He wanted to see the United States... The typical immigrant story. He wanted a better life for his children, too. He always tried to get the visa, and it didn't come up.
When I came out to Hollywood in 1985, I thought that I would be sitcom star. I'm a tall, skinny, goofy guy. I thought that I would make a great funny neighbor, or wacky office mate, in a sitcom.
Prior to September 11, we thought the world beyond our shores was one world of risk and the world in our continent was another world of risk.
I've always thought legal addictions are a great way to create a business. Starbucks is a wonderful example.
Because after my first year I had a lot of success, took everybody by storm, came back the next year thought it was easy and didn't have near the season I had the previous year. It was kind of a wake-up call. And so, life goes on.
I really want to be known for my work. That sounds like such a... cliche, and I've thought about how else I can say it to make it sound less hackneyed. But that's what it comes down to... I know people are interested in these things.
Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.
I had set a goal with my team to try and get back to the top of the rankings, but I never thought with the depth in the game this year that I would have been able to get it back so quickly.
But my shift to the serious study of economics gradually weakened my belief in Major Douglas's A+B theorem, which was replaced in my thought by the expression MV = PT.
When I said I could beat Alexander Gustafsson in a standup fight, people laughed at me. They thought, 'No way.' But I believe in what I'm seeing every day.
'The Simpsons' money got bigger and bigger. When I left 'The Simpsons', no one thought that this thing was going to still be around. It's the cumulative effect. It's like, 'Oh my God, 25 years later, and it's still coming in.'
The public is strongly in favor of the Kyoto Protocols, so strongly in favor that a majority of Bush voters thought that he was in favor of it. They are simply unaware.
A lot of guys thought I'd bow down to them, but I wasn't like that. I was just trying to play football and do my thing.
Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.
When I was doing 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' I was asked, 'If there was one part of your life that you could erase, what would it be?' And I was so stunned by that. I thought: 'Nothing.' I would keep all the good bits and the bad bits, because those things made me who I am.
There was no reality to pain when it left one, thought while it held one fast all other realities failed.
I got followed by the paparazzi because they thought I was Shannyn Sossamon.
At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia.
We had taken the cups for coffee out of the building as a cost-saving measure, but left the coffee. Somebody thought it was symbolic to do this.
Supermarkets didn't even want to talk to me about how much food they were wasting. I'd been round the back. I'd seen bins full of food being locked and then trucked off to landfill sites, and I thought, surely there is something more sensible to do with food than waste it.
I never thought I'd sing or dance on national television.
The things I was allowed to experience, the people I was able to call friends, teammates, mentors, coaches and opponents, the travel, all of it, are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime.
I thought in terms of the enthusiasm of doing it. I didn't think about whether I was ready.
The development of the telescope, together with increased knowledge of things, brought men to see that the earth is not what man had once thought it to be.
Everybody thought I was crazy. They thought I should take the money and run. But there was just something special about being a senior at Chapel Hill. I just couldn't leave.
The format of the race weekend is also very well thought out. We have enough practice time to get the cars well set-up and have a proper qualifying session where we can do as many laps as we like, which is great for the drivers and spectators.
For a long time, I wanted children. When I was about 30 or 32, I really thought about it.
We never considered ourselves to be a good band or anything, we just thought we were playing for fun and we wanted to play music that sounded like Black Sabbath or Soundgarden or the music we were into at that time.
At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums... ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'
There was a point of frustration, where I thought I should just take a film, even though I didn't want to. I was impatient with being at home. But I hung on to the approach I've always had, which is to wait for a project that I could contribute something unique to.
I thought that I wrote songs and wrote music, and that was sort of what I thought I was best at doing. And because nobody else was ever doing my songs, I felt - you know, I had to go out and do them.
As a kid I quite fancied the romantic, Bohemian idea of being an artist. I expect I thought I could escape from the difficulties of maths and spelling. Maybe I thought I would avoid the judgement of the establishment.
Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that it was invented by the human race to cope with the dark areas of life, problems and terrors.
I always thought the Vancouver Olympics would be my last destination, but I'm extending it to Sochi... I want to start anew, not as an Olympic medalist but just as yet another figure skater.
If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger.
Remember the picture of the president in the classroom, being told of the attack by chief of staff Andy Card? The American people thought they were seeing a man suddenly thrust into a grave challenge no one could have anticipated.
