I wanted to study painting and become a painter, but I had a huge flip-over in my life when I was about 18 or 19. I was part of a criminal environment; I got arrested and convicted, and I had to start thinking in a new way.
I'm South American, and growing up in New York, I had the total stereotypical way of thinking of what Texas was about. I'm like, Texas. Big. Cows. Cowboys. Cowboy hats and cowboy boots. And barbeque.
I've been very fortunate in the things I've had in my life. But, at the same time, I wish I had the same types of memories as everyone else.
Hitler's economic revolution in Germany had reduced financial considerations to a point where they played no role in economic or political decisions.
This was the most important discovery I had ever made in my life. It was a discovery which has irrevocably changed my whole life's direction. It immediately elevated me to the status of one of the world's leading anthropologists.
For many years my inherited arthritis had given me problems.
The last reunion was a bit of a rushed job, we had to do a gig and documentary.
Oh, man, if in real life I was as cool and suave as Coach Taylor and had all the answers, things would be easier.
I had the fortunate experience to play with people from different schools of music. Sam Rivers is from the fundamentalist school of music.
I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance.
Even though there's no forum for me on the radio for the kind of music I sing anymore, I am still excited about having a career where I can sing the best music in the world, and people will come and hear me because of the hit records I've had in the past.
I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.
As a consequence while we had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes to wear to school we were constantly conscious of being of modest means.
I admire the work of brilliant actresses such as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, who have had such varied careers. They have never stopped working, and they are as great today as they ever were.
Beer. It always seems like such a good idea at the time, doesn't it? What's worse is beer seems like an even better idea after you've had some beer.
From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band.
I'd heard a lot of Asian people were rooting for me, but I had no idea. I was stunned. They were... impassioned, especially compared to Japan. I couldn't even have anticipated that kind of welcome.
The truth is, when I got started in this business, it wasn't because I had a full understanding of the importance of the business, but because I thought it was fun. I found it exciting. It fulfilled me, whatever it was that I was looking for.
As for leadership, I am the kind who leads reluctantly and more by example than anything else. Someone had to be on the incorporation papers as president.
The production team's first meeting took place at my house. I had ideas and a color scheme in mind, how I wanted the movie to look, because that has to be a real collaboration.
Both my parents worked, so I was home alone a lot, and I would listen to their records. They belonged to the Columbia House record club, so they had records!
I'm content. I want to have better success in the tournaments than I've had, but I know I'm playing well, so I'm happy with that.
Certainly, if it had been anything other than an HBO show I'd probably still be in Mexico now with a Mexican wife and kids.
I'm a Taurean, so I'm very passionate and determined and materialistic. Down the years, I've spent a lot of money and saved a bit of money and had a lot of fun.
I've been asked a great deal about the influence I've had with my work and it's impossible to say, you know.
You know Hollywood is a weird and wonderful place, I didn't know I Dream of Jeanie had been cancelled after 5 years until I went back to go on the lot to pick up some clothes and things I had in my dressing room.
My mother had a rule, obviously, that I couldn't go across the street by myself, but I had to find a way of doing it.
Luckily I've had a lot of great friends that I've had for a long time.
I've always wanted to be Wonder Woman, of course. She had the greatest costume.
I think my dad did legal work for someone who had a Packard Bell 8088, and they couldn't pay him, so they gave him a computer. I was initially not allowed to touch it, but that didn't last long. I started tinkering with it, and there were many times I screwed up the computer.
I actually wanted to be a doctor. But doing all those horrid rat dissections made me faint. I studied science till the 12th standard and later took up commerce. I was planning to do chartered accountancy, but fate had something else in store for me.
Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.
I had never auditioned for Broadway - any play - and I was not familiar with what you're supposed to do.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
I actually started as a concert pianist. I had a scholarship to the Julliard School of Music.
I was pleased that two very disparate photographs, two images that each worked in their own way had appealed enough to other people for them to buy them. I was also relieved they weren't the last ones purchased, and that they sold for a pound more than the frame was worth.
