To be named as one of the finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2010 on Friday was a special moment for me. As a player, it's something that you dream about. It's an honor that you have to earn based on your career and the respect from your peers around you.
But what I'd really like to tell you is I never dreamed of being in the Hall of Fame. Standing here with all these great players was beyond any of my dreams.
The best compliment I ever had is, one day I was in Nashville, some disc jockey said, Hey, that sounds like a Tom T. Hall song. Up until then there hadn't been any such thing.
That whole Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame thing - at least half the people in there don't have a place in any kind of hall of fame anywhere, in my opinion.
Preservation Hall is the sound of joy. When they start playing, people start moving.
Around here, though, people don't treat me any differently. That's to be expected. I don't mind at all, being in the shadow of three Hall of Famers. I just want to learn all I can from them.
I listen to Neil Young and jazz and classical stations and, if my girlfriend's driving, it tends to be Hall & Oates.
I went to London and performed in Eric Clapton's concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I'll work with him any time he asks me.
We are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them.
For three years, the 'Meistersinger' score was a ball and chain to me. It went with me to every city and concert hall.
Humbled by the fact that never in a million years would I ever thought that I would be on the same stage with all these great Hall of Famers and enshrined to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
And we did it because it's time for City Hall to stop looking out for City Hall and start looking out for the people like you and me who are footing the bill.
It's very easy to be cynical about the hall of fame. But on the other hand, it's really a beautiful thing for someone like me. I dedicated my entire life to this music.
You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That's why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don't feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall.
Michael Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It caused quite a controversy, because his nose isn't eligible for another fifteen years.
I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing all along.'
I don't want to achieve immortality by being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.
And on election night I'd go down to city hall in El Paso, Texas and cover the election. In those days, of course, we didn't have exit polls. You didn't know who had won the election until they actually counted the votes. I thought that was exciting too.
Staying in luxury hotels still gives me a kick, especially Oulton Hall in Yorkshire. I'd stay in a hotel for the breakfast and room service.
I think to close half of Magic Kingdom for the purpose of a White House invitation town hall meeting on a phony main street on behalf of a phony president just strikes me as weird.
I've been to the Hall of Fame many times, in grade school and high school. I had field trips to the Hall of Fame and taking tours of it. I just never thought about that one day I possibly might be in it. I think it'd be great.
Many old music hall fans were present at the funeral today of Fred 'Chuckles' Jenkins, Britain's oldest and unfunniest comedian. In tribute, the vicar read out one of Fred's jokes, and the congregation had two minutes silence.
Prince presented us at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Maybe more climate activists will think about the climate change not as an international problem to be resolved in an air-conditioned meeting hall, but as a guerilla war to be fought in the streets.
Regarding the Hall of Fame, when they decided I was going to be one of the possible candidates, when I heard that, I was so thrilled. You're always hoping for something like that.
In the year since we brought things into the open with a clean breath of fresh air at City Hall, we have learned about corrupt spending practices and unethical conflicts of interest that waste your money... and keep Dallas from being the great city of our dreams.
Most people should be talking about how Floyd Mayweather is a great undefeated future Hall of Famer that's his own promoter and that works extremely hard to get to where he's at. Instead, all you hear is hate and jealous remarks from critics who criticize me and, you know, most of the time, the people that criticize me can't do what I can do.
I wore an Urban Outfitters dress on my wedding day. It was one I had in the back of my wardrobe. It was white. We went to City Hall here in New York. I wore it with blue velvet boots my husband bought for me. I loved it. It was my favorite thing. It was chilled and spontaneous.
I'd never heard of a hall pass until I came to America. It sounds like something at school.
When it comes to dance hall music, I definitely listened to a lot of Vybz Kartel growing up or Gyptian and Mavado.
I got behind that pencil and nothing happened for many years, but since they put me in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, I've turned around. I took a good look at myself and said, I think it's time to get back at work.
But, I swear, they're turning Donna into Annie Hall this season. More ties. More suits. But they're also keeping her really motivated, ya know? Like, wanting to be a rock journalist. Wanting to be the first woman president.
The Orioles' Dick Hall comes off the mound like a drunk kangaroo on roller skates.
If you can prove a guy did cheat, then I don't believe he belongs. I don't believe that there are any guys that did cheat, in that respect, that are in the Hall of Fame. So I think opening up the doors to guys that admittedly cheated or are proven that they did cheat, it kills the integrity of what the Hall of Fame stands for.
The 50 greatest players don't matter when you're in the Hall of Fame. We all know that I was not one of the 50 greatest, I was one of the 25 greatest - in my mind.
Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his or her wildest, most messed-up children - the way you'd ache and love a screwed-up rebel daughter in juvenile hall.
