What I want to say is that nobody is unbeatable. There's a kid out there who probably wants to beat me. I train hard and try to be the best that I can be, but I don't disrespect my opponents. I am not disillusioned, either.
I went home one night and told my dad that an older kid was picking on me. My Dad, a Korean War vet and a Chicago cop for 30 years, told me, 'You better pick up a brick and hit him in the head.' That's when I thought, 'Wow, I'm going to have to start dealing with things in a different way.'
When I come home, it's about my kid, who needs to eat, needs to do homework, and needs to get to basketball. I don't have a lot of time to think about me.
Jon Stewart says that he was a little kid with a big head. He had very little athletic ability. He went out to the soccer field, and it was awful.
My mom is awesome. She's really young. My mom is 40, and she raised me listening to Nirvana and Courtney Love and Coldplay, Gin Blossoms, The Cranberries, and stuff. Like, my early, early memories are of being a little kid running around in floral skirts and Doc Martens when I was, like, three.
Twitter is the new rock magazine of the modern age. When I was a kid, we had magazines and journalists and interviews and articles and pinups and posters to follow our favourite artists. Nowadays? Twitter is actually the new rock magazine.
I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job, like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.
I enjoy clothes. My mother tells me how, even as a kid, I used to choose my own clothes. I have a feel for it, and I do the costume coordination for my photo shoots as well. Many a time, even my characters wear the clothes I choose.
I remember when I was a kid and I would go to the comic-book store, I would have no idea what was going on in that month's issues. Sometimes I wouldn't even know what comics were coming out until I walked into the store.
When I was a kid, Jacques Cousteau was my hero and the person who inspired me to become an underwater explorer. I have many other people who inspired me after him, but he is still my all-time hero.
I'm too much of a big kid.
As a kid, I was obsessed with Meryl Streep, and I still am.
I was not the kid that hung out at the arcade.
I always wanted to be an actor, even when I was a little kid. When I used to run away from home, I'd go to movies and sit all night watching Kirk Douglas. When I was 16, I tried getting into the Actors Studio, and they told me to get lost. I said 'I'll come back when I'm a man,' and I came back when I was 30.
I was raised in restaurants. My parents opened their first restaurant, Buonavia, in Queens when I was just 3. This business has always been my way of life. As a kid, home was reserved only for sleeping. After school, you could find my sister and I helping out at the family restaurant.
To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That's what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games - nothing like saving the world.
I was really scared to stay home alone when I was kid, and I would freak out whenever there was a noise after my parents left.
When I was a kid, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell were mere blips on the gaydar; and they were both still in the closet.
Ah, my dad's whistle. On holidays when I was a kid, we would all be off in the rock pools along the beach. When it came time to go, we'd hear the whistle and we'd all come running. Like dogs!
I remember being a kid - if a new member joined a group, I just didn't like that at all.
I always liked Darth Vader. I remember, when I was a kid, I went to the toy store for the Darth Vader pencil case. I took that to school for years.
I did magic at children's parties when I was a kid.
I think Vikings have always been popular, haven't they? I remember being a kid and being in second grade reading a book about this Viking warrior.
I remember, as a kid, going into other people's houses. Everything was different. The smells in the kitchen were different; the clothing was different. That bothered me. There's something very mysterious about other families and the way they function.
When I was a kid, I always had my hair in two plaits. But for dancing, I had to have it in a bun because I did ballet.
As a kid in the eighties, I didn't need much disposable income. I went to Catholic school - white shirt, plaid skirt - so fashion choices were limited. But youth finds a way. For me and my schoolmates, neon argyle socks were a crucial barometer of coolness. Hair ribbons, too, and they didn't come cheap.
When I was a kid, I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.
There's this Afghani kid in Stockholm called Phat Deuce who's started sending us his music, and he's amazing.
When I was a kid, I figured I would be a physicist when I grew up, and then I would write science fiction on the side. The physicist thing didn't pan out, but writing science fiction on the side did.
I was a Marvel kid, and I would have to say that Spiderman is my all-time favorite character. As I got older, my tastes developed a little bit more, and I would follow certain writers; like, I really got into Grant Morrison. From the time I was 5, I was into comic books. From the time I learned how to read, it was all about comic books.
I never once had a regular paycheck. Not for more than six weeks in a row and for the most part not even that. I still haven't. The notion of some whistling kid with a mail cart coming down the hall and handing me my weekly paycheck is something I've only seen in Matthew Broderick movies.
I have been interested in fashion since I was a kid. Then I lived in London, where it was more about costume and a personal statement of who you are than about fashion.
Yes, I was inspired by Jack London and still love reading his books. Ernie Banks is another hero because I lived in Chicago for two years as a kid, and I loved that he was the Cubs' loyal underdog and one of the first African-Americans to make that breakthrough.
When you're a kid, and you're a superhero lover, the holy trinity is Batman, Superman and Spider-Man, so to be able to take any of those and play with it is a huge joy.
You must remember that anyone under 30 - especially a ballplayer - is an adolescent. I never got close to being an adult until I was 32. Even though I was married and had a son at 20, I was a kid at 32, living at home with my parents. Sure, I was a manager then. That doesn't mean you're grown up.
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist. As you go through the grind and the distraction of a career, it's easy to lose sight of your dreams.
