Over the course of my life, I have made many transitions - most of them taking me further away from my Somali roots and steadily toward the enlightened mentality of Western democracy.
Accolades and lists may tell us about accomplishments, but life is meant to be experienced, not just accomplished. It's like the difference between reading books for the sake of reading and reading books just to get a good grade.
I love playing and working on music. It is something that I feel really lucky to be able to spend my life doing. And I don't sleep much!
A poem I write is not just about me; it is about national identity, not just regional but national, the history of people in relation to other people. I reach for these outward stories to make sense of my own life, and how my story intersects with a larger public history.
Life is a big craps game. I've got to tell you, it's all been fun.
I like to have met someone in real life before being their Facebook friend.
It is difficult to remember just how formal middle-class life was in the 1930's and '40s. I wore a suit and tie at home from the age of 18. One dressed for breakfast. One lived in a very formal way, and emotions were not paraded. And my childhood was not unusual.
I know that when a fighter is out of the ring for more than two years, when he comes back he isn't the same anymore. Each fighter is different. But each must think, even if something goes wrong, 'I have to make this decision and live with it for the rest of my life.'
I'm a filmmaker and I'm proud of the movies I've made. But in the background of my life I was also very involved in the creation of the sport.
When we think back at our youth, we always remember the feeling of freedom... that you actually believe in the world. Even if it goes well for you in life, you can never attain that freedom in your imagination of what you think life could be. We are tainted.
For the first time in my life I'm really happy to be unattached because I realise there is so much responsibility to having a partner.
You get so brainwashed. You're on the road 300 days a year, and that's why guys get so messed up. This life becomes a part of them. It's not real, but some guys who are still in the business think it is.
I am hopeful that one day I will meet that right man and will have a very happy life partner.
I just want to keep my normal life for as long as possible.
I feel like if you have balance in life, you have to be consumed by your job because, ultimately, it will never be a job; it will never be something that you feel you're working on.
I don't consider myself a gangsta rapper. But I'm probably more qualified to be a gangsta rapper than people who call themselves that. I've been through that life.
When life partner happens, I hope he is not a youth icon then because I doubt even I would be youthful then. Whether life partner is hot or not, that doesn't matter. He has to be a nice man. He should be funny, responsible, and he should be sweet, and he should love me a lot.
In my whole life, I've worn black tie three times. I can't tie the knot myself. Once, at the premiere of the opera, I got to La Scala before Domenico, and I was hiding in the corner until he arrived, and I said, 'Quick, you have to tie my tie, please!' Otherwise, I'll wear a tuxedo jacket with jeans and my bling-bling cross.
I would say to you, have faith in yourself - believe in what you are doing, and, most important, be a person of integrity. It is totally up to you, and no one else, how your life evolves.
I do have a memo all the time because I need to be guided by something in my life. I'm not religious and I don't have idols, so something has to drive me.
People are starved for a way of life - they're hunting for a way to be or to act toward the world.
Bringing my two children up while writing was just a part of life. I'd much rather have had their interruptions than been stuck in a sterile office. This way, I had welcome distractions. I had to load the washing machine, I had to go out and buy lemons.
I've wrestled my whole life, and when I got done with college, I went back to school to become a firefighter. I liked MMA, but I didn't really know if I wanted to get punched in the face!
There's something to be said about sitting in front of the TV and being removed from your own life and just pushed into another one.
My mother is happy with whatever I choose to do in life as long as I'm happy, healthy, and safe.
It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.
'Trilogy' was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn't left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that's probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that's what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.
Happiness has a bad rap. People say it shouldn't be your goal in life. Oh, yes it should.
I don't think anybody thinks they're bad, just in life, in general.
What helps with aging is serious cognition - thinking and understanding. You have to truly grasp that everybody ages. Everybody dies. There is no turning back the clock. So the question in life becomes: What are you going to do while you're here?
I was born on an even keel. Family lore says I never cried, even at birth. I felt at ease on earth, in the right place. And like many children, I took comfort in life's regularity: Every few days it rained, the school bus came and went, and my parents were rooted in their union.
I've been avoiding journalists my whole life.
I personally don't like school, but you have to do it if you want to get through life, so pretty much I put up with it.
I motivate others by making sure that they understand to go after their dreams and don't let anyone tell you you can't. If you are motivated enough and put the work in that you can achieve anything in life that you set your mind to.
The problem with binge-watching on Netflix is that you lose three days of your life.
I've been surrounded by women my whole life, so obviously I love fashion... But I'd like to do my own thing and focus on what I love. If people accept it, they accept it. If they don't, they don't.
