My whole career has been trying to please people in basketball. Now it's time to please myself.
In 1985, I saw a tape of myself where my eyes were puffy. I looked very tired and bedraggled and not as youthful as I would like to have been.
I've never actually been a fighter myself - fighting tires me out and I'm not an efficient fighter anyway - but I have certainly seen other people have great complicated goes at one another.
I'm really passionate about things I enjoy, and I like to be out there doing things, and learning and challenging myself. So it's just more fun that way, just to get out and try and do and learn and meet people and try to do something new.
From my own being, and from the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God.
I have a pathological fear of being on my own. When I'm with my own thoughts, I start to unravel myself, and I start to think really dark thoughts, self-destructive thoughts.
I spent a year in a 12-step program, really committed, because I could not believe what had happened - that I might have killed myself.
I couldn't feel good about myself hanging out in Armani clothes when my girlfriend can't even pay her heating bill. I'd feel foul and I'd be embarrassed.
I knew that I was gay, I knew it. I just couldn't see myself as a gay woman, even though that's where my heart was.
I can trust my friends These people force me to examine myself, encourage me to grow.
'Growing Stronger' emerged from a need to relate my life experiences as well as my constant struggle to prevail each day, and as a reminder to myself of the importance of never giving up.
I failed at the biggest things there are in life. I failed in my health, I failed in my marriage, I failed in everything, and I've picked myself up and gone on.
I express myself through my art.
It takes a long time to drag myself out of bed, and at night I'm buzzing. As a young man it was helpful, but now I'd like to be tired when I go to bed and alive in the morning.
I've never owned an actual trail-running shoe myself, but maybe I should. My favorite paths are fraught with peril, much of it skulking at shoelace level. A rock, a root, an errant pine cone. Wham, and you're down, choking in dust and picking pebbles from wounds in your forearms and knees.
I don't feel that I was often compartmentalized as an African-American actor, yet I am fully aware of the plight that actors, directors and producers of color face in our industry. I choose to focus on being proactive in creating opportunities for myself and others while acknowledging that we are not playing on a level playing field.
I always wondered if I was supposed to be excellent at something or not. I think, because of that, I have a lot of insecurities about myself.
The idea is that we're doing it just for the joy of the actual physical experience. We may record something just for the fun of it, but the idea is just to be truly joyful and truly fun, especially for me, because I take myself too seriously all the time.
In the beginning, I was searching for myself in my music. My music was for me. I didn't have the mental room to be conscious of the listener; I wrote to save myself.
I have always wanted to become a saint. Unfortunately, when I have compared myself with the saints, I have always found that there is the same difference between the saints and me as there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passers-by.
I don't censor myself, but I don't want to force my sick-skewed version of the world, either.
But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything.
I rank myself no higher in the scheme of things than a policeman - whose utility would disappear if there were no criminals.
I am honest and want to hear what the people have to say. I do not want to enrich myself in this job.
I'm more of an actor than a musician. I've made a little name for myself as an actor, but I also front this band. We have some great players out here, and we've found a little niche with L.A. Hootenanny.
I don't like cooking just for myself; I enjoy feeding other people, particularly outdoors.
My father never kissed me, hugged me or told me that he loved me. As my only living parent, he became the filter through which I saw myself, the possibilities for my life, the world and all men. He was a conflicted and dark filter.
With the Rhythm Kings, I can involve myself in arranging and producing the music as well as the choice of songs.
I read and write for most of the day, but I do let myself be interrupted by real life. I enjoy going out with friends and try not to take myself too seriously.
I am good when there is something central about the character. There is always a human theme I attach myself to. I am really looking for something that is moving or enlightening or something with depth as an actor. I look for these kinds of roles.
I think, people look at me, and they say, 'You were very aggressive,' I say, 'Yeah,' you know, and I've made a better life for myself, for my son, so I should reflect that with my music now. I shouldn't still be rhyming like that; that would be me lying.
Audience response to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. back in the '60s - well, I was frankly surprised by the show's success and the attendant publicity for David and myself.
Obviously the biggest change is that it's me by myself. When you don't have another band interpreting your songs or playing them the way that they have, it's bound to sound different.
During the past 23 years, I have set a number of goals for myself and I'm proud to say that these goals have been achieved.
In reality, I don't see myself as a man hunter. In fact, when it comes to love, I am rarely the one to make the first move.
If I'm confirmed, I'll be myself.
