During my eleven years as a New York City public school teacher, I saw firsthand the impact that poverty has on the classroom. In low-income neighborhoods like Sunset Park, where I taught, students as young as five years old enter school affected by the stresses often created by poverty: domestic violence, drug abuse, gang activity.
I saw my parents as model grown-ups, and their manner, their silence, informed my sense of what adulthood looked and felt like. Grown-ups behaved rationally and calmly. Grown-ups worked during the day and came home at night and sat down for drinks and passed the evening quietly.
I saw people get fired after their eviction. But when I found that if you get evicted, your chances of losing your job increase by 20 percent, that's when it really hit home for me.
I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.
I saw, in looking over Cooper, elements of a comet of 1825 which resemble what I get out for this, from my own observations, but I cannot rely upon my own.
I saw my parents as gods whose every wish must be obeyed or I would suffer the penalty of anguish and guilt.
After I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt disgusted with it. If I saw someone reading a religious book on a train, I'd think, how awful.
This whole 'Mondo' thing started when I saw Jack White perform at Coachella a couple of years ago. It was like a religious set, man.
I saw an Emmy ad that AMC took out with all the 'Breaking Bad' nominees' photos, and there's my picture from the show. It's like World's Ugliest Man - I'm an automatic winner in that category.
I started in Shakespeare. I'm classically trained, which, how hilarious is that? Then one night, I saw Second City and thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do.' But I never thought it would morph into screenplay writing.
I was always longing to do, emotionally and physically, what my male counterparts always got to do. I just felt envious, every time I saw a movie that I was in awe of, and it was usually a male lead. And those kinds of roles weren't available. They just weren't being written.
I read 'Tiger Beat' and 'Bop' from the time I was 9, 10, 11 years old. I loved movies. I saw 'E.T.' seven times. I used to yell at people who called me when 'L.A. Law' was on because they should know better. So I just have been so in love with the business of Hollywood since I can remember.
Laura Bush has the face of my mother when my mother was young. The face, the body, the voice. The first time I saw on TV Laura Bush, I got frozen because it was as if my mother was not dead. 'Oh, Mama,' I said, 'Mama.'
When I moved back to New York, I saw a lot of girls knitting on the subway, and it had a bit of a comeback.
Work creates an enormous sense of self and I saw that in my mother. She was an enormous, towering figure to me in the best possible way. I picked up a lot of things from her in the way that I work... I also picked up a lot of the failings of when your father doesn't have those things and that results in a house that turns into a minefield.
As soon as I saw tattoos as a way to tell your story, I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I totally get it.' So I got my first tattoo a couple of years ago, and it's the word 'hope' on my left arm. It has a couple of dots at the end for each of my kids.
Prison was tough on me. I saw people in prison that made me ashamed I was a human being. Some make Qaddafi and Idi Amin look like Sunday-school teachers.
I saw an interview that I did with someone, and I was horrified by it. And I said to my wife, 'This is unbearable how I talk.'
When I met my wife, I was a working comic, so the first week we went out, she saw me perform, and it was very clear what I do.
As a writer, Chris Columbus was a big influence. 'The Goonies' was the first movie I ever saw that kids speak normally and not imagined how kids would talk. Always a big fan of Chris Columbus' dialogue and storytelling.
I always kept the fans happy. They always saw a different Rey, whether it was a mask, a design, a color. I never gave them the same thing twice and always kept them on their feet. They were always excited to see what Rey was going to bring to the table.
People thought the storyline and characters for 'X-Files' made it a 'dark' show, but I never saw it that way. I always thought Mulder and Scully were the light in dark places.
I was in the heart and soul of Baltimore. I definitely felt a connection to the people. They're really hard-working people that want to have a better life. And I saw the struggle that exists there.
I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years.
The first concert I ever saw was Roy Orbison.
I saw women that were repressed. When they're in classes with young men, they shut up all the time. They're laughed at if they have unusual ideas. They have to be sexy; then, they can't really think.
My love of fine art increased - the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see.
My classmates would copulate with anything that moved, but I never saw any reason to limit myself.
I didn't want to be an actor. I wanted to design historical movies like 'Ben-Hur'. I saw this as my life.
I was always very curious about what a scientist's life was like when I was young. Of course, when I was young, you didn't have very many opportunities to find out with no web, TV. I was very lucky: I was born in the city of Chicago and went to the University of Chicago where I actually saw things.
I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.
I saw my friends in medical school seeming to be more engaged with the real world. That provoked a sort of jealousy, and I decided to go to medical school after all.
For some reason, on that sparkling afternoon last week, I actually saw the coal that was passing by and it set me to thinking how important coal was to our everyday lives when I was a little boy.
I saw no reason why other nations should tell Central Americans how to solve their problems.
I saw a report on the news: 'Peter Dinklage tweeted... ' What? You know, I don't need any of that stuff. I got an email account; that's all I need.
