I was fed up with being just plain Jane.
Even people who have successfully obtained a visa are sometimes being turned back at the airport. Such incidents have never happened in the past but are increasing now because even low level officers of the border patrol department are being entrusted with too much discretion power on how they execute the laws.
Doing a me-too business, because it's you - the only person who cares about that is you. The market doesn't care if it's you. The market is pretty much being served. You better have something that the world doesn't have, because even then, you might screw it up through your own ineptitude and inexperience.
Being a writer is a very private, internal process. Ultimately I am more the writer, being an introvert.
The real challenge lies in maintaining dignity while being funny. I am in awe of Krushna Abhishek's energy and Bharti Singh's wit. They are infectious and selfless.
Being poor sucks... It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month.
I'm a very serious guy. I try to counter that predisposition of being a serious person with all this tomfoolery that I love to do so much. I really enjoy it; that's why I do it. I don't like the way I am... perhaps my natural default is to be that way, and I don't like that.
Being pure in my voice has always served me the best. Anytime I've tried to hide my light under a bushel, it's never done me any good.
I think success happens when it's supposed to and when you can appreciate it. I am grateful that it didn't happen for me at 22 or 23. I would've been foolish enough to think that we're all entitled to it, instead of it being the divine blessing that it is.
When you are just muscle, you end up being gaunt in the face, and that makes you look older by 5 or 10 years. I don't think of getting older as looking better or worse; it's just different. You change, and that's OK.
I just think - the Midwest, if you grow up there, you're deathly afraid of putting on airs. Any time a Midwesterner criticizes someone, it's usually involving some form of being too big for your britches.
I had everything I'd hoped for, but I wasn't being myself. So I decided to be honest about who I was. It was strange: The people who loved me for being funny suddenly didn't like me for being... me.
Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They're solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.
I think being on 'Weeds,' in general, makes it hard to think of me as Nemo anymore.
The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are.
I definitely want to keep working in Ireland, and without being too worthy about it, if it's possible to bring work into the country, that's no harm.
I am very proud of being Jewish.
The first six years of a child's life, it is like a tape recorder is on. Everything it sees, smells, touches, experiences in any way, whatever it hears, is being downloaded into the brain before the consciousness of the child is even made apparent.
I really, really love being on stage now.
I realized my dream and was proud to be a Superstar. I never won a title, but being hired by WWE and being a Superstar, to me, was like winning a championship.
I've never had to do anything I didn't believe in. Sometimes that meant being poor and waitressing a while longer, but I've always stuck with it.
I understand if everyone looking at me is seeing a Jew and seeing me as a kind of 'other.' But I can't be expected to see myself that way. That is, to me, Jewish is the normal way to be; it's not a type of being.
I wanted to be an actress. I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time my dad would stand up to talk people would applaud... that was pretty cool.
There is nothing to be said for being crippled. You don't see the world better or clearer, nor do you develop some special set of skills by way of compensation.
I went to work in accounting at Arthur Andersen. At one point, it was the creme de la creme. I wanted to work there because it looked like the hardest thing I could find, and I loved being on a steep learning curve. I progressed quickly, and two years out of college, I was managing a small team of people.
Being a full-time mother is one of the biggest jobs in the world; it's like another career for me. I love every moment of it - even the challenge of making cupcakes.
A friend of my mother's, Irene Lopez, was a Spanish dancer. She saw me bopping around the room and said to my mother, 'Rosita might have talent. Can I take her to my dance teacher?' There was no thought of a career at that time, but I knew I loved the attention, and that's so much a part of being a performer.
Anna Deavere Smith's new one-woman show bills itself as being about health care, but the truth is that 'Let Me Down Easy' is mostly about the grimmer subject of death and dying.
I think a lot of times we think of music as being different from other art forms. You would never ask a sculptor or painter, 'Go paint this because you'll get paid more,' you know what I mean?
I don't like a class system. I don't like the idea of being in a different class than other people.
I had some years of definite frustration. Auditioning and not working as much as I would have liked to, or working and being paid a pittance, and sort of scrounging by in New York and sleeping on a chair that folded out into a bed.
Everybody knows about Peter Jackson, 'The Hobbit' movies and 'The Lord of the Rings' films being made in New Zealand, and to actually have been part of it for such a long period, to live there and to have friends that I will have for life because of that experience, is an amazing thing.
Whether it's possible or not, being a doctor, you take an oath. To care for your patient, not to kill them. You take an oath to do things that are proper in the medical world. Not to administer something outside of a hospital setting that's not even your area.
Christians are increasingly being punished for the free exercise of their faith and for standing on God's Word and holding to biblical convictions about sin. This is especially apparent with the gay lobby.
There is something about being people from your home country in a different country. It bonds you together.
I had a reputation of being somewhat moderate, partly, I think, because I wasn't a 'bomb thrower' like some of my conservative colleagues, and partly because I got along with people all across the political spectrum.
