Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.
I think being an athlete prepares you for more things than people give us credit for.
The odds against there being a bomb on a plane are a million to one, and against two bombs a million times a million to one. Next time you fly, cut the odds and take a bomb.
At 10, I could walk down the street and see over everybody's head. I don't remember being little or having to look up at people. I think I was born 5 feet 10. It's not that I felt especially tall. I was wondering when everybody else was going to catch up.
Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
In finding love, I think it's important to be patient. In being in a relationship, I think it's important to be honest, to communicate, to respect and trust, and to strive to give more than you take.
Growing up, when we would get dragged to these events, I didn't want to be there. Over time, as we got older, I developed a real appreciation of the importance of being involved in the democratic process.
We are only puppets, our strings are being pulled by unknown forces.
I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others.
In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.
It's good to experience Hollywood in short bursts, I guess. Little snippets. I don't think I can handle being here all the time, it's pretty nutty.
When I was young, I dreamt of being a starlet in Hollywood. But there comes a point in every African American's life when you realize the limitations, that you could only play maids or some little supporting role. Even Lena Horne couldn't get good parts.
My entire life has been an attempt to get back to the kind of feelings you have on a field. The sense of brotherhood, the esprit de corps, the focus - there being no past or future, just the ball. As trite as it sounds, I was happiest playing ball.
When you're playing jazz, you have to somehow overcome that feeling of being intimidated because your aim is to portray that freedom in what you're playing.
I'm very happy being me, although sometimes I'd love to be a bird so that I could fly.
Marriage commissioners who choose not to marry homosexuals are being fired. A Knights of Columbus chapter in British Columbia is in court because it chooses not allow a lesbian group to use its facility for marriage ceremonies. The list goes on.
If I could live a parallel life, I would be a sitcom star; being in front of a live audience would be great.
Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.
I think about and study people. I think I make people uneasy sometimes by being so curious as to why they do what they do. I find myself thinking about this fairly obsessively, and I can't stop until I've found an answer.
Our accepting what we are must always inhibit our being what we ought to be.
After having acted in films down south, I always wanted to work on the small screen but couldn't say yes to everything that was being offered to me.
There's very little about being in a functional-M.R.I. scanner that is natural: you are flat on your back, absolutely still, with your head immobilized by pillows and straps. The scanner makes a dreadful din, which headphones barely muffle.
I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.
I'm not afraid of being fired, and I'm gonna speak my mind.
The big things in the average person's life are the romances that they have - and then the destruction and loss of them. Parents, siblings, children, the death of parents, family tension... these are monumental things. They struck me as being interesting to write about. I didn't have a very exotic life, but all this stuff happened to me.
Being an author of banned books is cool, I've decided.
I love that my fans are cool with me being lovey-dovey about my wife rather than pretending that I'm single and trying to act all sexy onstage.
Being a mother is the ultimate training ground for anything.
I can't imagine being on one of those shows where people have to look nice.
Being authentic can be a good thing in that often people who are fixated on that are also fixated on having very high standards, so they may maintain something they think has tremendous value. On the other hand, most of the kinds of music that I've been excited about are hybrid in their origins.
I'm just being me on Instagram, and that's what I love about it. It's definitely personal, and it's, like, no one in my team would ever get my password for my Instagram. Like, that's a no-no.
Playing the role of Christ was like being in a prison. It was the hardest part I've ever had to play in my life. I couldn't smoke or drink in public. I couldn't.
The Comedy Central CDs combined with the TV specials are what led to my stuff being traded and passed around, and a lot more people knowing my jokes than I thought.
All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it's impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn't left an imprint through the generations.
Sight and touch, being thus increased in capacity, might belong to some species far superior to man; or rather the human species would be far different had all the senses been thus improved.
I love being a mother. I loved being a daughter, a sister, a wife. I love being a woman with men. I love having given birth.
