I had studied piano since I was 13, but I was surrounded by students who'd been playing since they were 5. I realized I was never going to be anything but mediocre.
When we're playing, when we're really, really going... you're just in the moment. You're not thinking about yesterday, tomorrow, or anything else. The brain gets out of the way. Your body just does what it knows how to do, and it's just... it's like a religion.
I'm the youngest of five kids, and I wanted attention. And in Santa Barbara, there was lots of theater going on, so for that area, it was a little bit like playing Little League baseball. There were dance classes, theater classes, and I just loved it.
Never having played Chess before, it was most interesting to be playing the game with no pieces in front of me. But I still knew how to stroke my hair when I won.
If somebody would come and they're not playing music, they would encounter certain people on another level.
It's important that athletes can compete on a level playing field. And youngsters coming into the sport can know that if they are working hard and training hard, they'll see a true reflection of where they stand and what they can achieve worldwide and not be swayed by people who are cheating.
Even when I wasn't playing, I always had a smile on my face because if I acted sad or mad, it wouldn't help me.
I've always been in rock bands. I was in a rock band with my brother in high school. Then I was playing classical guitar recitals, and people said, 'You know, you can't really do both things.' My intuition told me they were wrong. Somehow, what was interesting about me was that I had those two things in my life.
I toyed with the idea of playing Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante defunte' but I couldn't remember if it's a tune or Latin prescription for piles.
What's interesting about playing Maura is that I get to use more of Jeffrey that I've ever used in any role, and I think that's the remarkable part about it and truly the most surprising part about doing this role.
From meeting Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, teaming up, rehearsing, playing selected gigs outside of Britain, coming back into Olympic Studios to record the first album, and then going to America, which we crack open like a nut with the debut record - all that happened, literally, within months.
Theron says that she was intrigued by the psychological demands of the material in playing the complicated 'Queen Ravenna', and Stewart's performance as 'Snow White', the fairest of them all, in her first action-heroine role, kept her literally in constant motion.
The game of baseball is better when the Dodgers are playing well, just like when the Yankees are playing well, or the Cubs, the Phillies, the big-name teams.
I know that, as a bisexual, sometimes people who are gay or lesbian look down upon the bisexual community as well and assume that people who are bisexual just don't know what they want or are just playing both sides of the fence, and that's not the case, either.
My foundation is acoustic guitar, and it is finger-picking and all of that and sort of an orchestral style of playing. Lead guitar came later, more out of the necessity to do so because of expectations in a particular situation.
All we lived for was playing and being out on the road. That was our dream, and it came true.
I love playing music, so I think the whole John Varvatos look is kind of cool. I think he has a great style.
One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you're allowed to fail.
Governments should end the extreme concentration of wealth in order to end poverty. This means tackling tax dodging but also increasing taxes on wealth and high incomes to ensure a more level playing field and generate the billions of dollars needed to invest in healthcare, education, and job creation.
I've always been happy playing in Kansas City.
When you're playing the good guy, you want to find the dirty parts - and when you're playing the bad guy, you want to find the vulnerability.
I started playing street hockey, but there were tennis courts near my house, and it was my father who suggested I try. I don't really know why.
I wake up in the morning, and I go, 'I'm Doctor Who! I'm playing Doctor Who. I'm Doctor Who.'
I grew up in Europe, and soccer was the first organized game I played. When we moved back to the U.S. in the middle of 4th grade, I switched to American football and stopped playing competitively until college, when I played intramurals.
I've always been a fan of issues around race and racialism, and I've loved playing with it. People act as though it isn't an issue, but it's a recurring theme in our lives globally.
It's great to be able to continue my career in Chicago. Playing with the best organization in sports and the best fans in the game is a blessing.
I've had a fantastic career playing great parts. In many ways, the colour of my skin has been an asset because I've been asked to play certain roles as a result. I don't apologise for playing them anymore than Robert de Niro is sorry for playing American-Italians.
When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.
I had this wild imagination. I was never me. All my childhood photos, I'm in fancy dress, playing a Russian refuge or Marvelous Mad Madam Mim.
I feel that World Cup cricket should be played like football in which all the 160 countries take part. If only a handful of countries are going to keep on playing in the World Cup without making the game popular, I will be a sad man.
The fact of the matter is that an actor, if I'm playing a performance capture role and you're playing a live action role and we're having a scene together, there's no difference in our acting processes.
I do not think I reinvent myself. Wearing my hair differently or changing my style of dress is playing dress-up. I don't take it too seriously.
I am not a cop. Really. I've just been playing one on television so long that people get a little confused sometimes.
It's my privilege to work with an actor like Vikram who gets into the skin of the character he is playing, so much so that after the shoot it takes him quite some time to get back to his real self.
I'm a natural piano player. So all the practicing I do at this point is in my head. If I don't play for a year, my chops aren't going to get any worse. I've spent my time playing scales, and I don't necessarily want to play any faster than I play. So everything I do at this point is more philosophical.
I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball.
