In China, inaugurations are frequent affairs, though they have nothing to do with presidents. A news cycle rarely passes without some fanfare over the inaugural ride on a new subway line or the inaugural trip across an unusually large bridge.
The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too - eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway - I was a sandwich artist - and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.
I'd been living on the streets of New York, and I was sleeping at my friends' houses, sometimes in the subway.
I started reading G. K. Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday' on a subway ride, almost missed my stop, and walked home thumbing pages.
It's hard to absorb and to allow all that attention and accolades for 'Rent' because the rest of the country doesn't know who we are. Once I walk out of the door of 'Rent,' and I'm on the subway, it doesn't matter. It's an exaggerated sense of fame.
Listening to hard rock on the subway doesn't work for me, especially modern hard rock. Driving in L.A. helped me to understand the appeal of that music.
The weird thing about the subway is no one looks at each other. So I play the O2 in London. It's a 20,000 capacity venue, and then I'll take the subway to my gig, and everyone's going to my gig, and no one looks at you. If anyone does, they say, 'Hey, you look exactly like James Blunt, only smaller.'
I like romantic dates - going on a long walk in Central Park and then taking the subway downtown and going out to eat and ordering oysters. After that, you walk around again and talk.
I wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in high school. I could eavesdrop on a lot more conversations on the subway if I knew Spanish.
Believe it or not, I've never been on the subway.
I used to play in the subway. If everyone tossed in a quarter, at the end of the day it would add up. It shows you aren't invisible. And it's better than being ignored, or kicked in the head, or worse.
If I have open time, and I'm in Manhattan, I'll just walk to wherever I'm going, even if I could get there faster on the subway. I just love walking the streets of New York.
It's not like it's hard to be decent and respectful and well-behaved. I do wait in line, and I do take the subway, and I do do my own grocery shopping, and I do take the kids to school.
I love New York. I first came here with my Mom when I was in 9th grade. I took the subway for the first time and the doors closed between me and my Mom, and I was so scared. I could see her through the window and I didn't know what to do. I got off at the next stop and she caught up to me, but I couldn't stop crying.
I was, I think, extremely lucky, because the minute I saw my face plastered on 'Time' magazine in the subway with my mother, I just said, 'Wow.' And it made 'Time' magazine come down to life-size scale.
During the morning rush hour on March 20, 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo placed packages on five subway trains converging on Tokyo's central station. When punctured, the packages spread vaporized Sarin through the subway cars and then into the stations as the trains pulled in.
Having to wake up at seven and go take the subway every morning, having to get over there with all these commuters and see every possible face of humanity and realizing that you're just the same as these other people is actually an amazingly positive thing.
With a track like 'White Christmas,' everybody has done that song in every format you can imagine, so I just looked at the chords at that particular song and what chords would make it work. That's kind of quite a sad song, and I had this idea of someone singing it in the subway, someone who is homeless, old and sad.
I can be unkind to someone in the street or in the subway - I'm a bad-tempered person - but I'm unable to be unkind to a character. They exist because of me, and I have responsibility for them.
It was weird. Like, people came up to me and knew me as Daredevil before any footage had come out. I remember a guy on the subway being like, 'You're Charlie Cox. You're Daredevil.' And I was like, 'Yeah...?' I was barely Daredevil. I hadn't even signed the contract, you know?
When you're directed by social media, I think it's very easy to lose a sense of agency. And you can see it when you go to any subway station, you walk down any street in a city, you will see 70-80 percent of people staring into their phones as they walk or stand.
What I learned at that moment on the subway 30 years ago, staring at my blank passport, was this: If you have an impulse to do something, and it's not totally irresponsible, why not do it? It might just be the journey you've always needed.
My older brother was a musical prodigy, and he got a scholarship to the Bronx House Music School. We moved to the Bronx when I was 4 to be close to his music school. Then I got a music scholarship myself, at the age of 6, but that was for a school down in Greenwich Village. I had to take the elevated train and then the subway to get there.
It's funny, I never considered that people are going to see me on the show and maybe stop me on the subway.
In New York you can just walk out and be among people. You're on the subway among people, you go to cafes, you can talk to people.
People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.
I've been working on 'The New York Times' crossword puzzle on the subway. I can make it until about Wednesday.
I only come up with things when I am talking to myself, which I do constantly. The sidewalk and the subway are the best places for this. I speak at full volume and then laugh at myself if I like what I just said.
When I was little, I had concerts on the subway, and old ladies came up to me like, 'You are so good!'
There are a lot of artists in Gowanus, and certain things come into your visual vocabulary from living there - the scale of the subway and the canal, sometimes it almost looks like a de Chirico painting, with the intense angles of the shadows and everything.
Craig Newmark looks like the kind of guy who would help you move your apartment, sell your furniture, get a job, or help you find that cute girl you saw on the subway.
I'm constantly warning people that are involved in my life that I can go busk and make a living. I can make my rent in New York City in the subway, I promise, if I'm forced to.
When I came into office, people said, 'Billionaire? How do they live? What do they eat? How do they sleep?' Today, they see me on the subway coming uptown. A couple of people say hi, some people smile and nod. Some people just sleep. It's not an issue.
When I was modeling in Japan, I could blend in a little because of my hair, but my roommates with blonde hair got harassed. People would touch their hair and grope them in the subway. Actually, a lot of groping happens in the subway in Japan, but that's probably true of subways everywhere.
I always feel like people in general are much weirder and insane than anybody really wants to admit. How dare somebody watch anything and go, 'That's not real!' Go on the subway. For five minutes.
Whether a plane to Singapore, a subway in Manhattan, or the streets of Cincinnati, I search for meaningful conversation wherever I may travel. Without it, I believe we lose the ability to not only understand others, but more importantly, ourselves.