I hated high school and got to college and realized they didn't care if I showed up because I'd already paid. So I decided, 'I'm going to turn this around.' And I did: I got straight A's and was named 'outstanding senior.'
My job requires me to put on a little dress and run around the streets of New York in heels. But I also had the financial means to hire a yoga teacher to come to my house while my sitter watched the newborn. For 95 percent of the world, that's not realistic.
I had very literal parents and I wanted to survive with metaphor and art, and there was a real sense of shame around it.
I've been around all kinds of people, defense attorneys, working with cops, working with politicians, both sides of the aisle, including Democrats as former first lady of San Francisco, and the Republicans, too, so I've had a front row seat to lots of things in life.
There's no continuity in videos... you can jump around all over the place. In features, you can't throw in a close-up of a musician stomping on a guitar - you have to film a scene.
If you don't find time to meditate and get all that negative out, and if you don't have the right people being positive around you, this is a very scary job to have if you don't learn how to control your fear.
When I was younger, I did my first audition at 'Eurovision.' I was about 17. After my first audition, I blacked out; I was just like, 'I can't do this.' I'm not knocking it or anything - it's been around for years. I'm just very, very happy I made that decision myself. I think that's one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Around 10, I got chubby. I knew I'd crossed a line when the only pants that fit were from the 'Junior Plenty' line at JC Penny. My parents had split up, my mom was going through a dark time, and my brother and I were getting bullied in our new neighborhood. Life was big and unsafe.
I'd like to think that every captain around the world has a vision of how they want their teams to play and most of them are allowed to take their teams forward in their own way.
I sailed a bit as a child, but it wasn't until I was around 40, when I was halfway through Patrick O'Brian's 'Master and Commander' novels, that I had the sudden epiphany that I had to go sail on a square-rig ship.
I first met Bev Shea while in Chicago when he was on Moody Radio. As a young man starting my ministry, I asked Bev if he would join me. He said yes, and for over 60 years we had the privilege of ministering together across the country and around the world.
I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.
In high school, my prom date fooled around with another guy - on prom night!
Owning a bookstore was right up there with acting in life goals, but other than swaggering around the store, I'm not much use.
When I was young, I loved a series of books by an author called Maud Hart Lovelace and the series, which is still around, I'm happy to say, is - they're the 'Betsy-Tacy' books.
I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people's signals.
Being a small boy it's very daunting seeing the Queen around and not really quite knowing what to talk about.
I will not accept a role just because a big hero stars in it. I am not here to merely dance, run around trees, and be a glam doll.
I've been touring a lot, and I don't always know how to get around. Google Maps on the iPhone is pretty helpful with that.
On the good days, my mother would haul out the ukulele and we'd sit around the kitchen table - it was a cardboard table with a linoleum top - and sing.
Real heroes are all around us and uncelebrated.
I think it gets overused and tossed around in ways that aren't true. Every impressive achievement is not genius.
I think perfect dates involve walking a lot, and not a bunch of driving around in cars. Ideally, you can walk together and go to a restaurant, and then walk from there to another nice place - this is, I guess, because of really great dates that I've had with my wife here in Portland.
We can't sit around waiting for big government, big business, big religion etc. to save us. We need to get informed and take inspired action.
I think my mom and dad have an incredible work ethic, and we've grown up around it.
As winter weather settles in around the country, millions of American families are facing skyrocketing home heating prices with even greater impact if cold temperatures persist into the spring.
I think Carmelo is a great player. He makes players around him better. Whatever thing, whatever Carmelo wants me to do, I will do that out on the court just to prove that I'm worthy enough to be on the court with him, starting with the dirty jobs - just getting rebounds, getting shots, getting blocks, and just running the court.
The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves.
I don't care what town you're born in, what city, what country. If you're a child, you are curious about your environment. You're overturning rocks. You're plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, looking inside, and you're doing things that create disorder in the lives of the adults around you.
If parents could just get their children moving around in the most simple and fun ways - jumping in leaves, dancing to pop music, throwing socks in a laundry basket - they could be sowing the seeds of great habits that could last a lifetime. It is all about turning it into a game.
I didn't intend 'Hector' to be a self-help book when I first started writing. I wrote it as a little tale about a psychiatrist, like me, who sets off around the world in order to discover the vital ingredients for happiness.
Maybe you could put it out there that I don't have a built-in dislike of ballads. That was kind of the reputation I had back in the Seventies. But I've come around. Ballads have become something of an acquired taste.
When I first signed to RCA, I was sort of excited and shocked that it was happening. But over the next couple of years, it really started to feel like that game you play when you're a little kid - the one where you put your nose on a bat and then spin around and try to walk.
Some people look at big things, and other people look at very small things, but in a sense, we're all trying to understand the world around us.
I was born in California and moved around a lot. When I was 17, I moved to Boston because my mom got a job there. The moment I went to Boston, everything just felt right and fell into place on how I wanted it to be.
Kofi Annan was the U.N. Under-Secretary General for peacekeeping operations. He had the responsibilities in regards to the mounting and operation of peacekeeping missions around the world.
