I became a soldier, not because I had a military vocation initially, but because it was the only way that that young, poor-class child from the provinces could go to the center of the country: through baseball, which was my dream.
In the '70s, the newspaper guild managed to get people paid what they were worth, but the reporters suddenly became middle class. It's much more respectable, more uptight, and everyone speaks in guarded tones. And the writing isn't as good. We always had guys who were failed poets and failed novelists who did it to eat.
Before I became famous I had a very full life, and that gave me a lot to pick from. I always use everything. It always comes in handy. Working with animals... Well, I just enjoyed that. That was the most peaceful time.
When I became director of CIA, it was just clear to me intuitively, without a whole lot of science behind it, that we had expanded rapidly and inefficiently. So I arbitrarily picked a number, 10 percent, and I said over the next 12 months, we are going to reduce our reliance on contractors by 10 percent.
I became popular very young. I viewed myself as just a young actor trying to figure out how to do well, and, you know, making mistakes and learning and growing.
I was a very nerdy child. I never fit in, so I became laboriously studious.
I didn't like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I'm trying to get back to.
The rise to prominence of the Saudi novel in Arabic is the great man-bites-dog of recent world literature. Saudi Arabia is a country without a free press, where European styles and forms are distrusted and where the female half of the population became literate only in this generation.
After Le Havre, I became the youngest player in the first division in Reunion. I made my debut at 16. That's how I got spotted by Nantes.
I became an actor by accident. I suppose I figured since I was in musical comedy from the time I was a teenager, I suppose I figured that I'd always been in that world to some extent.
I always imagined myself somehow as an electron around some atom, and you're just, like, bouncing around and spinning. There was a never-ending supply of places to go, people to see, things to do, and fitting it all in became kind of an art.
People have said I can come off a little trial-lawyerish. I tell people I never actually became a lawyer, but I play one at City Hall.
I don't know one actor that became an actor for healthy reasons.
The music I listened to as a kid - the Stones, the Beatles - that was so rebellious at the time, it became mainstream.
I could easily say that, for quite a long time before I became mayor, I had obeyed all laws.
I first noticed my varicose veins when I was pregnant with my second child, and I'd always thought that it was something that affected older, inactive people. I looked at my lifestyle and thought, 'I can't be a candidate for this.' Eventually, the pain became something I couldn't ignore.
E-mail, when it became mobile - what happened? Utilization of email went through the roof. Just pure Internet access and data - what happens when you mobilize it? Multiples. People are dependent upon broadband and as you mobilize it, they become even more dependent on broadband.
My hardest thing was to let go, to be happy for everybody and just to enjoy. And go back to being what you were before you became an artist, and that was just a fan.
I won't say I've never felt in Alex Salmond's shadow, but latterly, when Alex was leader, I didn't. It's more about my awareness of the fact I became First Minister during a parliamentary term. That means you're First Minister, but you haven't been elected in your own right as First Minister.
I realised I'd been spoiled at Liverpool. We were used to winning. In Italy I grew up as a person. I didn't enjoy the football, mind. It was very defensive, but I became a better player because of the work I had to do around the box. Off the pitch, I learned about what to eat and what to drink to be successful, and I learned about life.
I started training with school friends and, one by one, they all dropped out. When we became teenagers, it seemed more exciting to go shopping at weekends. My mum told me not to worry about what my friends were doing and to stick at it.
In 1924, I became a Dozent in Gottingen and worked out the quantum mechanics during a holiday stay on Heligoland.
In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.
And after my mother's death I became more open to and empathetic about other people's struggles and losses.
Both Kennedy and Obama exuded a dash of glamour in their roles as commander-in-chief and became the darlings of Hollywood. As president, each brought to the White House a fashionable and accomplished First Lady, two adorable young children and scene-stealing pets.
Before I became a full-time writer, I worked in tech support in those giant cubicle farms you see. I was surrounded by people who played video games all the time - sometimes actually in the call centers, playing online multiplayer games. I saw friends of mine who began to feel that going online was more compelling to them than real life.
I sort of fall in love with every character I do; you have to understand how they became what they've become, whether they're the ugly kind or the very beautiful kinds of characters.
Every time I want to impress someone about samples and hip-hop, I play 'Portrait of Tracy.' It's one of the greatest bass players ever doing a whole composition with only the two harmonics of electric bass; then a three-second loop in it became every great R&B song in five-year intervals.
I just became what I call an 'anti-fascist novelist.' There is no word that covers both the fascists and the Communists, which mean different things to people, but of course they're the same: they're tyranny states.
Rock and roll's relatively new, in the sense of the Fifties, Sixties, right? They invented the first sort of rock stars, and they took it to excess, and then the excess became bitter, tormented. Then it became okay to succeed.
I was never really comfortable doing comedy. Though it was good the first couple of years, there were problems, and it became a stifling experience. I was happy it ended.
It became clear I wanted to be a development economist. I mean, I said I wanted to work on the economics of poor countries. And I'd actually say that I don't think that was so much about narrowing the gap as about increasing their incomes, which means economic growth, which is really my prime interest.
Universal background checks work. You keep the guns out of the hands of dangerous people. That shouldn't be partisan - that should be something we can all agree to, but it became this huge battle and, you know, really, really a challenge.
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.
I had this story that had been banging around in my head and I thought, 'I'll just see if there's anything there.' So I wrote a few chapters of the book that became 'Year of Wonders,' and lucky for me it found its readers.
