My mom had done some TV and commercials before I was born, and so when I was born, she knew I had a really big interest in acting because I was always acting in plays with my dolls, and they were sort of boring, because I've seen them on tape; they always involved a lot of singing and dragging them around by their hair.
My goal in the classroom was always to make sure they were having so much fun that they didn't realize they were learning.
You can't control where you were born, the family you were born into, what you look like; you can't control any of those circumstances. The only thing you can control is how you react.
I've done things that weren't good, you know, but I made up for my mistakes.
Before I was elected to Congress, I helped to create the public corruption unit in the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Unfortunately, business was good. Among the usual suspects were government contracts steered to insiders - leaving Illinois taxpayers holding the bag.
When we announced that we were going to support Bitcoin companies, we became a great lightning rod for activity and fun.
The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.
We know that after September 11, there were still terrorists around. We do get continuing information that they're intent on causing some damage and harm to not only U.S. interests but allied interests.
Family trips to Yellowstone and to what are now national parks in Southern Utah, driving the primitive roads and cars of that day, were real adventures.
I remember growing up thinking that astronauts and their job was the coolest thing you could possibly do... But I absolutely couldn't identify with the people who were astronauts. I thought they were movie stars.
If someone were to actually come to one of our training sessions, there's lots of flipping and sweating and crying and blood going on all over the place. I mean, if that doesn't qualify it as a sport, then I don't know what does.
I think, for sure, 'Saturday Night Fever' and 'Pulp Fiction' were kind of bookends for - or the pillars of - my career.
Mum and I were delighted to find out we were descended from 'bog-trotters.'
The thing is when I started doing standup, you had to have a clean act because that's how you got on television. There weren't all these cable shows. Also, I didn't want to have that kind of act in case my family came to see me or my kid one day.
I was shooting for a Telugu film at the Taj Mahal in Agra, and there were all these women and children pointing and screaming, 'Rowdy Rathore.' But I am not really 'Rowdy Rathore.' I am the guy who did the original version of 'Rowdy Rathore' six years ago.
Most citizens viewing the tape of Rodney G. King being beaten by police officers were stunned and uncomprehending. Most citizens, that is, but the urban poor.
These wealthy people were very interested in contemporary music. They wanted to help diffuse it and get it to be known to other people.
I love looking at the old Bond films. Maybe it's purely out of reminiscence, the nostalgic things you think about. But there were some very good films made, and I think that the public has enjoyed them, too.
For me, I grew up in a house doing charity work for homeless people, and my parents had a lot of homeless friends. We were always taught to not discriminate and not judge.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized 120 saints of China, 87 of whom were ethnically Chinese. My home church was incredibly excited because this was the first time the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged Chinese citizens in this way.
I wish that the circuses that were around now felt like they did then. They're not quite as elegant or as magical as they used to be. There was something about the old tent shows, the Big Top, the canvas, the lights, the sawdust, the hay and the animals that's just missing now. Now, it's all urbanized and maybe a little garish.
My dad worked three jobs and was a teacher. My mother was a teacher's aid, making, like, $3 an hour. My father went on to get his master's and became active in all these minority engineering programs. And my mother started running for public office. All that happened after the kids were adults. But I'm insanely proud of them.
All songs, all pieces of art, reflect the world that they were made in and the values of those artists and the hopes and aspirations of the people who listen to that music and who made that music.
We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the '60s. But I found it impossible to hold a dialogue with 500,000 people. In a certain sense, it was numbing.
Charles Darwin sailed around the world for two years on the 'Beagle,' and he had quite a bit of interest in things like the iguanas of the Galapagos, even though they were primitive compared to your average Englishman.
Where the assets of Facebook were hype, we have real assets.
When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.
All of the First Ladies were good, creative and strong. I've always said they should be paid.
All my work comes from perceiving. I kept seeing things that were brooding in me. I'm not a geometric artist.
I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I'm actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons.
Words originating from the verb 'to die' were frequently used when I described my initial plans to determine the ribosome structure.
I think the feeling was that 'Venture Brothers' really has something to sell in terms of a feature. 'Aqua Teen' is an element minute cartoon, and its very subversive and non sequitur and weird. We were writing the one show where we were constantly like, 'God, I wish we had another hour to tell this story.' It seemed like a natural fit.
I don't ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It's like, 'Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.'
I think if my child died I would prefer it if I were dead.
I was on Instagram or something, and I checked my tagged photos, and I realized that suddenly they were all LGBT artwork. I was like, 'Oh, my God!' I had no idea. It was the first time I realized I was a figure for that community.
My mother turned 40 in 1973. So in 1970 - when 'The Female Eunuch' came out and Ms. magazine was founded - my mom was 37 with two children, and she was just that little bit too old, and the circumstances of her life were set up in a certain way that for her to fulfill her ambitions and dreams, she would have had to break with the family.
