When he was running, my thinking was, 'I can't believe my governor is running for president.' By the end of Clinton's first year in office, I was like, 'Wow, I must not be a Democrat.'
My first match was against Razor Ramon. I lost. Come to think about it, I lost a lot back in those days.
My first job after graduating was working with Robert Zemeckis. I got a job a week after graduating and moving to L.A. So I got to work on 'What Lies Beneath' and 'Castaway' as a PA, which is basically like a gopher.
Business people do two things with their time fundamentally. The first is that they try to create sales, right? Revenue, key to business. But the other thing they devote their time to equally is cost containment. That is to say, how to not create jobs. Because the fewer jobs you can create for the revenue you create, the more profit you make.
I grew up watching foreign programs - American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.
I can remember 1987 when I had my first amateur fight in Michigan, weighing 64lb. I was 10 years old. I was the youngest and smallest guy on my team. I can remember what I ate. There was this restaurant called Ponderosa, and my dad made me eat a steak. I was happy. It was a first round knockout. I slept with my trophy for two weeks.
When I got on stage, I would have a rush of adrenaline; everybody gets it. Normally after the first night it becomes more controllable, and as long as I could ride the wave, I was still in charge.
I look forward to the day when being called 'another Monica Lewinsky' refers to the hard work behind a master's degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics, after spending the first act of one's life deflecting the shame of a scandal that should have rested on the shoulders of a man old enough to have known better.
Why don't men like to stop and ask directions? This question, which I first addressed in my 1990 book 'You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation', garnered perhaps the most attention of any issue or insight in that book.
It's always nice working with friends. And if you have a director that you've worked with before, you don't have to go through that first learning thing. There's an element of trust there.
When AIDS first appeared, people didn't know what it was. You'll remember that it affected mostly young gay men - it was actually called GRID for a short period of time: Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Syndrome - and people thought it actually might be recreational drugs or other types of toxins.
Now, I admire The Sims as a game, but from a story viewpoint, there are two glaring problems. First, your relationship with those characters is like they're bugs in a jar. There's no empathy. And secondly, you've got this clunky, chemistry-set interface between you and them, with bars to show how tired or angry they are. It's all tell not show.
Before I write the first page of a novel, I spend a long time creating detailed backgrounds for my characters. I imagine the experiences that have formed them, what makes them happy, angry, fearful, and what they yearn for.
When I meet people for the first time, I'm friendly but shy. I'm much less outwardly nervous than I used to be, but I still get anxious sometimes.
When I was 12, I first made the decision to go vegetarian after a co-star's line 'I don't eat anything with a face' suddenly shocked me into reality.
As a former Airman First Class in the United States Air Force, like many veterans in America, my military experience played an important part in instilling in me a sense of character and discipline that has served me throughout my life.
If you have a difficult message to deliver in any circumstance, it's always best to do it first up-front, and probably be a bit harder than you have to be because it's always easier to be nicer afterwards.
When I first came to Los Angeles, I was a teacher in Compton. I know how in need schools are around the country.
Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.
I research every possible bit of information I can find. Then I use about a tenth of it. But I have to know all the information first; otherwise, I'm not going to convince myself, and if I can't convince myself, then I'm not going to convince the reader.
My mom and I would make bracelets and necklaces, and I would sell it in the first, second, and third grades because that was my lunch money.
We did a student-initiated project of 'A Little Night Music', which was the first time that all of the divisions - music, dance, drama, opera - came together and put on a piece. It was a black box kind of feel. We had to get costumes that were pieced together. We had our own lighting that we finagled.
I was gone so much in my first marriage. I love the moments when I engage with my youngest daughter now. It's not my thing to sit on the ground and play tea party, but I'll do it because it's a moment that will stick with me forever.
With shorter clubs, your ball position should be just back of middle, to really promote hitting the ball first on a downward strike.
The Janus-like nature of innovation - its responsible use and so on - was evident at the very birth of human ingenuity, when humankind first discovered how to make fire on demand.
When I first finished 'Sharpe,' it was hard to get work because people only saw me as him.
I'm an internet junkie. There, I said it. That's the first step, right? I also have a thing for making lists. Oh man, nothing beats turning to a fresh, clean page in a notebook, taking out a nice pen, and starting a list. There's so much potential there. So much to do, so little time! So hey, why not spend some of that time making a list.
I don't classify myself as the first space tourist because I wasn't as though I paid and had a holiday out of it - although I had a fab time.
I believe it is called 'Area 51' because of a project, the very first project that went on out there, in 1951.
Forty-five years since I made my first paycheck, and I'm telling you that 'Breaking Bad' is as good as it gets.
I had my first concert in front of 80,000 people at the International Soca Monarch Finals.
I was pregnant with my daughter when I started writing my first thriller, so I guess you could blame hormones.
My first job was to run a concessions cart. Later, I found a position at the Pacific Film Archive. Thus began a long series of jobs, each one slightly better than the last, that continued for a decade, until I sold my first novel, and still goes on, even now.
It was good to launch the economy in the '50s. Japan did this; China did this; even South Korea did this. All the East Asians did this - import substitution. I think all countries followed import substitution in the '50s and in the '60s, but I think by the '70s, countries were getting out of that first phase of the strategy.
The first intimation I had that the Yankees were for sale was through an item to that effect in the newspapers. The idea instantly occurred to me that here was a prospect to become interested in a major-league club at home.
I think what 'Saw' did was really open up a huge branch of lots of these other movies that ultimately retroactively gave the first 'Saw' somewhat of a negative reputation.