I'm glad I made business investments, because it gave me the confidence financially to make brave choices. If I hadn't done that, I'd still have been trying to play 19-year-olds in films. I know there are other avenues for me.
The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault.
I wanted to be involved in TV and film in some capacity, so a compromise, because acting seemed unrealistic, and so risky, was to get into the production side. And it was a really fortunate, smart move looking back on it, because it gave me perspecti...
I didn't do a movie until I was almost 30. I'm grateful for that because it gave me a chance to be an adult in the world and do work in the regional theater that very few people cared about. I loved it and I wanted to do that stuff.
Now, I had been drawing all this time - especially in France of course - so, when I came back, my father gave me the chance to do a cover for one of the books he published.
There were a lot of negatives, of course, but there were positives to living a life unfettered by possessions. It gave us the chance to focus on education, which was very important in the Soviet Union.
What Bill Clinton did to us was cruel. The White House gave my attorneys indications that there was a good chance for my clemency to be granted. I had to prepare myself for being released because there was no sign that my petition would be denied.
Style is innate to who I am. My father gave me a picture the other day. I must have been about seven, and I had on wing-tip shoes and some cool pants. I thought, 'Wow!'
My mom was really cool. She's the one that gave me the mentality about believing in myself and trusting it, that I was always gonna be okay, and that I could do things in a special way. She just pumped me up, you know?
We support too big to fail. We want the government to be able to take down a big bank like JP Morgan and it could be done. We think Dodd-Frank, which we supported parts of, gave the FDIC the authority to take down a big bank.
The mistake the apartheid government made was they gave the black people nothing, so they had nothing to lose. But now a lot of the former freedom-fighters are big-time capitalists. They've been given directorships in every major company. They're bil...
SARS was a very important event... And many countries have learned from SARS... The SARS event sort of gave them additional impetus and the sense of urgency for them to really revise the International Health Regulations.
We go to college, live together or marry, and have kids - often with little more thought to the daily routines of raising children than our grandparents gave them, when women by and large stayed at home.
Oh, mercy, I think we're all storytellers, you know. You think of the excuses you told your parents for why you got home late. I just never gave it up.
I lost my mother and my brother when I was 15 in two separate car accidents. I was doing well at school. I was a good sportsperson, but at that point, I gave up on all of those things that were there to be done. I couldn't deal with them.
There's not a day that goes by that I don't bless myself with holy water and then get in my car and rub the medal of the Virgin Mary that she gave me and say a Hail Mary for my mother. And then I kiss her Mass card that's right there on the dashboard...
My first publication was a haiku in a children's magazine when I was 9 years old. I received one dollar for it! I gave the check to my dad for Christmas, and he framed it and hung it over his desk.
My parents couldn't give me a whole lot of financial support, but they gave me good genes. My dad is a handsome son-of-a-gun, and my mom is beautiful. And I've definitely been the lucky recipient. So, thank you, Mom and Dad.
I picked Dad's guitar up when I was 8. It hurt to play, so I put it down and picked it back up when I was 15 and dug in. The guitar helped me come out of my shell and kind of gave me an identity at school.
My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable.
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all - the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would be, and much less about what we would do.
