I grew up not far from where Motown was founded, maybe 300 miles from Detroit and I've always liked - I used to like the way they made records. I still do, I just haven't had a chance to hear as much. They used to entertain me.
I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon.
My wife is very patient. On our honeymoon in 1992, we got a motor home and drove from L.A. to Idaho and then down the coast. I was running a lot, then so she would drop me off, drive six miles, park and wait for me.
My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.
My dad's a history buff, and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30-ft-high stone wall to keep it out.
Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we looked back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a mile or more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white wagons creeping slowly along.
The great thing about comedy is that the longer you've been alive, the more you have to talk about and the better you get. I've got some miles and some road savviness that some other guys don't have.
In the old days, a con man would be good looking, suave, well dressed, well spoken and presented themselves real well. Those days are gone because it's not necessary. The people committing these crimes are doing them from hundreds of miles away.
You can tell by looking at me that I've got more miles behind me than I've got in front of me. When you reach that point, if you've got some good years left, you want to make sure that you use them wisely.
I find painting a much slower process than comedy, where you can go a mile a minute verbally and hope to God that some of the people out there understand you. I don't paint every day. I'm not that motivated.
You should be a person inside the world with knowledge of your terrain. And if you lock yourself into the 2,000-by-3,000-square-mile, lower-48 box of the United States, you're going to be frustrated by its limitations. You gotta think outside the box...
About fifteen miles above New Orleans the river goes very slowly. It has broadened out there until it is almost a sea and the water is yellow with the mud of half a continent. Where the sun strikes it, it is golden.
On December 5, 1941, Chicago led a task force built around the carrier Lexington to Midway Island, at the western end of the Hawaiian Islands, about 1,000 miles from Pearl Harbor.
I grew up twelve miles outside of Montego Bay. In my early teens, I went to Kingston. It was like a different planet for me. In the country, people are kind. In the city, people are hard an' cold, like the concrete and steel.
The United States, a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, destroyed the last of its stocks of VX and other chemical agents on the Johnston Atoll, 825 miles southwest of Hawaii, in November 2000.
I was born in Saratoga, Texas, a little town there in the Big Thicket about 60 miles north of Beaumont. Needless to say, we were very, very poor, but we always managed to have enough to keep our bellies full.
I think it's inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic and that would reflect the reality that New Zealand is a totally sovereign-independent 21st century nation 12,000 miles from the United Kingdom.
Writing is fun - at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That's easy to manage.
Age is a timeless beauty. At each mile in my life journey, I am a distinctive blend of what I've experienced and the unique talents I was given to share with others.
If you've ever walked a mile into a virgin forest - you know, like a deep forest where trees have been uncut - the energy is totally different from the shopping mall.
I confess, I do have to remind myself almost daily that there are people on this earth capable of reading, writing, eating and dressing themselves who believe their lives are ruled from billions of miles away, by the stars - and, of course, the plane...
