I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar. We're African-American, and we work together as a family, so people assume we're like the Jacksons. But I didn't have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.
My dad was a Muslim and would pray five times a day. I would pray with him as much as I could, in the morning before school. Sometimes he would tell us moralistic tales about genies, magic carpets and wondrous lands. My mother is not religious - she'...
My dad was the manager at the 45,000-acre ranch, but he owned his own 1,200-acre ranch, and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school, from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied, and he kept track of them for y...
As a person, when I was seven or eight, my dad would try very hard to tutor me through school because I had learning difficulties or whatever. I would wish that they could just plant a chip in my brain so that I would know everything and not have to ...
My heroes always are mostly my parents - my father especially, and my mom, who's passed on already. My dad is a very strong man, and by him being educated, and a principal and school superintendent over 37 years, he plays such a big role in my life.
The last thing I want my child to see is Dad running around in the middle of the pack. That would really upset me. And that would upset him. I would be embarrassed to take him to school with kids saying, 'Hey, how'd your dad do this weekend?' 'Well, ...
My dad's a bodybuilder. My whole life I've been taught to train the hard way. I believe in earning strength, not buying it. My grandfather raised me old school: In baseball, you work for whatever you get.
One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun - especially for a kid who was ...
All of my high school male teachers were WWII and/or Korean War veterans. They taught my brothers and me the value of service to our country and reinforced what our dad had shown us about the meaning of service.
I get up at six to work out. I've done it since school, it's always been part of my life. It's a good way to take the edge off. I like getting up early; I've got a daughter, I'm a single dad.
My senior year of high school, when I was getting recruited for college, my dad goes to me, 'You can become an Olympic champion.' And that's the first time that I'd heard someone else say that to me. I was like, 'Uh, are you talking to me?'
My dad is a good role model for me, and then I had a high school coach that really helped me out when I was struggling and made a big difference in my life.
Both of my parents are actors and directors and whatnot. My dad loves really solid, old school, Broadway musicals, and one of them is 'Assassins' by Stephen Sondheim. All of the successful or non-successful assassins that have ever existed in the Uni...
It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.
A balanced diet and physical activity are vital to academic performance. A healthy diet has a direct link to increased cognitive function and memory skills, decreased absenteeism from school, and improved mood. These advantages can help students stay...
My parent's divorce and hard times at school, all those things combined to mold me, to make me grow up quicker. And it gave me the drive to pursue my dreams that I wouldn't necessarily have had otherwise.
I couldn't help but to think back to my classmates at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. They had the same talent, the same brains, the same dreams as the folks we sat with at Stanford and Harvard. I realized the difference wasn't one of in...
In school, when I got into upper-level math, there would be times when I would wake up from a dream and have - not an answer, exactly, but a direction to pursue. My writing has always been like that. I wake up from dreams knowing which direction to g...
I'm glad I dropped out of high school, man. I wouldn't be where I'm at. I would have had a net. I'm glad I didn't have anything to fall back on, man, because that made me go for my dreams that much harder.
I decided to go to school for advertising and graphic design. That was what I was gonna do but acting is that thing, it's like a splinter in your mind and you can't get rid of it. So I decided to move to L.A. a few years ago and it just snowballed in...
I'm opening up my heart to the idea of dating. It's funny - my friends would always come to me for romantic advice. I know nothing, and things have changed since I was dating in high school! I'm really trying hard to spend this time working on myself...
