We talk a lot about infrastructure in cities, and it's talking about highways and it's talking about trains, but I think more important to people who are low income is, how do I get from here to there? How do I become part of the affluence that's sur...
I bring my classical training - some of it, but not all of it - and also my background and culture, to spirituals. And I try to leave room for that unpredictable factor, where the feeling of the song is allowed to come through. The same ethos can be ...
I've always said that I count myself as a classical crossover artist. To be so, you have to have the core classical training, which I did for many, many years, but also be interested in the pop side of things. You can fit in somewhere in the middle. ...
They don’t know I only speak in runaway train stations and everybody is always a few minutes too late to the platform. No one has ever gotten the chance to get too close because it is never romantic to fuck the girl who makes love to her own sadnes...
When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from ...
I certainly had my God-can-you-just-take-me-now-I've-just-had-it-I'm-checking-out-let-me-off-the-train-I'm-done kind of thing. But, you know, I would never actually do it. I just can't imagine what it would take to do that.
In 1941, the BBC was setting up local, low-powered transmitters that were switched off if there was an air raid so they couldn't be used by German planes to navigate. As a 'youth in training,' my job was to switch the transmitter on in the mornings a...
I run a lot. I do a lot of yoga. Hot yoga. Which is random and sounds lame, but it has definitely made my flexibility and balance 100 percent better on my skateboard. I do that and a lot of plyometric, biometrics, and surf. I train every other day of...
I bought a racehorse, Tropical Saint, that belonged to the Queen Mother. I used to go down to Banbury and watch him train, but during a televised race, his jockey pulled up and said there was something wrong. They put him in the grass to try and sett...
In 1975, no State or Church guidelines existed in the Republic of Ireland to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor. No training was given to priests, teachers, police officers or others who worked regularly with children a...
The term I despise most is motivation. Motivation is an unreliable tease and isn't worth your time. Motivation is fleeting, DISCIPLINE is reliable. Cultivate DISCIPLINE and FORCE yourself to do things to better yourself. It isn't about keeping yourse...
Going to the theater or having the honor of performing in theater reminds you of your humanity in a very different way. It's a real release and an incredible challenge. But the stage is a dangerous place. You gotta be trained. Plus, crowds like when ...
When I was going to school, I just wanted to be like everybody else. I would pull at my hair to try and get it to lie straight. America was where I would consume and absorb black culture, buy Ultra Sheen and watch 'Soul Train,' but I still had that w...
Runners exalt the marathon as a public test of private will, when months or years of solitary training, early mornings, lost weekends, rain and pain mature into triumph or surrender. That's one reason the race-day crowds matter, the friends who come ...
Tennis is all about mental toughness, and you have to keep your head in the game. I make time to relax away from competition pressures, travel and intense training schedules to make sure I'm looking after myself. Taking time out with family and frien...
I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can't be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react. At home...
Writing is how I find out what I believe and what I care most deeply about. It's how I sort through the mess of daily experience and try to make sense of it - by stepping out of it for a while. Writing is how I train a searchlight into the darker cor...
Social media changed Chinese mindset. More and more Chinese intend to embrace freedom of speech and human rights as their birthright, not some imported American privilege. But also, it gave the Chinese a national public sphere for people to, it's lik...
I try to keep at a non-obsessive level of fitness. It's not about looking great, it's about just feeling good. So I do a lot of yoga. Bikram just blows my mind. It's mental as well as physical; if I don't train, I get very depressed.
To me, the newspaper business was a way to learn about life and how things worked in the real world and how people spoke. You learn all the skills - you learn to listen, you learn to take notes - everything you use later as a novelist was valuable tr...
I'd always put on little shows at home, but when I was 11, I did a community event in Woodford, where anyone could go. You had three days of vocal training and performed your song at the end. I sang 'I Say a Little Prayer.' It's a tough song to sing ...
