Think of the imagination as a giant stone from which we carve out new ideas. As we chip away, our new ideas become more polished and refined. But if you start by editing your imagination, you start with a tiny stone.
I always had a chip on my shoulder.
When I was born, my dad was a scaffolder, and my mum worked in a chip shop. Then my mum taught herself how to be a hairdresser and ended up with her own salon; my dad became a postman and then a counter clerk. Our first house didn’t have a bathroom.
Two to four classes each offseason – just trying to chip away. There are times when I think, ‘Man, I don’t need to be doing this. Why am I doing this to myself?’ But to fight through that and come out and make a good grade, it feels worth it. Hopefully something good comes out of it one day.
If they need me to score 30, I can go do it. If they need me to just rebound and defend, I can do that. I can play this game, just in case people forgot. You just carry that chip on your shoulder, and you go out there and do what I was put on this Earth to do.
Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.
It’s a compliment that people think that I’m a good player. I remember when people didn’t think I was good. And I remember being a rookie coming into the league with a big chip on my shoulder trying to prove myself.
We try to pride ourselves in having a chip and being hungry every game.
Disabled veterans are not a bargaining chip.
I don’t have a lot of shame. That doesn’t mean I can’t feel bad about the way someone reacts to me or about something I read about myself online. But I don’t have a lot of guilt, no. I’ve always been this way. I’m missing a chip.
I am pushed by my critics. I don’t want to say I want to prove them wrong, but it pushes me on the field to play with a chip on my shoulder, and I play best when I have a chip on my shoulder.
I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder. It kind of drives me. It’s something that allows me to train harder, train longer, work better.
I do probably come down a little hard on a group of people I call the ‘blue chip gays.’ I mean people who have managed to become very, very famous and are still very famous partly through staying in the closet, like Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Susan Sontag, Harold Brodkey and others.
When the vast majority of strangers you interact with are trolls on social media, it slowly begins to chip away at your love for humanity.
My mom would get up every day at 4 A.M. and worked two jobs. I always felt I was the poorest kid on the block. I had a chip on my shoulder about being broke.
People who say, ‘Let the chips fall where they may,’ usually figure they will not be hit by a chip.
In the beginning, though, I have to admit that I did have a chip on my shoulder. I did want to prove everyone wrong. But after I went through the process and came out the other side, it wasn’t about anyone else.
I was in London for 13 years and I think I only found one good chip shop.
I played for Miami, with LeBron. They cut me. I got drafted by the Lakers, they traded me to Miami. Bron got there, they cut me. I remember it like it was yesterday. So yeah, it’s a chip on my shoulder.
I love chocolate chip cookies – really anything with chocolate will do!
Remember: the ratings system is a voluntary infringement of First Amendment rights, an uneasy bargain between the needs of parents, the needs of artists, and the needs of large media corporations to make profits. Any time we chip away at the First Amendment, we should at least do it with some reverence.
You try to figure out the best way to throw the shot put, or the perfect way to long jump, and you don’t ever get it. You just chip away, chip away, chip away as time goes on.
Adam Sandler, Chip Kelly, Dan Mullen and I all grew up within about a mile of one another. We had a nice community in Manchester. The school systems are great and people care about each other.
