I understand that I’m not perfect. I made mistakes and I had a hand in everything that’s happened to me, good and bad.
In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal… I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day. Didn’t have power, didn’t have generators, studied with lanterns, but I never despaired.
I had plenty of pimples as a kid. One day I fell asleep in the library. When I woke up, a blind man was reading my face.
When I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist, pretty much to the left. But not when I left the university. I quickly got wise. I’d read about what had happened to Russia in 1917 when the Communists took over.
I wish you could see some of the girls I have genuinely had crushes on in my life. They’re not the girls you would assume.
I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn’t.
Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.
Some people are born with very little; some are fortunate enough to have it all. When I grew up, we didn’t have much. I had to hustle to get what I wanted… but I had that hunger for more. I didn’t always make the right choices, but I learned from my mistakes.
As far as I know, Vera Miles had a terrible time with Hitchcock, and she wanted to get out of the contract. He didn’t let her. She did ‘Psycho,’ and I believe, if you look at ‘Psycho,’ there isn’t one close up of Vera, not one. After that, she would never even speak about him to anyone.
Batman. I like the idea that if I had enough money, time, and vengeance, I could become him.
What I really am is a homebody. I was a homebody even before I had a family. My days are filled with home stuff.
Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?
In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.
I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat but that’s OK – the bat had to get Ozzy shots.
I think I had a kind of pause for insight in my 20s when I wasn’t in a relationship and my career wasn’t going the way I wanted it to go. I had time for reflection then.
If I had all the money I’d spent on drink, I’d spend it on drink.
I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.
It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips.
I had a ukulele when I was much younger. I have no idea what happened to it but I think that was part of it, just being inspired and wanting to try to play an instrument that, to me, sounded beautiful.
When you have had a taste of excellence, you cannot go back to mediocrity.
Once you get into the world of dystopia, it’s hard to avoid plagiarism, because other people have had such powerful visions.
In many ways, each of us is the sum total of what our ancestors were. The virtues they had may be our virtues, their strengths our strengths, and, in a way, their challenges could be our challenges.
The past is the past, but if you’re overanalyzing or trying to repeat it, you’re gonna get stuck. I just had a wonderful youth, and I loved everything about it, so I really try and hang on to it.
I am so grateful for all the love and support I’ve had from people around the world.
A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.
If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.
The monster was the best friend I ever had.
If I had to come back in life, I’d come back as a dolphin… they’re always smiling; they’re always playing.
I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.
When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.
I think, if I had a dad, I would have went the normal college route. I’m so stoked my life panned out how it was.
I thank every bully I ever had because that’s the only reason I’m here. I learned how to not be affected by it and triumph over it, and that made me – again, if I had any success whatsoever, it’s because these people made fun of me.
It is a better thing to save souls for the Lord than to save treasures. He who sent forth his apostles without gold had not need of gold to form his Church. The Church possesses gold, not to hoard, but to scatter abroad and come to the aid of the unfortunate.
If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
I loved George Carlin and Dean Martin. I was one of those kids who had every comedy album.
By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.
Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.
I’m so grateful for where I am now, but I think I’m more grateful because it’s been so hard-won; I haven’t given up, and I’ve had plenty of reasons to give up.
In the third grade, a nun stuffed me in a garbage can under her desk because she said that’s where I belonged. I also had the distinction of being the only altar boy knocked down by a priest during mass.
Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‘Wind in the Willows’ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‘The Wind in the Willows.’
He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. it had to be some silly little Communist.
My father always used to say that when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, then you’ve had a great life.
Yes, I’m Catholic; I’m proud of it. But I had lots of Protestant friends.
There was one player who was better than Pele. It was Garrincha. He had one leg crooked, the other one straight, normal. How did he do all those things with such difficulties? He was a paralytic! And the way he played! Much better than us all!
He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
To be honest my mentor was my mom and dad. I was very blessed and fortunate to have parents like I had.
I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
I enjoyed the position I was in as a tennis player. I was to blame when I lost. I was to blame when I won. And I really like that, because I played soccer a lot too, and I couldn’t stand it when I had to blame it on the goalkeeper.
My dad came over from Ireland when he was 13 and lived on the streets, working on building sites, and has just retired from his job delivering furniture for John Lewis. My mum has had the same job for 30 years as a sales assistant at Marks and Spencer. They’ve always been really great; they just want me to be happy.
If a bullfrog had wings it wouldn’t bump his behind every time he hopped.
It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.
I would like to see the day when somebody would be appointed surgeon somewhere who had no hands, for the operative part is the least part of the work.
I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had over the past 36 years for anything.
If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it.
Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.
The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.
This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
