Fitness has been a part of my life even before I became an actor.
I really started getting more politically involved after the 2016 election, watching how partisan and how angry our political conversations became.
We entered the global market only in the end-’80s, and that was because imports became more liberal.
There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.
Until I came out, my acting was all about disguise, and thereafter it became about telling the truth.
In England, anybody who was alive remembers an interview between the press and Charles and Diana, right after they became engaged. One of the press asked Charles if he loved her. And he said, ‘Oh, well, whatever love means.’ Boy, it was a terrible answer.
In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we were living in Bible Belt farming country miles from civilization. Buckley seemed impossibly exotic.
I thought the more famous I became, the more friendships I would have, but the opposite was true.
Just like the rest of the world, I became a product of my environment, and this environment was gang culture.
In retrospect, the populist panic may have been overblown. Regarding Brexit, for example, the shock exaggerated its meaning. Because it was so unexpected, it became a sensation.
Dad worked his entire career as an aviation technician. Mom was a legal secretary who became a teacher. We lived a simple American life.
Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn’t make abstract paintings.
All my life, I have taken inventory at intervals. For example, when I became a movie actor and suddenly I had to deal with fame, money and playing so many roles, I lost myself. I said, ‘Who am I?’ And I wrote my first book to deal with that, ‘The Ragman’s Son.’
We became such darlings of a certain type of media. We became a package; we became easy to sell: these three golden nuggets that could pour out all the goods. It was all exposure in an almost violent way.
The dream factory of that time was much simpler. As media outlets grew, everything became so complicated.
I became a very simple person. The simple things are the most precious to me. I don’t ascribe much significance to the things I have now. That feeling of touching death has never left me.
The Syrian border town of Qa’im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.
I became interested in photography when I found my own sketching was inadequate.
The more I prayed for my enemies, the softer my heart became.
I have seen ‘OK Kanmani,’ and I really enjoyed it. I loved Dulquer’s performance. I became a fan of his after seeing his work in the film. I would love to meet him.
I was low-key abusing myself. The idea of being skinny became something that was most appealing to me. Even if you watch ‘The Real,’ from season 1 to season 4, I was always 100 lbs. I started to really work hard to stay petite and to not gain weight and to stay sample size.
I think that a lot of people, especially as technology began to speed up and we became more distant, we kind of started to lose our appreciation for human contact and gathering and friendships and a lot of the things that we really took for granted.
I’m coaching ‘swing at this, don’t swing at that,’ and in the middle of it, a kid looks at me and says, ‘Coach, I think I’m going to fail history.’ Or maybe their girlfriend just dumped them. These are kids, and once I embraced that, this became a lot more fun.
In their plush melodies and plummy platitudes, many Rodgers-and-Hammerstein songs were secular hymns, which so insinuated themselves into the ear of the Eisenhower-era listener that they became the liturgical music for the American mid-century.
I eat in a strange way, but I enjoy it. Everything became well when I finally understood that I enjoy being hungry. Normally, I only eat in the evening.
In 1989-90 I became one of the group known as the Jordanaires, a.k.a. the Bulls. From the day I arrived in Chicago, I knew what everyone else on the team did: Michael Jordan was a phenomenal talent.
My main mission when I became Prime Minister, was to keep Singapore going and Singapore has been kept going. So, I’m happy with what I’ve done for Singapore.
I think that Curt Swan, when he did Superman for the longest time, became the definitive Superman artist, and everybody got it. That made him very, very special in the annals of comic books.
I wasn’t sure of the exact mindset you should have when you go into a Test match. So I probably became too defensive when I played my first Test match. Short balls in one-day cricket, I have never thought of just defending.
While anti-depressants can work for some people, I became a little too reliant on them – if you forget to take one, you feel awful.
The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina.
Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem.
I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.
I met Leo Fender, who is the guru of all amplifiers, and he gave me a Stratocaster. He became a second father to me.
My father, in 1952, just in his 20s, my father became the chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam. From 1952 to 1959, there were four temples. My father was responsible and credited for having maximized this membership. From four temples to 50 temples, there was so much work involved.
I joined the Marines, passed Special Forces selection, and became a young leader in the military.
I always imagined myself somehow as an electron around some atom, and you’re just, like, bouncing around and spinning. There was a never-ending supply of places to go, people to see, things to do, and fitting it all in became kind of an art.
I also became close to nature, and am now able to appreciate the beauty with which this world is endowed.
I just like observing people – it’s something I’ve done ever since I was a kid, and I got really good at it. That’s a big part of why I became a comedian. My audience is filled with every kind of person you can imagine, and I love that.
I always wanted to be a filmmaker and became one through sheer single-mindedness. I came to filmmaking from a background in graphic design. I went to film school at Newcastle Polytechnic.
When I had kids, I became a better actor. I just stole from them.
One reason we lasted so long is that we usually played two people who were very much in love. As we were realistic actors, we became those two people. So we had a divertissement: I had an affair with him, and he with me.
All Anne Lister wanted was a wife, and the other liaisons couldn’t commit, but Ann Walker did. She took sacrament with her, and they became wife and wife. That shows extraordinary strength.
Later on in my life, it became a big theme: just being okay and comfortable to take the risk and to have really thick skin and realize not everybody is going to love your product. Get over it, and if you believe in it, keep going forward.
It cannot be so very surprising that I adopted a Communist viewpoint in the 1930s; so many of my contemporaries made the same choice. But many of those who made that choice in those days changed sides when some of the worst features of Stalinism became apparent. I stayed the course.
It was no accident that just minutes after Israel became a nation, the United States… became the first nation in the world to recognize what was prophesized throughout the Old Testament about Israel returning after its absence.
When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.’ Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.
Mediators do not choose the conflicts they became involved in, but the parties to the conflict choose the mediator. Their participation as intermediaries is based on the trust of all the conflicting parties.
The new midlife is where you realize that even your failures make you more beautiful and are turned spiritually into success if you became a better person because of them. You became a more humble person. You became a more merciful and compassionate person.
Some prescient American collectors, including Vicki and Kent Logan and Mera and Donald Rubell, began collecting Chinese art before 2000 with a genuine passion, but as the auction prices exploded everyone was beating a path to the galleries and artist studios in China. It became the ‘China thing.’
I guess I feel that I was following my instincts, and at the same time being guided by the best. I became totally intrigued with Louisiana – the people, the food. It is a part of my life. Everything that has happened for me since moving here has just been icing on the cake.
