I was searching for a way to demonstrate 3D movement to my students and one day found myself staring into the River Danube, looking at how the water moved around the pebbles. This became the inspiration for the cube’s twisting mechanism. The fact that it can do this without falling apart is part of its magic.
The life of the village became more and more affected by strikes and lock-outs.
I did a play called ‘Disgraced’ in 2012 at Lincoln Center, which ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize. I played the lead character, a Muslim American, who had renounced Islam and became very anti-Islam.
Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.
I went to college as an economics major because that was the easiest major that could still please your Asian parents, and then, much to their dismay, I became a stand-up comedian.
Growing up, I loved films like ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘On the Waterfront’ and became a huge fan of Marlon Brando.
The way ‘star’ used to be reserved for a small number of people, and when the star category became so vast, they came up with ‘superstar,’ and then they came up with ‘megastar.’
I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don’t make it very easy to live your life.
Chance is hugely significant in biology. In fact, the presence of apparent randomness in so many aspects of biology – from mutations in DNA to the chance involved in that one sperm reaching that one egg that became you – suggests that randomness is useful, even necessary, in very many cases.
I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
When I did plays in high school and college, I never remember memorizing my lines, but once I had blocking, I had all my lines memorized. Once I had movement associated with words, it was fine. Before I had blocking, it was just text on a page. Once it became embodied, it was much easier.
Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker.
I forced myself to think what is the new concept and it became clear to me that it was risk, not only in technology and ecology, but in life and employment, too.
South Vietnam had to be built from scratch and, from the very beginning, depended far too much on the Western superpowers. As in the case of a person on public welfare, this dependency, which became greater with each day, was quite difficult to shake.
As more airlines consolidated and grew larger and more focused on the bottom line, flying in the U.S. became an awful experience. Despite moves to block our airline from flying, Virgin America began service in August 2007 – with the goal of making flying good again.
When I became the CEO of Burberry in July 2006, luxury was one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world.
During this period, I became interested in how the new techniques of cloning and sequencing DNA could influence the study of genetics and I was an early and active proponent of the Human Genome Sequencing Project.
My parents started Party Pieces the same year I was born, so I have grown up with their entrepreneurial way of thinking, which, to me, became the norm.
In 1988, my mother led a nationwide election campaign, wrote a bestselling book, had her first child, and became the youngest and first female prime minister of the Muslim world. All in one year! For her detractors, this wasn’t good enough. She was unacceptable because she was a woman.
After it became clear that I was not going to graduate, I had this moment where I was like, ‘I need to not sulk. I need to pursue – at least try – to pursue music. But if I don’t try, I’m going to be a really bitter middle-aged lady working in a cubicle.’
And, as if nature were protecting man against his own ingenuity, the reproductive processes were affected for a time; men became sterile, women had miscarriages, menstruation stopped.
I shared a dressing room with Pete Postlethwaite for 18 months, and he became a good friend. His discipline had an impact on me. You could have a laugh with him, but he was always on the ball when it came to work and very professional. Hopefully some of that rubbed off on me.
Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were together.
And as the hour approached for the execution, in his own mind, Collins became both the executioner and the victim. He would pace up and down, transformed in almost a kind of exorcism when he knew he was responsible for taking someone’s life.
My heart started running away, like a pack of horses. Then it slowed down and became irregular.
When I became mayor of New York City, I had a $2.4 billion deficit. And everybody wanted me to raise taxes. I said, ‘If I raise taxes, I’ll drive people out of New York City, and then I’ll be raising taxes again.’ So what I did was I cut expenses by 15 percent.
White men have always controlled their wives’ wages. Colored men were not able to do so until they themselves became free. Then they owned both their wives and their wages.
You have only to see what became of my father’s will immediately after his death, and the wills of so many other kings. I know it well; but nevertheless, they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it was done.
I was on food stamps until I was 18 and became an adult.
I was quite the spoiled brat. I have quite a temper, obviously inherited from my father, and I became very good at ordering everyone around. I was the princess; the staff were absolutely terrified of me.
Putin’s treatment of Chechnya became a cautionary tale of what would happen to rebels and terrorists – and indeed to entire groups of people – if they threatened the Russian state.
Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker.
I’ve been able to look at the world differently from three continents practically. I’ve always lived between India and the U.S. When I married Mahmood I became a daughter-in-law of Africa. That really changed my worldview. I can see it from so many perspectives.
I’m a born-again Christian. I was raised Episcopalian – I’ve always been of a Christian faith, but I became much more active in it when I married my first husband, Marvin. I changed from Episcopalian to Baptist.
I became a man. Before that I was a little boy.
My father never kissed me, hugged me or told me that he loved me. As my only living parent, he became the filter through which I saw myself, the possibilities for my life, the world and all men. He was a conflicted and dark filter.
The books I used to love as a kid, I used to read football books – and by that I mean soccer books – stories about boys in school who started to play football and then became the captain. I’d read them cover to cover. I just got lost in them.
As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.
Europe became rich because it exploited Africa; and the Africans know that.
No one remembers this because it’s the whipping boy, but ‘The Single Guy’ was very well-reviewed and watched, and then the central concept became attacked by the very people who were putting it on. And then the next thing you know you’re running in fear, and everyone stops being funny.
I became a mom at 37 and having a child has been an emancipation for me.
I come from a violent background. So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame.
I’m vegan, though not completely religious about it. While writing ‘Sapiens,’ I became familiar with how we treat animals in the meat and dairy industries. I was so horrified that I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.
My sensei was a British karate champion named Brian Fitkin. He was my mentor and because I had a hard relationship with my dad, he became a father figure to me.
It would be a joy for me if someone who was working with me became a big success.
I was mixing iced tea and lemonade in my kitchen since as long as I can remember. It wasn’t until some time in the early 1960s that it became associated with me publicly.
Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.
Political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.
Having witnessed the success of Acadian Ambulance firsthand over the years, I became a champion for the employee stock ownership plan business model. This was easy to do based on the evidence that employee stock ownership plans are reliable, high-performing sources of retirement security.
In 1984, I starred in ‘Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan,’ my first movie. My lines ended up being dubbed by Glenn Close, supposedly because my accent was ‘too southern’. It was completely humiliating at the time. I became a laughing stock. I’m amazed that I managed to pick myself up and dust myself off.
