I did a lot of acting when I was a child. I was very shy – the kind of kid who ran into a corner and cried on parents’ visiting day.
My father is a taxi driver, and my mother ran a small business. I hadn’t even met a barrister before I got my first shot at the legal profession. But back then, I was lucky enough to be given a break – I can’t help but wonder if I would be so lucky today.
My father ran London Films. He made films like ‘The Red Shoes,’ ‘The Third Man.’ And he had had a long career in the film business, which was bifurcated with a career in intelligence. He had to deal with gangsters, and sometimes he would take me with him. Also, I went to school with their children.
In 2010, I ran for Congress in a Democratic primary against someone who had been there for 18 years. ‘The Daily News’ endorsed me. I was in ‘The New York Times’ above the fold. CNBC called this one of the hottest races in the country. On election day, votes for me never went past 19%. I lost.
When I first ran for City Council in 2013, I was told over and over again that I would likely lose, and for reasons beyond my control: I was too young, not born in Boston, Asian American, female.
When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, ‘Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?’
We had quite an unconventional family life because my parents ran a Chinese restaurant.
My father’s family were Italian ice cream men, and the knowledge was passed on, so I ran an ice cream van while I was dating my wife.
Once, when I was 5 years old, a little girl who lived next door to my grandmother dared me to put on a muumuu and run across a nearby parking lot. So I did. I threw it on, hiked it up in one hand, and ran like hell. It felt amazing to be in a dress. But suddenly my grandmother appeared, a look of horror on her face.
When I got involved in politics and started running, there were questions about whether a woman could take care of her kids and serve in office. And that was never an issue when I ran.
Someone asked me, ‘How long do you intend to do ‘Deadwood’?’ And part of my sociopathology, I say, ‘Well, when does my contract run out?’ And I realize my contract ran out at the end of four seasons.
There was this mischaracterization that I ran for leadership to be the guy to get conservatives to vote for leadership. I said I would be a conservative voice at the leadership table.
As I explain at some length in my book ‘Energy Victory,’ during World War II, the American strength in oil production was a decisive advantage for the Allies. Airplanes, ships, and tanks all ran on oil, and we controlled the supply.
‘At Random’ ran on Saturday nights for as long as the conversation was still lively. Sometimes, I’d finish way after midnight, then hop a plane for whatever city I was working a football game that Sunday.
I didn’t run off with the secretary. It made it seem like I had committed adultery and then ran off with a secretary, neither of which happened.
In the late ’80s, the U.S.S.R. loosened its restrictions on immigration. When the government was like, ‘Y’all wanna bounce?’ my family, along with tens of thousands of other Jews ran for the door in an attempt to make a better life in America.
The only honourable work my parents knew was blue-collar. But while my father Robert ran a pawnbroker’s shop, and my mother was a waitress, I moved into a middle-class world with a level of security they never knew.
Barack Obama basically ran as a liberal suburban Republican.
In terms of what I wanted to do before I got into politics, I was a businessman. I ran a company that makes and sells infrared night vision military technology and solar technology, so I wanted to grow that company and pursue groundbreaking technology in each of those areas.
I’ve been running track since I was five. I could name down every single Olympian that ran hurdles.
When I first started my graphic design career, and ‘Beach Culture’ magazine, I pretty much ran from the surfer label. It was hard to get people to take you seriously.
None of the longest-lived people ran marathons or pumped iron. They live exactly as their grandparents before them – surrounded by family and friends.
The public brings our buildings to life, and we try to choreograph a lot of things, but our most successful work functions in unanticipated ways. Like the Blur Building. When little kids got in there, they cried or laughed or ran around. And no matter how much theory we put on top of it, it didn’t matter: it worked.
I ran into Snoop one night. I was in the studio later, and I got this beat and thought he would sound great on it. I called him and he came right through that night.
I was very disciplined growing up. If I didn’t want to run hills, I ran hills; if I didn’t want to jog around the block, I jogged around the block.
When I ran a small IT services business in the 1990s, it had strong recurring revenues – yet I couldn’t accurately forecast cash flow for even the next few quarters. Small changes in the customer base or losing/hiring a few key employees could create massive swings in cash flow.
I ran a marathon, completed a mud run and jumped from a plane.
The first movie I saw – and I don’t know if it influenced me – was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards.
I think it was when I ran into Kerouac and Burroughs – when I was 17 – that I realized I was talking through an empty skull… I wasn’t thinking my own thoughts or saying my own thoughts.
In Atlanta, we ran a motion offense, so, obviously, I was on the move a lot.
I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.
When I was a baby feminist, leading feminist thinkers were insisting that if women ran the world, there would be no sadism or war.
If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.
Donald Trump ran for president on a promise to ‘drain the swamp.’ I agreed with that particular statement. Unfortunately, he didn’t mean what he said.
I was just about to sue the BBC for unlawful dismissal when I ran into Michael Foster, Chris Evans’s agent, who said never go near the law courts. Especially as an individual against a corporation with limitless funds.
Whatever you got you have to accentuate. I ran my female card up and down the ladder my whole career, because I was in a man’s world. It was worked by women but owned by men. I was the only female owner in my field at that time.
I had come out of retirement into a very difficult situation with the PeopleSoft takeover, got through it, and was having a good time, frankly. We just ran out of runway at PeopleSoft. Had we had another year, maybe two years, I think we would have made it.
Aggies have a really interesting way of admitting defeat. We’ve never been outscored. We just ran out of time.
The difference between keeping things clean and keeping kids clean was that things just sat still and waited for the dirt to collect. We kids were carriers. We ran a pickup and delivery service.
When President Obama first unveiled his gun control proposals recommending a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and better background checks, there seemed to be momentum behind the effort. But then the proposals ran into a wall.
Nobody was going to beat Barack Obama in 2008. That’s a fact. It was his moment. It wasn’t that John McCain ran a bad campaign, or picked the wrong VP. It was just that it didn’t matter, it was over when it started.
I ran the L.A. marathon and really loved the experience. Communal and wild and a gigantic challenge. Finishing that marathon means I can do more than I think. I think.
My concept of a ‘Doctor Who’ girl was that you screamed a lot and ran around quarries in unsuitable footwear. Of course you fell over and twisted your ankle, because you had high heels on.
If I ran into a 19-year-old version of myself, I’d just tell her to live, full out. I might also tell her to go ahead and have a few babies and not worry about the timing of it.
From day one, I’ve always tried to be an honest man. I ran for Congress to make a difference and not to just be another politician.
I paid my way through school doing set construction for film and television. I’m a member of Local 44. I was a construction coordinator on ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ for 4 1/2 years and ran their whole construction program. I did two other pilots as a coordinator for Aaron Spelling.
A big part of the success of Microsoft was that every year, the chips our software ran on got faster and cheaper. They doubled in capability every 18 months under Moore’s law.
When I lost my dad, there was no one there to be the disciplinarian, and we kind of ran amok.
When it all started, record companies – and there were many of them, and this was a good thing – were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music.
