Mahavishnu’s drummer Billy Cobham was the best I’d ever heard. Not loud, that’s not the secret – powerful as hell when he wanted to be – but 90 per cent of the time, he was just dancing with the drums, you know? Just like a butterfly, all over them.
It wasn’t like I wanted to be the next Marc Andreessen, but it would be cool to be in the same place.
My grandmother really wanted to see me become a singer, but she passed away before I became one.
Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another’s heart, or its flame burns low.
If I wanted to play soccer, I’d step out on that soccer field like I’m the best soccer player. Even though I don’t have that much experience, I always try to have that type of confidence in myself just to make people believe it.
My wife’s jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.
When I perform as a solo, I think a lot about what I always wanted to do but have not done yet.
You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.
Two people in a conversation amount to four people talking. The four are what one person says, what he really wanted to say, what his listener heard, and what he thought he heard.
I was in a movie called ‘Flirting With Disaster’ with Ben Stiller. I realized that I am really not a good actor and not something I wanted to pursue.
If we discovered that we only had five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them.
I always wanted to be one of the hottest rappers.
I’m proud of my hard work. Working hard won’t always lead to the exact things we desire. There are many things I’ve wanted that I haven’t always gotten. But, I have a great satisfaction in the blessings from my mother and father, who instilled a great work ethic in me both personally and professionally.
Dad’s Jewish and Irish, Mom’s German and Scotch. I couldn’t say I was anything. My last name isn’t even Downey. My dad changed his name when he wanted to get into the Army and was underage. My real name is Robert Elias. I feel like I’m still looking for a home in some way.
When I read Copland, I really wanted Stallone’s part.
I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.
It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane.
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we’d given customers what they said they wanted, we’d have built a computer they’d have been happy with a year after we spoke to them – not something they’d want now.
I just want to make music, I don’t want people to talk about me. All I’ve ever wanted to do was sing. I don’t want to be a celebrity. I don’t want to be in people’s faces, you know, constantly on covers of magazine that I haven’t even known I’m on.
I never wanted to give in to my condition. My life changed a lot but I didn’t want it to change my dreams or goals.
I wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.
I’ve always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.
When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. No one thought this was a good idea.
Twenty years ago I wanted to move to a nice place so our Charley would grow up a nice boy and learn a profession. But instead we live in a jungle, so he can only be a wild animal. D’you think I picked the East Side like Columbus picked America?
I think by eighth grade I knew I wanted to be an actor. I’d done church plays and stuff, but my first actual acting class was in eighth grade. I was obsessed with it.
I wanted to make ‘Mexicana Hermosa.’ It’s a love song, but it isn’t. It’s more like a song as if Mexico was the Maria, the beautiful woman that I love.
I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
As a kid we moved around a fair bit as a family. It was difficult to make friends but sport helped. Once people saw you kick a football it broke down barriers. Instead of being the new skinny black kid you were the kid everyone wanted on their team.
There was no such thing as child abuse. Parents owned their children. They could do whatever they wanted.
Bringing a child into the world makes sense only if this child is wanted consciously and freely by its two parents. If it is not, then it is simply animal and criminal behavior.
I would never allow anyone to give me money, no difference how badly I needed it. I wanted literally to earn my living.
I just always wanted to study human behavior because every psychologist that I would talk to would tell me I was bipolar, and I know I’m not bipolar, so I had to perform a psychoanalysis on myself to find out that I have unresolved grief.
My dad was like a stage mother he always pushed me to do what I wanted.
I didn’t learn music because I wanted to become famous or earn a lot of money. It was to follow my father’s advice and learn as much as I could about music.
I’ve never wanted anybody to like me because I had long hair or short hair, or that they liked the way I dressed or they liked the way I dressed or they liked the way I smile.
Boxing is a sport, but it’s also entertainment. I wanted to transcend the sport and be considered just not as a fighter, or a champion, but someone very special.
I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks.
I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches – I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works.
I didn’t want anyone to have control over how people saw me. I wanted to have that power myself.
I went to a nutritionist; my diet is pretty clean, but I wanted to get some more knowledge and understanding in some areas. My two favorite things, Clif Bars and lattes, she just destroyed in our first meeting. Coffee is fine, but soy is the most genetically modified food that we eat.
I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.
After getting out of the service and going into baseball I never wanted to do anything else.
When I was fourteen and first started going out, I always wanted to be the opposite of everyone else. So I would go to the club in a polo T-shirt and pants and sneakers and a hat on backward, just so I would not be dressed like other girls.
I was always a giver by nature. I wanted to make sure the person next to me or maybe even the person I don’t know didn’t go without if I could help it. That’s always been in me.
Since we didn’t use guns, we wanted to make sure we could earn the ability to win the audience over by making it believable. A lot of what you do when you work out in that mode is use your mental energy.
I love being an enigma. Every time I’m tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically – you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you’re pro-gun, or you’re anti-gun – I stop and say to myself, ‘This is great; this is what I wanted. I wanted to be the guy you can’t figure out.’
While Congress saw some need to loosen the standard in the initial days of a war, it wanted the president to comply with FISA in carrying out surveillance in the United States.
I have always wanted to learn the piano, but because I travel so much, I can never get any consistency of lessons. So everywhere I go, if I can find a piano, even if it is in the lobby of a hotel or something, I go on YouTube and pick some songs to learn.
I wanted to be in the FBI. I also wanted to be a pie salesman.
In 1965, the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7 was planned to dramatize to the state of Alabama and to the nation that people of color wanted to register to vote.
The beautiful gift of my husband is that he saw me the way I’ve always wanted to be seen and there’s something really powerful to that. When you find true love I really believe that that’s what it is at its core.
I wanted to be a doctor. I was pre-med at school, and I actually even took the MCAT. My ultimate decision was that I didn’t love the work environment in a hospital.
I just figured that, for me to get the best out of myself and do the right thing by myself, I really just needed to step away and find out what I really wanted to do and hopefully getting back to where my people are from and getting out bush could really re-energise me and help heal those wounds.
I have an immense amount of respect for acting. I’ve always loved movies and was always fascinated by movie-making. But to become an actor, I wanted to commit myself.
When I first stepped into literature twenty-five years ago, I wanted to work on behalf of the oppressed, the working masses, and it seemed to me, mistakenly, that I would not find them among the Jews.
