When I was younger, I went through a phase when I didn’t like my hair. Because the school I went to was primarily Caucasian, there wasn’t anyone who had my hair texture. I remember one day I straightened my hair, and that was the first day that people gave me compliments on it.
Rapping gave me confidence. I got asked to do talent shows and I came up out of my shyness that way. My name was Xperteez back then.
I’m at least smart enough to know I could never fill Billy Graham’s shoes, but I’m grateful he gave me an opportunity to help him finish his race on earth well and to continue his life’s work.
I saw Richard Linklater’s film ‘Slacker’ for my twenty-first birthday. That was the moment when it all seemed possible. This guy gave me hope.
What’s been nice is that I’ve been able to direct from a very idealistic place. I’ve never had to make my living as a director, which gave me a chance to choose material I feel passionate about. The directing allows me to not have to grab any acting role that comes along. I can pick and choose a little bit.
I used to work in a clothes store, played cricket for money, did photo shoots. It was that period of struggle which gave me the experience to be an actor. The emotions have to come from the raw material of life.
I thought of school as a captive audience. It gave me a chance to work on my material.
Rich kids gave us their old clothes. They were the best clothes we ever had. We were these very pure, naive, poor children. The rich kids called us a lot of names but it never bothered us because we didn’t know what the words meant.
My incarceration was actually a positive thing from the beginning. I needed a gimmick to get my act going again, it gave me material.
My mom’s an artist in every way. She’s a painter, a photographer. She’s a wanderer – always searching, always seeing. I guess you could say my mom gave me her eyes.
Tuppence was what my grandmother nicknamed my mother, so she gave it to me. My sister is called Angel, and my brother was going to be called Bubba or Sonny, until they let me and my sister name him Josh.
I believe God gave me talent to play this game, and I’d be sacrificing those gifts if I didn’t give my best every single day.
You take the healthiest diet in the world, if you gave those people vitamins, they would be twice as healthy. So vitamins are valuable.
When I was about five, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, and since then it’s just been a stronghold in my life. Really, through the shark attack and all the hard times that my family and I went through, it gave us unity and perseverance to push through all this crazy stuff that we never knew was going to happen.
I am thankful to Nichia Chemical Corporation and its founder Nobu Ogawa, who gave me the research opportunity to create a blue LED.
My English teacher always gave me scripts for plays, but I was into sports. My friend said there were small parts I could go up for, but the director gave me the part of Mozart, which was kind of the lead role. From then on I just loved it.
I’ve moved to Australia, to amazing parents who gave me unconditional love, to being educated and submerged in an amazing country and society.
When I first started my acting career, I only knew what my acting teacher taught me. When a director gave me an impromptu direction, I didn’t know what he wanted me to do, and I wanted to escape from the place.
You had to decompress the pressure before the race. I taught my heart to relax. I lay down before the race. It gave me more energy just before the race.
I was christened Edward. My sister gave me the name Bear when I was a week old and it has stuck.
I was thinking things had changed: that the next generation of men weren’t as institutionally misogynist as the previous were. And then, suddenly, the Internet came along and gave them a platform to voice their feelings anonymously. And boy, did the bile come out.
Liverpool gave me a second home. I was 24, I left my team, my town, and I went there. My memories there are just amazing. I have no words to thank them enough, and that’s why I will always be a fan.
I didn’t do a movie until I was almost 30. I’m grateful for that because it gave me a chance to be an adult in the world and do work in the regional theater that very few people cared about. I loved it and I wanted to do that stuff.
I originally got my name after a gun because the way I rap; a gangster gave me the name in 1988.
After high school, I went to Stanford University and majored in English. Of course, that gave me a chance to do lots more reading and writing. I also received degrees in London and Dublin – where I moved to be near a charming Irishman who became my husband!
I’m really close to my mother. She sacrificed a lot for me and my sister. She gave up her career. Whatever I am today is due to the values my mother instilled in me.
Christiania has a lot of strong, nuclear families. It gave us a sense of empowerment and belonging and richness. We had so much love; we were never in doubt that we were wanted in this world.
I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts – spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back – length of life.
Much of the aid we first gave to Russia we took away from what we promised Britain. So in a sense, Britain participated in a very real way in the recovery of Russia.
I gave everything I had – on the floor, trying to be the best leader that I could, trying to help the guys as much as I could, putting in the extra work.
I gave three years of my life to take care of my dying mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. Being there for her every need for three years might have looked codependent but it wasn’t because it was what I wanted to do.
If my parents were still alive, they would be very proud. They gave me a good start in life, the values that have driven me, and the confidence to believe in myself.
One Christmas, Dennis Dermody, the movie critic of ‘Paper,’ gave me ‘Rock Hudson: A Gathering of Friends,’ the master invitation list from Rock Hudson’s memorial service. It’s so great. Everyone’s in it, with personal addresses all bound into a book. Someone else once gave me Ike Turner’s will. I get great stuff.
A close associate of his gave an interview in which the book was described as quotes ‘fiction from being to end’. I suffered trial by tabloid for a couple of weeks, lots of insults in the press, in the columns – this man should be put in the tower and so on.
Scam’ gave me a national or I would say global platform which made me a household name. I am getting such a lot of love, appreciation, and acceptance from the audience and makers and that’s a very satisfying feeling.
I picked Dad’s guitar up when I was 8. It hurt to play, so I put it down and picked it back up when I was 15 and dug in. The guitar helped me come out of my shell and kind of gave me an identity at school.
I want to walk away from football when I retire and say, ‘I gave that everything,’ and then I will do something else and give that everything, because that’s me. That’s the way I am, and I will do that.
Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we’ll reach a certain point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we’d do and become will never come to be – and that we’re ordinary.
I used to love to untangle chains when I was a child. I had thin, busy fingers, and I never gave up. Perhaps there was a psychiatric component to my concentration but like much of my psychic damage, this worked to everyone’s advantage.
Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered… the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith… All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.
I was being very bad because I didn’t know how to express myself. Music gave me an outlet to express myself and channel that anger.
I never went to a drama school or anything. I just gave it my best shot, and everyone seemed to like it, so I carried on doing it.
We accidentally gave my boys ‘Ninja Turtle’ names. I can promise you that Michelangelo and Donatello will not be coming out of me.
I gave up my struggle with perfection a long time ago. That is a concept I don’t find very interesting anymore. Everyone just wants to look good in the photographs. I think that is where some of the pressure comes from. Be happy. Be yourself, the day is about a lot more.
My mother gave me my drive but my father gave me my dreams.
I learned to ride a ten-speed when I was 4 or 5. My uncle gave me the bike, hand-me-down, and everyone used to stare at me riding up and down this block. I was too short to reach the pedals, so I put my legs through the V of the frame. I was famous. The little kid who could ride the ten-speed.
Among my dad’s generation, when you gave another man a pocketknife as a gift, it was a show of respect. I’ll still give someone the knife out of my pocket.
I met Steve Austin at an airport in 2005, and he gave me the best piece of advice I could ever receive – to keep running my mouth and never stop talking! I took that advice to heart, and it has helped me get where I am today.
My childhood name that my father gave me, my mother, my grandmother, grandfather, family and friends all call me T.I.P.
When God saved me, He gave me a thirst to learn and to read and to study. I thrived in college. I got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and then went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.
