You never know how things are going to fit. So, you don't count your eggs until they hatch. You can't pre-project that. I mean, this was literally like a childhood fantasy of mine, to be able to work in action. You know, growing up on Disney films like Pocahontas and wanting to enter into that, or Aladdin and how he's fighting - being your own hero, being your own heroine is like every one's dream.
Growing up in a family that listened to almost nothing but classical music had its effects, as well. "California Über Alles," the first Dead Kennedys single, was inspired musically more by Japanese Kabuki than anything else.
Having been born and raised in Washington, D.C., you kind of absorb politics when you grow up. And it continues to be a focus of mine, probably more than what is healthy for me.
I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly.
Part of my growing up was always trying to make my parents proud and always trying to keep them happy. I think part of what held them together was my involvement in sports.
We really didn't have the option of being couch potatoes when I was growing up. There were only three television channels and the only kid's programming was on Saturday morning. We always played outside until we could hear Mom calling us (not by cell phone but with her hands cupped around her mouth) that it was dinner time.
Growing up doing those Kiwanis Clubs, doing those Cub Scout banquets, doing those church shows, I learned to find that sensibility that most people could laugh at - that all ages and demographics could laugh at.
Yeah I loved, as a kid growing up, I loved science-fiction.
No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.
We're a lukewarm people for all our feast days and hard work. Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision. Our children frighten us in their intimacy, but we make sure they grow up like us. Lukewarm like us. On a night like this, hands and faces hot, we can believe that tomorrow will show us angels in jars and that the well-known woods will suddenly reveal another path.
And if I ever have any children of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, I am not going to let them have any cares until they grow up.
God waits patiently for me to wake up, grow up, come to the awareness that great works take time, that nothing truly worthwhile can be rushed... How difficult it is not to interfere, to try to take over, to go it alone. But God cannot succeed without me. God needs my whole-hearted cooperation in this work.
What scientist would not long to go on living, if only to see how the little truths he has brought to light will grow up?
Growing up with my brothers, I was like an accompanying mascot to them. The whole heritage and culture of soundsystems is all in my blood y'know? Then obviously from DJing, I just went onto building my own sound and producing my own music.
Growing up I played piano and I sang at a lot of weddings; I grew up in a very small town, a little coal-mining town in Virginia called Grundy. And my family was very sing-songy at home.
I was a big fan of 'The Smurfs' growing up, even though by default - my mom used to force me to watch because she was a 'Smurfs' fan.
I loved movies. They inspired me more than anything growing up and wanted to do for others what those movies have done for me. I do a lot of other creative stuff but am not very good at it.
When I was growing up, you sort of did the unthinkable. You did something that has never really been replicated.
Doesn't every generation feel like the one that's coming up behind them doesn't know how to grow up? I'm not sure if we're progressively getting worse or if your perspective shifts.
Growing up sucks, doesn't it? I understand why people wouldn't want to get old - but it'd be one thing if we became a culture obsessed with eating right, doing yoga, going to therapy and becoming at one with ourselves. That be great. But we don't do that. We seem to be obsessed with all the wrong ways to stay young.
I turned up my nose at yoga for years. I was a rugby player growing up. But now I know. When I'm on those long international flights, like 22 hours from L.A. to Sydney, I'll get up sometimes and do yoga in the aisle just to stretch out a little bit.
When I look back at what musical theatre music and show music meant to me, first of all - more than anything - what it meant to me was work. As I was growing up, I realized that singing and performing was my strong suit.
My father was an electrical engineer who worked at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. When I was growing up, my mother wrote humor columns for the local paper. She was the Erma Bombeck of Murrysville, Pa.
Growing up, Magic Johnson was my idol. He was a good example. He could always pass the ball extremely well and get his teammates involved.
People think about autism as something with kids. Well, those kids grow up.