Dont forget, I was the soft, pudgy kid in school that everyone made fun of.
I think education is one of the greatest tools for most kids not only to expand their book knowledge, but their ability to experience new things - I think it opens more doors than any other experience I can think of.
I used humor to avoid being picked on as a kid. Or I would try and make my parents laugh, so I wouldn't get in trouble. But as a kid, I would watch Flip Wilson and I would memorize his whole routine, listen to Bill Cosby's records constantly, Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball. I just drank that stuff up and loved it.
My dad died in May of '97. The effects of his death immediately were not all that hard, but a year or two later it hit, when my job as Dad was sort of done and I was sending my kids to college. And somehow, the emotional intensity of that event mixed with the loss of my own dad, was kind of upsetting.
When people come up to me and say, "I was at your Game 7 in the playoffs in Toronto," or, "I saw your first goal in the NHL," that triggers memories. But I don't sit around my kitchen table and tell my kids, "You know, one year I got 92 goals."
When I was a kid at 16, sneaking into a burlesque theater in downtown Detroit was a big thrill. Today, in every hotel room in America, you can turn on the television and see hardcore pornography. So the shifts can go both ways, and it's incumbent on us as leaders of the spiritual community to get as many people as possible to really begin to think in God-realized ways.
I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it.
I hated art as a kid. I didn't even like art class. I didn't like to draw. I would make my dad do all the drawings because I hated it so much.
I spend a lot of time at my son’s school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies.
My mom said, "What I want is a happy kid, not a rich kid. That's what I root for." She saw how much joy I got from playing music, and those years were leaner than lean!
It's remarkable how a soundtrack can be so important to the storytelling and the experience. I think the music is going to make people see the movie a lot. The music is going to make you want to go see it again. You have so much fun in the movie, and it's music that you want to share with your kids, anyway.
When I was a little kid back in Moscow, Russia, I've always thought I would become an artist or a folk dancer or an astronomer. In fact, if you'd asked me then about a life of solitary writing I would have said, "Oh how boring! Imagine, to sit at a desk all day and just write."
In the future, I want a movie career, kids and a happy marriage.
I went from being very popular and the head of the clique in the sixth grade to having, like, kid depression in the seventh grade. Not leaving the house. Not looking people in the eye... My body made me feel bad at everything.
I think the 20s are a vastly overrated decade. We promise kids that once they get out of school, life will begin and their dreams will come true. But then comes the struggle.
I think it's important to recall... what you remember your grandmother making, where you're from and the foods you enjoyed as a child yourself, and pass that information off to your kids.
Usually kids who are talented have the brashness to think they can do anything, but they don't often get the chance to see how close they can come.
As I was a kid, I had a bunch of musicians, they always told me that I should listen to all styles of music and try to play all styles and be authentic at it, if I can, because you never know who's gonna call you. This was coming from fellow horn players who would get the call to play with different types of people. Since I was a kid, that was just something I was always interested in.
If they don't board and live by themselves, even in their second year they've got no lounge or kitchen table and it's a pretty lonely existence when you get home to an empty house. Homesickness is a key issue for kids who are drafted interstate, whether they are going to Melbourne or coming to Perth or going to Brisbane. All the kids we've drafted this year will all go through periods of homesickness, which can lead to worse things.
When I was playing junior football when I was a kid, we were the Geneva Giants, so it was kind of embedded in me to be a Giants fan.
It's very interesting that most of the roles I've gotten are grim, when I'm actually a very well-adjusted man and had a happy upbringing. I guess there are some dark shadows somewhere in there, but I'm a big kid.
Initiating and going through a divorce with four kids can be a brutal experience, but also a tempering one. It gave me perspective and insight to be able to find the love of my life.
I was working as hard as a human being could work. That tempo hasn't changed. I just have more diversity and more companies, and now I've got 33 companies so my dance card is full. Four kids and three grandkids, but I love that passionate lifestyle. I love constantly growing, I love seeing and feeling that you can have an impact. And gradually it went from just coaching to actually running businesses because I've had experiences that were life changing.
You can't raise a happy, more resilient kid if you're not a happy, more resilient adult.
When you have a kid, money matters.
