This sort of encouragement is vital for any writer. And lastly the publication of Touching the Flame, which was on hold for two years and went through a few publishers before finding a stable home.
I've never really socialized; I've always been anti-social and preferred to be at home. I was never, even my late teens and early twenties, into clubs and parties and stuff like that.
My mother attended the local church, Saint Nicolas, and consequently, I attended that church and its Sunday School. My only prizes from the Sunday School were 'for attendance,' so I presume my atheism, which developed when I left home to attend university, although latent, was discernible.
I'd love to have a program like 'Dr. Laura.' I studied psychology at the University of Miami, and when I rode the bus home from school, perfect strangers would strike up conversations with me and end up telling me their life stories. I think they could sense that I was studying to help people. That, or I have a face like a priest.
City of Los Angeles is my home, and it is my duty to lead by example, contribute all that I can, and help make the world a better place with the tools and resources available to me.
Growing up in a group home, and with an undiagnosed learning disability to boot, the odds of success were not on my side. But when I joined the high school football team, I learned the value of discipline, focus, persistence, and teamwork - all skills that have proven vital to my career as a C.E.O. and social entrepreneur.
My dad worked nights mostly and while we were growing up, and my mother also worked, so there were times where, when it was just the two of us at home, and, you know, they gave us a pretty long leash, actually.
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
I grew up just as my friends did until 19 before leaving home, and it's because of that I am who I am now.
However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.
Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
I always regret leaving home if I don't get at least four or five surfs in the week before I leave. I try to be in the water as much as possible before leaving, and it's the one thing I miss massively.
The history of American women is all about leaving home - crossing oceans and continents, or getting jobs and living on their own.
Once, a makeup artist put a little gold highlighter on my Cupid's bow, and it accentuated the lip colour and brought the whole makeup look together. It was just a little thing, but I loved it. I do it myself now, but I have to double check myself. I'm like, 'Is this too much?' You don't want to be leaving home with a big glob of gold on your face.
Leaving home early is always complicated. But when I arrived in Germany, I encountered an incredible structure built by the company that takes care of my career. They did not leave me wanting for anything. The most complicated thing was really the language. Otherwise, everything was taken care of.
My dad is really the reason I have this hard work ethic. I can fully remember him leaving home at 5 o'clock in the morning and not coming back until midnight.
I did not enjoy Cambridge. But I shouldn't blame Cambridge alone. I wasn't ready for university or for the wrench of leaving home. It was a big cultural shock.
I hate leaving home. I love what I do, but I'd love to go home every night.
'A Different World,' for me, was in a lot of ways responsible for me going to college. I wanted to go to a black college, and I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. It's just a natural part of all of our journeys, that idea of leaving home.
My dad was fine, but I have to say my mum was upset when I said I was leaving home.
