I have spoken honestly about being born into a home where there was discord and chaos. I saw my mom have a rough time with my dad being very controlling, which is why I push back whenever I feel like someone is trying to box me in. It makes me run for the hills.
There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment... only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me.
Latino people have come up to me and said they were motivated to become a lawyer because they saw me play one on TV - and you can't discount how great it is when they tell me I was the first.
I get a special joy in knowing people feel comfortable if they see me in Wal-Mart or in a no-frills section trying to get something on a discount.
I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast.
If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.
Those 'Idol' shows are kind of scary to me. They wanted me to be on one of those panels one time, and I said it's the last thing in the world I'd ever want to do. I would hate to have to discourage somebody.
This is for all of you out there tonight, reaching for a dream - don't ever give up! Never ever listen to anyone, when they try to discourage you, because they do that, believe me!
I know that a good many champions have entertained the thought that the more they discourage youngsters, the longer they would reign. However, this theory never impressed me, and I always made it a point to give youths the benefit of my experience in bicycle racing.
I remember teachers who really singled me out for their discouragement.
I was spoiled in a very strange way as a child, because everybody told me, from the moment I was able to hear, that I was absolutely marvelous, and I never heard a discouraging word for years, you see. I didn't know what was ahead of me.
I was lucky to marry Paul. He was a great inspiration, his enthusiasm about wine and food helped to shape my tastes, and his encouragement saw me through discouraging moments. I never would have had my career without Paul Child.
It's discouraging for me to come out there and watch the lack of fan support for a good team.
I used to be a retailer, and I find it discouraging when somebody comes in and they pick something up and they say, 'Now if you'll sell it to me without the sales tax, I'll buy it.'
I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me pre-eminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature.
Discovering the 'impossible' ending to a new book makes me sick with joy and relief.
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.
However, those who have used those words use half the sentence to fit their purpose, which, of course, I believe is to discredit me and the new Nation of Islam that has come up around me.
Back in the day, I used to get really upset when people used to say that I didn't really make all my own things - like my art or my videos or whatever. I work really hard on everything, so it used to upset me when people would try to discredit me or say that I wouldn't have what I had without this person or that person.
