If you think you aren't valid for whatever reason, let my existence and the way the world embraces my existence tell you that you are valid. You deserve to look, live, and walk through the world however you see fit. That's why I find it extremely important to be so out, so black, and so myself.
'Growing Stronger' emerged from a need to relate my life experiences as well as my constant struggle to prevail each day, and as a reminder to myself of the importance of never giving up.
I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it.
When the headache persisted, I checked myself into an emergency room. When the doctor used the term 'brain tumour', I feared the worst. My whole world shrank around me.
I'm the man who sits behind a table and tells true stories from his life. I'm also an actor. I was trained as an actor at Emerson College, and I use that training to play myself.
I am so enriched because so much has happened in my life. The way I can express myself is because of the life I have led. It's only when you experience life can you emote it.
Singing is the form I've chosen to express myself. It's the way I emote best.
I started to call myself a rational therapist in 1955; later I used the term rational emotive. Now I call myself a rational emotive behavior therapist.
As far as my mindset changing, I see myself having more empathy in my older age.
Michael Jordan and Magic and myself all learned how to play the game in college programs that emphasized the team.
I wake up every day, I deal with hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars. I fund my tours by myself. I do merch by myself. I employ people. I have my own successful company.
For my brothers it was easy to think about the future. They can be anything they want. But for me it was hard and for that reason I wanted to become educated and empower myself with knowledge.
I know I'm stronger in the songs than I really am. Sometimes I need to hear it myself. We all need to hear those empowering songs to remind us.
I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expectation that this exquisitely catered event should be 'the happiest moment' of one's life.
We never did try to get together and to show the younger Negroes such as myself, to try and even to show that he has ambitions - and with just a little encouragement, I could have really done something worthwhile. But instead, we did nothing but let the young upstarts know that they were young and simple, and that was that.
Retiring for good wasn't difficult. I knew at the time it was right. I was no longer capable of achieving the standards I'd set myself and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
Every time I'm shooting a movie I want to kill myself. Because I don't see the light in the end of the tunnel.
It's something I have to remind myself about, that at every competition, I put a lot of pressure on myself, almost like it's the end of the world, and I have to keep reminding myself it's not.
It's not the end of the world if I can't get a film job, or if a movie doesn't turn out well - even though I don't like it when that happens. There are other things I enjoy doing, and I involve myself in them.
More often than not, the experience of shooting the movie has been disappointing and the end product has been a mere shadow of what I hoped it would be. But immersing myself in the story - that's what I like best of all.
