I didn't have many friends; I might not have had any friends. But it all turned out good in the end, because when you aren't popular and you don't have a social life, it gives you more time to focus on your future.
The future of communicating with customers rests in engaging with them through every possible channel: phone, e-mail, chat, Web, and social networks. Customers are discussing a company's products and brand in real time. Companies need to join the conversation.
The economic and social problems would tend to become, like the military situation, more and more difficult as time went on and we became more and more isolated.
Every time we give a musician the advice to give away the music and sell the T-shirt, we're saying, 'Don't make your living in this more elevated way. Instead, reverse this social progress, and choose a more physical way to make a living.' We're sending them to peasanthood, very much like the Maoists have.
We need to get back to a level of social responsibility that we haven't seen for a long time.
Today there are about 40 million retirees receiving benefits; by the time all the baby boomers have retired, there will be more than 72 million retirees drawing Social Security benefits.
There's been a lot said about Social Security reform. What has been left out of the debate is the double tax on Social Security benefits. I believe it's time to get rid of a tax that punishes seniors and discourages work and retirement savings.
I do think that Social Security reform needs to be bipartisan, and we are going to have to reach that in this debate at some time before we can find really meaningful reform.
I believe it's time to put our best ideas on the table and work toward a bipartisan solution, with the single goal of leaving the Social Security system stronger than we found it.
It's critical that children spend time before they arrive in school in a warm, attractive and inclusive environment, where they can learn through play, master social skills and prepare for formal schooling.
My fans are indulging in social welfare activities from time to time and have also been helping economically backward students.
Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.
I remember when I was a young social worker, the first time I went to the state capital in Arizona, where I eventually served for seven years, I was so nervous to go and lobby my state legislators. Because I only had a master's degree at the time in social work.
But if we leave them alone, just satisfying ourselves with social work, economic work and the building up of a national army, it can make progress, hopefully within a short time.
At the time I belonged to the socialist party, and Hitler came to power.
When you're in a young band for the first time, geographically you're in the same place and you tend to go out and socialize. You play more shows, you spend more time together. You're a unit. As you grow older, inevitably you develop a life outside the band. I think it would be tragic if you didn't.
The big, big block in the Arthur/Merlin friendship is the status issue, that Merlin is the servant and Arthur is royalty, and in that time, princes did not socialize with their servants; that wasn't the done thing. It just so happens that their relationship, their friendship, is strong: they have been through the thick and the thin of it all.
As white people in this society, we are socialized from the time that we're born to see ourselves as superior, to see white people and things associated white people as superior. At the same time, I'm encouraged to never admit to that. I'm taught that racism is very bad and immoral.
If I'm in a social situation sometimes I'll hang back and observe people but I feel very much a part of things most of the time and feel very comfortable socializing and have for most of my life.
Friends and relatives might be surprised that I think of myself as lonely. I'm married to a man I not only love but like, and we spend a lot of time together. If I feel like socializing, I can usually find someone to meet for coffee or a drink.
