A Quote by Frank Sinatra, Jr.

As I look back on it now, I'm thinking of one very vital factor, that one factor being that I was afforded the luxury - the luxurious opportunity - of finally being able to put something back. As a child growing up, it was his [Frank Sinatra] efforts that put a roof over my head, food in my stomach, clothes on my back, and that got me an education and sent me to the doctor when I was sick. All those things a child could benefit from parent. I did not want to be in a position where all I had ever done was take, take, take, frankly.
Look, as a child growing up it occurred to me that I had everything I could have wanted: a roof over my head, education, food. All of it because my father provided... My way of giving back was being that invisible guy. Giving something back from a lifetime of taking.
I take responsibility for the times I was arrested and the things that I did. Me being 33 now, I look back on those times and I wish that a lot of things I didn't do. I wish I could have back because I see how much I influence people. People wanna follow in my footsteps and I wish that I can now do more positive things, and that back then I'd done more positive things.
As I look back now on my coaching career, I think of my family, I think of the days that we spent together. I say this to coaches everywhere: If you ever have a chance to take your kids with you, take them. Don't miss that opportunity. Because when it's all over and done with, when you look back, those are going to be your fondest memories.
I was onstage one night and was singing. I hit one note, and I just doubled over. It was like being punched hard in the back. I couldn't put my back up on the plane seat because of the pain. I got massages, thinking it was muscle spasms. The doctor told me at the time that it was my pancreas. I didn't even know.
I'm trolling through the recesses of my mind for the things I did with my kids when they used to like to do things with me. They don't want to be around me now. I look back on these times - all those little funny pottery dishes that you'd pay for, and they'd paint, and they were ugly, and you glazed them, and you'd go back, pick them up, and it's like, "Oh, now I've got to put this on my desk." There's all that kind of stuff.
I want to take back the secrets I told you so I can decide now whether to tell them to you again. I want to take back the piece of me that lies in you, to see if I truly miss it. I want to take back at least half the “I love you”s, because it feels safer that way.
When it’s all said and done, I want to be able to say I got the most out of my potential. I don’t want to look back, however many years from now, and say, ‘I wonder if I would have worked a little harder. I wonder if I would have done this or done that, how things would have turned out.’ I want to, when it’s all said and done, be able to put my head on my pillow and say, ‘I did everything I could do — good or bad.’
We've got to take back the ideal of justice, we've got to take back this principle of human dignity. We've got to take it back from vengeance, from hatred, we've got to say: look, we're all in this together. We are human beings.
I had years of partying, and I was kind of surprised and happy I survived it all. Now, being a parent, I look back on it thinking, Oh God, the things you did!
I was able to put something back. I was able to be of help to [Frank Sinatra] when he needed my help - and he did need somebody's help.
Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deeds, on the one hand, I had a woman who had chosen to give me up; on the other, I had a woman who'd sat up with me at night when I was sick as a child, who'd cried with me over boyfriends, who'd clapped fiercely at my law school graduation. Which acts made you more of a mother? Both, I realized. Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.
For me, I was born in the Bronx, and I moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia at a very young age. I had the luxury of going back to New York, visiting my grandmother who would spoil me endlessly, and I could buy whatever was the hot kicks in the summertime of 1990. Being able to shop and then going back to Virginia Beach, where they weren't as fast in regards to fashion, I had that luxury.
I've always gotten good grades, you know, with my teachers and my English teachers, 'cause I was able to - they'd say, "What did you do for the summer?" I'm able to explain it to them in a written form. And my teachers always patted me on the back for that, being able to take what's in my mind and put it on paper.
All I'm doing, all I have done for 40 years, is spend time with the best scientific experts, gain their confidence, and take advantage of their patience in explaining things to me over and over again in progressively simpler language that I can understand, so that I can read it back to them and get their sign off, where they say, "Yep, that's it, Al. You've got it." When I understand it, I know I can explain it to other people. When the scientists' predictions end up being true, I see that as an opportunity to say to people, "Listen carefully to what they're saying now."
What I'm asking people to do is to look at their lives, wherever they may be. I mean, you may be a housewife or a mother in Gauteng and you're driving your kid to school, you know, and you've got one kid in the back and you're driving 30 kilometres to school and 30 kilometres back, so 60 kilometres in a day, to take one child to school. Is there a possibility that you can put a few more kids, some friends' kids in the car, and start saving on those types of things?
It strikes me that the only reason to take apart a pocket watch, or a car engine, aside from the simple delight of disassembly, is to find out how it works. To understand it, so you can put it back together again better than before, or build a new one that goes beyond what the old one could do. We've been taking apart the superhero for ten years or more; it's time to put it back together and wind it up, time to take it out on the road and floor it, see what it'll do.
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