I had just been in some repressive situations - the black middle-class college scene and the crazy United States Air Force - and so I just felt like getting out of that. I thought, now, that I wanted to be a writer. I had something that I wanted to do, that I was interested in doing, so I wanted to pursue that.
Walt had a seat-of-the-pants approach on what he wanted musically. We kind of 'read' the boss and had a very high batting average, but there were occasions when he felt we had just written the wrong piece for the situation he wanted. We invariably listened to what he wanted - he was very descriptive in what he wanted and we could read him. We'd go back to the drawing board and work out what he wanted. He was a great inspiration, but a tough taskmaster.
I always wanted to make a song like 'Why' even before my second album. It was just something I always had in my mind. But when I got the beat from Havoc, it was like the perfect beat, I felt... I wanted to get some questions I thought everybody... felt like 'why?' to.
My dad had a couple of professions in mind for me. He either wanted me to be a doctor because he said male doctors make a lot of money, or he wanted me to be a soccer player. Myself, I thought that I would really love being a pilot for the Air Force. I really wanted to be a part of the Air Force.
All I've wanted to do is write. In school I just wanted to be a writer but I was afraid to be a writer because I felt I couldn't. It didn't really feel like my writing was interesting enough, so getting a book published was a huge kick.
He wanted to care, he wanted to care so badly, but there was this gap between what he felt and what he wanted to feel, a space where something important had been carved out.
I think I told my parents I wanted to be a writer, just so they'd kind of think I had some direction in life. It made it easier to pick out classes at college, like, 'Oh, this is writing classes, that's what I'm doing.'
I knew what I wanted to do when I set out. I knew that I wanted to write a book that told the story, obviously. I wanted it be comedy first, because I felt like there already had been childhood druggy stories that were very serious, and I felt that the unique thing here was that I was a comic and I could tell the story with some levity, and I have been laughing at these stories my whole life.
To be fair, when I started doing 'Verdict' I literally had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to do some theatre, as I wanted to do something different. I wanted to learn and get an understanding of the craft.
I've never had anything. I just wanted to one day live comfortable. Like, be able to go out to lunch with my friends without being like, crap, I don't know if I can afford this bill right now. I shouldn't be doing this. That's all I really wanted.
Since I was a teenager, I had wanted to come to the United States to establish my name as a writer and to establish my freedom. As a writer and artist, I cannot do anything without freedom. For me, freedom is just like the air or water. I cannot write without freedom.
I really struggled with doing nine-to-five and just wanted to do something where it felt like I was in charge and I was doing something creative. I imagine if the first gig had gone badly I'd never have done it again. I imagine there's hundreds of people who could have been really great comedians and just had a bad first gig.
My last visit to China as secretary, January of 2011, I told President Hu Jintao, just like this, "President of the United States wanted me to tell you that we now consider North Korea a direct threat to the United States." And it had no effect whatsoever.
I wanted to be a musician. I just wanted to be famous because I wanted to escape from what I felt was my limitation in life... And I wanted to write music, and I didn’t know what I was doing and I never had the technique or understanding of it... But I’ve always played the piano and I can improvise on the piano, but the problem is that I can’t write down what I write. I can read music but I can’t write numbers.
At the end of the day, I looked at my options. I wanted to be in the NBA. I wanted to pursue my dream. It was my choice. But sometimes, just for fun, I think about how it would've been if I'd stayed in college.
I loved watching documentaries and had wanted to try making one for years - I'd just put it off as other opportunities arose. But I felt like time was running out for me if I wanted to do it.
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.