A Quote by Isaac Wright Jr.
The first time I picked up a law book, it was like I had done it all my life. There was just something that happened to me when I did that, and I realized there was a hidden gift there I didn't know I had.
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The first part of my life was to be an actor and maybe have some success at that. Then [it was time] to find somebody to be in a relationship with and have a life that way. Because of Parkinson's, I had to change: How can I be of service here? Is there something unique to my situation that I can use to help people? I did not have the wherewithal to invent that. It just happened in front of me and had me join in.
For the first time [with the Bible] - I know this sounds so corny - but I knew love. I had such an empty love tank. I had all the questions to life that didn't make sense. Two and two didn't add up to four. From my father's death - if you loved me, why did you leave me? Why did you kill yourself? And so when this happened, it took my life in a completely different direction.
My mother had died when I wrote my first book. I was twenty-seven, so it was right at the beginning of my writing life. I don't know if she had lived, if I would have done it, certainly not quite like I did. But, you can't rethink it. You wrote what you wrote, it meant something to other people, and that's your good.
I think when I first realized that something interesting had happened was probably in 1994. There was a 25th anniversary of the ARPANET celebration and... somebody asked the question, 'Where did email come from?' I remembered that I had done this little program back in 1971. People looked back and nobody could find anything that predated it.
When I [first] went to university, I was doing foreign languages, because I had done them since I was 13 years old. I had done French and German. I picked up Italian, just sort of blasted through the exams, [and then] took off overseas, because I wanted to be an actor. I thought, "I'm just not academic." I'm not very competitive, in terms of acting. But since going back to university, I've realized, I am highly competitive.
I always want to work on things that really scare me and interest me at the same time, and you know, I definitely had some projects in the past that did that, but the stars never aligned in getting them up. So 'Lion' was another project that really interested me, and the stars did align on this one. It just happened to be my first film!
The word 'epiphany' gets thrown around, but truly, the first time I stepped on stage, I had that moment of clarity. I realized God gave me a gift, and this gift is to make people laugh, and this gift should not be wasted on trying to configure some electrical components.
When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it.
I'm just made differently. Man, I just love being an American, I love my country. But it happened to me during the Nixon time, especially pre-Watergate, that as I watched Nixon for the first time in my life I felt shame. I had to analyze myself. What is this emotion? I realized that my government was separate from my country. It was the first time I ever felt ashamed of the government, not the country.
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.
Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.
I don't hate Charles. I just want my life to count for something. Everyone thinks I just walked out on a paralyzed man. But after he had his stroke, he couldn't hang on to me. And I realized for the first time that I was at peace.
When they finally did dare it, at first with stolen glances and then candid ones, they had to smile. They were uncommonly proud. For the first time they had done something out of Love.
I think I had a particular moment when I was 15 years old. I read 'Crime and Punishment,' and that book just, I think, more than any other book made me want to be a writer, 'cause it was the first time that I hadn't just entered a book, but a book had entered me.
I've done everything. I've sung, done records, plays... It just so happened my first professional job was as a dancer. I've done the whole shebang, darling. But dancing was my first professional engagement in 1974. I got paid for it, so that was it, my vocation. But my parents weren't keen. They wanted me to be an accountant in Italy. Or a lawyer. They were furious. I had to run away. I had to leave the country.
When I finally did stop and look at my life, I realized that I had done what I'd set out to do. In my pitiful little way, I had climbed the mountain I had chosen. And there I was, on top.
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