A Quote by Mahershala Ali

It was really a focus on how to in some ways keep moving in this direction towards something that allowed me to express myself in a way that sports didn't. — © Mahershala Ali
It was really a focus on how to in some ways keep moving in this direction towards something that allowed me to express myself in a way that sports didn't.
I still don't know how to express the really delicate personal stuff. People think that Plastic Ono is very personal, but there are some subtleties of emotions which I cannot seem to express in pop music, and it frustrates me. Maybe that's why I still search for other ways of expressing myself. Song writing is a limiting experience in some ways - writing down words that have to rhyme.
I think humor really is the most effective way for me personally to express myself. When I see an incredible formalist painting, I respect it. I really do. I see its history and I get it. But when I pass something weird or something funny, I totally associate with it. I find myself thinking about it later that day. That's how I know something is thought provoking. That's how I know something is effective.
Remember, life is all what you focus on. Learn lessons and keep moving forward towards your goals and dreams... "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
Singing allowed me to express myself in ways that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise.
My first book really did change my life. It allowed me to fully express myself. There was a sense that I was worth something as an artist.
I think just being able to experience college gymnastics the way I have has allowed me to really express myself and have so much fun in the sport.
I have a loose blueprint of where I want the show to go. I stress, quite frankly to remind myself, that I hold onto that vision very loosely, so that I can be moving towards something, but I don't ever want to feel like I'm in a box that'll stop me from exploring a potential new direction.
I realized that after finding this thing that allowed me to express myself - acting - and being encouraged by a few people that I could do it, I had kind of grabbed onto it and dug in my claws in a way that was maybe a bit unhealthy. I allowed myself to get into a headspace where I lived or died by what I achieved in this particular field.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!
I wanted to be a singer, of course, but there was something about the songwriting, then and now, that is the most important thing. It's how I express myself, how I express how I see things. When I see people struggling with emotions and feelings and don't know how to put it down, I'm able to do that. It's really like a therapy, and it's like a buddy and a friend. It's a way out of a lot of things.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
A fantastic analogy for the power of focus is racing cars. When your car begins to skid, the natural reflex is to look at the wall in an attempt to avoid it. But if you keep focusing on what you fear, that's exactly where you'll end up. Professional racers know that we unconsciously steer in the direction of our focus, so with their lives on the line, they turn their focus away from the wall and towards the open track.
I want to be a jazzman until the day I die. To help keep that motion, momentum and movement going, for myself, for my students, for the people who hear me. Oh sure, some days you look around at this country and look at the evidence and think, Oh Lord, don't look good. But you keep moving. You gotta keep moving.
I think in some ways - only in some ways - but in some ways, rock and roll has let me down. It really doesn't leave you a way to grow old gracefully and continue to work.
When you aren't drinking or using drugs or spending lots of money on fancy toys or basking in the glow of fame or working all the time or eating your way through the refrigerator, being hateful and angry is a very handy shield from the truth. It lets you focus on everyone else's shortcomings, and all the ways they have let you down. You can bemoan how all these broken people keep finding you somehow. That way you don't have to focus on what really matters -- the tough work of fiing what is broken inside you.
Digression is my passion. I love telling the main stories, but in some ways, what I love most is using those narratives as a way of stringing together the interesting stories that people have kind of forgotten, and that are kind of surprising. The problem is, how do you pare stories away so that the book doesn't become a distracting jumble of material, and readers lose focus? In my experience, there's really only one way to do that. I pack it all in with the rough draft, then count on myself and my trusted readers to tell me what's good and what's not good.
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