A Quote by Mel Rodriguez

My life could have easily gone another way. But I had this one teacher who gave me direction and got me into performing. She got me into touring with an educational play called 'The Inner Circle' along with Pedro Zamora from MTV's 'The Real World.'
I went to Catholic school, and there was this teacher, a Brother, who saw I could go either way, good or bad. He took an interest in me and got me to do a play. I got hooked on acting, and it gave me something constructive to do. I had a lot of energy.
[Amy Sedaris] is awesome to work with. She's an amazing person. She makes her own line of catnip toys, and she gave me a bunch for my cat. It meant the world to me. She also got me stuff for my daughter, but I was more enamored with what she gave me for my cat.
My playing had called to another human being at last. Surely, she could be no other than my own true love. Slowly, I got to my feet. Speak to me, I thought. And as if she'd heard me, the young woman's lips parted and she spoke thus: Have you lost your mind?
I was fortunate that when I was first starting out in New Orleans, I had a remarkable high-school teacher. And she was a great, great influence in my life, and I think she gave me the courage and the confidence to go forward into the real world. She instilled in me that my dreams were important and that what I was passionate about was most important.
I was my mom's oldest child, so she was like, watching closely and taking notes, like, 'Okay, this is what she gravitates towards,' and she gave me all the tools to keep me focused. I liked to write; she got me notebooks. I wanted to draw; she got me sketch books and crayons and coloured pencils.
Shortly before she died Janis Joplin gave me the Gibson Hummingbird she recorded "Me and Bobbby McGee" on ... Janis was a good guitar player, for her purposes .. she just wanted to play along with her songs, and she had a real pure and nice style for that.
My sister played the piano. She’s two years older than me, and I always wanted to play something. So my grandmother got the guitar for me, and showed me a couple of chords to start off. And then I got me a book. Next thing you know, I was playing along with sister.
My drama teacher when I was a kid called me 'Zawe the activist' and I had no idea why. Now I've got older I can see why she always saw that in me.
'Battle: Los Angeles' - I've got to say this was easily one of the most physically trying things that I've ever done in my life because I play a Marine in the film, and they had us training with real live Marines for, like, three weeks. It gave me a whole new respect for just the armed forces, period.
God loves me, and that he has the perfect plan for me. His plan will take me through a lots of ups and downs, but if I stay faithful to him that in the end he will work everything for my good. Now when I play basketball, I don't play for anyone else, I only play for God. That's the type of purpose that he gave me, and once he gave me that purpose, is when I found my peace, and once I got my peace, that's when I got my joy.
I could, I think, quite easily have gone to Oxford. I got four good A levels, but my father's income was such that I wouldn't have got a grant, and he wouldn't let me go to university, and that was the end of it.
The way I view touring and shows, for me, is that I really like playing, but that's not the thing that fuels me. I am much happier writing and recording. For me, performing is exclusively for other people. I let people write me to tell me what they want to hear. I'll play any of it.
If I'd loved my chemistry teacher and my maths teacher, goodness knows what direction my life might have gone in. I remember there was a primary school teacher who really woke me up to the joys of school for about one year when I was ten. He made me interested in things I would otherwise not have been interested in - because he was a brilliant teacher. He was instrumental in making me think learning was quite exciting.
I don't know about immortal, but I must say that to me to touch more women and to have them understand friendships is important. I've had girls come up to me who said, "Yeah, after I saw 'Beaches' I called up my friend Denise who I was really mad at. She got me so aggravated and I called her and we made up." So if I could do that with this new release, yes, that would be very pleasing to me because, hey, it's a tough world. You need friends out there.
Wenger gave me the opportunity to be where I am today. He's a coach that helped me a lot, who gave me a chance, who's always been there for me in the bad moments. He called me, consoled me, gave me good advice, told me what I had to do to become a great player. I can only thank him.
My aunt got me interested in journalism - she found an old typewriter, had it worked over, put it on the dining room table, gave me a stack of paper and said, 'Play like you're a writer.'
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