I now have 10-year-olds asking me about how to become successful, how to become a business owner, which is crazy - at 10 I was trying to figure out which Barbie I wanted.
Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time," Pamuk said then. "I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years I worried about money and no one asked me how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking me about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do.
I wanted to put a really good kids' racing bike out there for kids under 14: 10-year-olds, eight-year-olds, right down to balance bikes for kids.
I love being around kids. I couldn't figure out why all these 70-year-olds wanted to hang out with me when I was 27. Now I understand, and I'm trying to steal their energy from them like they stole from me at the time.
I played 'Mortal Kombat' competitively in arcades. Played for money at 10, hustling the 20-year-olds. Five bucks on whoever wins. Which, at 10 years old, is real money.
Whether it happens over 10 years, like with a lot of people, or with one hit movie that thrusts you into that world, when you become successful as an actor, you become well known. In the end game, that's just part of the business.
When I was six years old, I was always playing with the 10-year-olds. When I was 10, I was always playing with the 14-year-olds.
Even as a 10-year-old, I remember trying to explain to my mother and stepfather how upset and frustrated a messy room made me. But they just couldn't grasp it. They wanted me to be playing with baseballs and frogs while I wanted to be scouring garage sales.
It's all about baby steps and trying to figure out how to slowly, elegantly become an adult.
My construction business represents 10 or 20 times what I'll ever invest in football. But from the moment I bought the Chargers, I would become forever known as the owner of that NFL franchise.
Undergrad, for me, in college was really about, you know, how do I become a professional. But business school, for me, was how do I become the person that I'm meant to be.
I wanted to become a director before I wanted to become a writer. When I was 10, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, 'Walt Disney.' I wanted to make films. But I wasn't offered a camera. I was offered language. So I started telling stories in the theatre and then in my novels.
I've been trying to figure out for at least the last 10 years how to force myself into something more risky.
How happy am I on a scale of one to 10? When you have a daughter, it's 10 out of 10. It doesn't matter what happens. The joy that I get from that, I try to give it to my football.
10 years ago [in 2006], nearly 90 percent of those albums sold enough in that year to reach Gold status. 10 years later, about 30 percent were eligible. With the new rules, we figure about 40 percent of the top 200 best-sellers for the year will be eligible. We were very cautious in our approach to changing how we calculate what is eligible because the integrity of the process is our foremost consideration. It's difficult to get certified sales awards, and it's a big deal and we didn't want there to be a huge change in how many would be eligible.
I spend twelve hours a week - a little over 10% of my waking hours - playing the game. Now I am trying to figure out how to get by on less sleep in order to fit in a few more hands.
When I first read 'On the Road,' it helped me figure out how to live against the grain. Now I wonder how to be subversive when the subversive has become mainstream.