A Quote by Nia Long

He just was being four. He just was being a child. He wasn't interested in what my agenda was. He wanted to do what he wanted to do and it started because he saw the lights on in Toys R Us.
I just wanted to play tennis. I started because I wanted to pick up another sport and then as I was slowly getting better I wanted to see how far I can go but I always wanted to be myself. I wanted to be original. I didn't want to copy anybody's style.
As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.
When I was young, I wanted to be like the rappers. I remember being in junior high and wanting a fisherman hat and a link because EPMD had one. I wanted to wear Adidas because Run-DMC wore Adidas. As I came into my own, I just wanted to do me.
Bob Dylan was uncomfortable being known as just a protest singer. He wanted to go back into himself and do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it.
To be happy, it first takes being comfortable being in your own shoes. The rest can work up from there. The hardest situation to stay happy, I think, is when you're trying to find love, and yourself at the same time. It just doesn't seem to fit well. So I believe that happiness is being able to wake up and just know that this is what you wanted, and not what somebody else wanted.
Music has always been something I wanted to do. I think just the idea of performing and entertaining and being in the studio is really what I wanted to know how that felt. I started to get into it around the same time I got into acting, but it turned into a side project because my movies were taking up most of my time.
I was always torn between wanting whatever I pictured as a typical high school experience and that being just a part I wanted to play. I've written about this, but one of those typical high school experiences was drill team. Like, I just really wanted to wear a uniform and get on the bus and be part of this group. As an only child, the idea of blending in - and literally everyone being in sync and not standing out at all - felt like kind of a fun family thing.
We had no irony when it came to girls, though. There was just no time to develop it. One moment they weren't there, not in any form that interested us, anyway, and the next you couldn't miss them; they were everywhere, all over the place. One moment you wanted to clonk them on the head for being your sister, or someone else's sister, and the next you wanted to....actually, we didn't know what we wanted next, but it was something. Almost overnight, all these sisters (there was no other kind of girl, not yet)had become interesting, disturbing, even.
I can honestly say that I've done everything I've wanted to do, always. Not without difficulty. But every time I wanted to do something, I just did it, from the age of 18 when I started my own theater with my friends. When I decided I wanted to act. I just bit the bullet.
Everyone has their own path in life, no matter if it's being a celebrity or a singer. Quite frankly, I didn't move to Nashville and tell myself I wanted to be a singer because I wanted to be a celebrity or I wanted to be somebody that people admired. I wasn't about that. I just loved music.
When I was four, I think I just wanted to make noise. When I was about 10 years old I was given five CDs for my birthday: Pink Floyd's 'Dark side of the Moon,' the Sex Pistols, Prodigy, Jimi Hendrix, and I can't remember the fifth one, but really different kinds of music. That's when I started to grasp it and enjoy it, listening to it. Then I started being in bands at school.
I never wanted credit for being a wonderful person or a great human being or looking peculiar. I just wanted credit for the music.
When we decided to go to Cuba to perform, we did it because we just wanted to build a bridge, you know, between Cuba and the rest of the community. And we just wanted to prove that music and art need to be over all ideology or way to think life, and we just wanted to go in there and play just because of love.
I started making movies in my late 20s, that time in an artist's career that often sees artists just imitating things that he or she loves. I just wanted to be great like L'Age d'Or vintage Buñuel. I wanted to be Busby Berkeley, for crying out loud! I wanted to have chorus girls stomping their heels in my casting office. I wanted to be Erich Von Stroheim monogramming underwear for extras. So I started off my career doing that, and that was fun, but I realised I wasn't very good at it.
I didn't want to be driving to work everyday and sending out my Starbucks order. I didn't want to be in New York or L.A. I wanted to have space and I wanted to be in a remote place where all of us could just be ourselves and not worry about anyone trying to listen in or get in on that. I wanted to just be comfortable. I feel like being in a big city - as much as I find New York, in particular, very inspiring in a lot of ways - can also be claustrophobic.
It wasn't that I had any great dream of being an architect. I just wanted to make things. Whether it was furniture, painting, interior design, or architecture. I just wanted to create something.
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