I always felt like I was healthy; I never felt like anything was wrong with me. Until the morning that I had a massive heart attack. On the golf course, by myself.
My mom always brought home a present once a week for all of us. We never felt like we ever needed anything. We never felt poor. So I never felt I had to go out and do something wrong to get money.
I always say I never felt 'latched' to a gender. I just kind of always felt like myself, and I never felt like I had to do certain things or be a certain way to fit into a certain mold.
My parents have worked their asses off their whole entire lives, they still do, and I never felt like anything would be handed to me. I never felt sorry for myself. I felt like, "Wow, this is incredible. I'm able to do this for myself." I think once you have that sense of empowerment at a young age and you allow your children to have that empowerment, it will fuel them for a lifetime.
I never felt like a prodigy. For one thing, the root of the word is rather monstrous, literally. I never really felt like a monster or anything abnormal, because I always had a lot of different interests. But kids tend to focus on one thing, and for me it was violin.
I never felt like a boy or a girl, never felt I should wear this or dress like that. I think that's where that confidence comes from because I never felt I had to play a part in my life. I just always come as Shamir.
As things grew for me I felt like I was losing myself and wanted to stay true to myself as well. I didn't want to lose any connection I had with the audience. I felt small on a big stage and I felt like I was peaking generically to an audience.
What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn't starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn't enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand. I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size.
I've always felt like an outsider as a woman. I've never really felt wholly comfortable in a women's world or woman's things. I've never been conventionally pretty or thin or girly-girl. Never felt dateable. All I've seen on TV has never felt like mine.
I had been doing theater since I was a kid, so the stage really felt like home to me. It felt like the place where I trust myself the most in the world and felt the most confident.
On student films, everyone is pitching in to do everything, and I never felt like I was a part of a group before I started acting. I always felt like I had friends in this group and I had friends in that group, but I never felt like I had my group.
Nothing in life prepared me for the way I felt about being a mother. Until then, I sort of felt like a blank sheet of paper. I was always trying to second-guess myself, to be what others wanted me to be.
I've never felt limited by my circumstances, no matter what they were. Even when I was living in Iowa, it wasn't like I had big dreams, but it wasn't that I felt I couldn't have any. I always felt very capable.
I felt a certain modicum of success because I had been paid well to be an actor for the first time in my life, but I felt like I had done adolescent work on the show, and stepping into the New York theater arena was the first time I felt like I'd come into my own. I felt like I was proving myself in a gladiatorial arena.
Even when we were at that point when we had very few fans, we never felt like a small band. We always felt like we had a big purpose.
I feel a whole country growing inside me, thousands of years, millions of people, stupid, crazy, shrewd people, and all of them me. I never felt like that before, I never felt that there was anything inside me, even myself.
I've never really felt like a veteran. I've never felt like the guy who's like, 'OK, everyone needs to look up to me and respect me.' I've always just been one of the guys that people are excited to get in the ring with. That's all I want.