A Quote by Tony Dungy

I could never have pictured myself writing a book when I was 25 years old. My mom was an English teacher but I wasn't that way growing up. — © Tony Dungy
I could never have pictured myself writing a book when I was 25 years old. My mom was an English teacher but I wasn't that way growing up.
My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.
My mom was a special-needs teacher for many years, so I knew her students. And one of my best friends from when I was growing up is a teacher for kids with autism now.
My mom, who gave me my confidence growing up. She's the one that always told me that I could be great and to never stop. And myself. Because I came such a long way.
I can ask for a £25,000 advance, but then you spend a year writing the book, and £25,000 is a loan against sales, and you can easily spend five years earning out. So that's £25,000 for six years.
The process of writing a book is infinitely more important than the book that is completed as a result of the writing, let alone the success or failure that book may have after it is written . . . the book is merely a symbol of the writing. In writing the book, I am living. I am growing. I am tapping myself. I am changing. The process is the product.
I was writing rap at 12 years old and began writing songs as a 20-year-old. I think I wrote my first song in the winter of 2008-2009, when I was in Buenos Aires. I was writing about growing up and my boys back home.
I remember everyone telling me I had to think positive when I was writing my first book. If I believed I could do it, then I could! If I pictured myself published, then it was going to happen! Which sounded great, except...could I do it? If I didn't think I could, was I doomed to fail? What if I was almost totally sure I would fail? I am here to tell you-what matters is sticking with it.
I was also a good writer, by the way. My, you know, my English teacher and writing teacher loved my writing. You know, I wrote short stories and things like that. And they liked them very much.
The mediocre mind has no capacity for understanding. It is stuck somewhere near thirteen years in its mental age, or even below it. The person may be forty, fifty, seventy years old - that does not matter, that is the physical age. He has been growing old, but he has not been growing up. You should note the distinction. Growing old, every animal does. Growing up, only a few human beings manage.
When I say myself, I don't mean just as a woman of color, as a girl who's growing up in the Bronx, as people growing up in some way economically-challenged, not growing up with money. It was also even just the way we spoke. The vernacular. I learned that it's alright to say "ain't." My characters can speak the way they authentically are, and that makes for good story. It's not making for good story to make them speak proper English when nobody speaks like that on the playground.
So, growing up myself, I played flag all the way up until seventh grade. So, we didn't tackle until I was 12, 13 years old or whatever it was.
If you're 25 years old dressed up like Superman at a comic book convention, that's great. If you're 78 and you're doing it, something's wrong.
I had pictured myself as a filmmaker but I had never pictured myself as a director if that makes any sense at all.
Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print - writing in English, interviewing Americans - validated my presence here.
I come from a very sporty background because my mom is a gymnastics teacher. So growing up I was never sitting watching TV in the afternoons. I always played ball outside in the backyard.
I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.
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