When I started skating, it was such a small community. You didn't aspire to be rich or famous or make a career out of it because that wasn't something anyone had done yet.
In the small town each citizen had done something in his own way to build the community. The town booster had a vision of the future which he tried to fulfill. The suburb dweller by contrast started with the future
I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of famous made me leery.
My first impression of Beverly Hills was that it had a landscape of small houses built by famous architects, so I didn't want to make a big block or sculpture here; I wanted to make a community rooted to the place.
I started preparing meals for my family when I was 12 because both of my parents worked, but I didn't know that it was something I could make a career out of until I had my daughter and realized there were people out there who were interested in learning how to prepare a quick meal.
My parents were of the opinion, because they had started skating very young, that you should have something that you do that you care about, because it structures your life as you're growing up.
The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.
Mostly, you become a writer not because you want to get rich or famous, but because you have to write; because there is something inside that must come out.
When I was younger and had made the decision to make a career in music, becoming famous was something that I dreamt about.
I think God must have had something in mind for me that was not on my radar when I first started out in New York. Back then, doing animated voices meant your career was done - it was looked down upon.
If you ever get rich and famous, by definition you are special. You have done something special, and therefore you start to behave special. Then if the floor drops out, and you become down and out, you have a really new perspective.
When I did stand-up at U.C.B., and I had a blog for a couple of years that started my writing career, 'Totally Confident and Completely Insecure,' it was the same kind of self-deprecating humor and stories about being out in L.A. and being treated like a loser at a hair salon because you are not famous.
How I started my musical career, officially, was really, like, my family and I deciding to put out, you know, the 'Closer' album that started really small, you know, with a vision that we'd make it pass there.
I think running a business, doing what I've done for the last - since 1996, has taught me so many things because I started from just an idea and then had to figure out how to make it, market it, every single thing from soup to nuts on how to get a product done and out there.
I say with pride that I've done over a hundred voices or something, and some of them may have only had two or three lines, but I literally never ran out. I think I'm a bit of a savant that way. I kind of remember every voice I hear, famous or otherwise, and can imitate it pretty fast. I've enjoyed mimicking people famous and not famous all through my life, and they kind of remain in the memory banks, so I'm ready to trot them out.
There are all these tests that are done on young kids and they all say they want to be famous but I just always felt that for my generation being famous was kind of corny and cheesy. Maybe because fame isn't something that proves you're good at something.
I am the most well-adjusted human being I know. I started out this investigation as a very happy man with a great career. I've got the life people dream about: I am rich, I am famous, I've got a fabulous marriage to an absolutely, spell-bindingly brilliant woman.