It's probably simply a matter of temperament that I never stopped to wonder if I could "match" what I had done, never choked off my writing by competing with myself, or with anybody else for that matter. My ambition was absolutely centered on the work itself, never on what it would bring me, or "who" it would make me. I never cared about that at all.
If you don't feel a true passion through work, you can't do it. It's not possible for me. I've never done TV. I've never done commercials. I've never done anything for money. I can't do it. I wish I could. It would be easier.
I've never hit anybody in my life. I never would, and the only way I could make a point was by hurting myself...It's something I've done since I was a teenager.
But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough. But I was tougher.
Believe me, I think if I stopped writing when I left The Voice I would have quite a legacy. But the fact of the matter was, it never occurred to me to stop.
Look, guys, no matter what a girl does, no matter how she's dressed, no matter how much she's had to drink, it's never, never, never, never, never OK to touch her without her consent. This doesn't make you a man. It makes you a coward.
Everybody wants to feel that you're writing to a certain demographic because that's good business, but I've never done that ... I tried to write stories that would interest me. I'd say, what would I like to read?... I don't think you can do your best work if you're writing for somebody else, because you never know what that somebody else really thinks or wants.
I was never a big guy in pubs. I was never the main kind of aggressor or anything like that, but I found myself in trouble because I always had a mouth that would come back with something, and there was just never anyone who could make me be quiet.
There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not.
I've had ups and downs in my career, and if you look at it as a bookmaker, the odds of me becoming a world champion were never in my favour, but I never stopped believing in myself and never stopped trying.
I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me I should never have chosen him; and I am sure he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chosen me afterwards; and he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love.
I was hurt so deep that I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what. I never made jokes about anybody's big ears, their stut-terin', or about them bein' off their nut.
Computers absolutely changed my life. Before I had a computer, I had never written one thing. Not one thing. I'm a very bad speller and I was embarrassed by that. When I would type, the little mistakes would make me nutty, and I would never edit anything.
I could never give up athletics. Running is what I will always do. Even if, maybe, the authorities could have stopped me from running in 2009, they could not have stopped me in the fields. I would have carried on with my running; it doesn't matter. When I run I feel free, my mind is free.
When the new country came out ten to 15 years ago, people my age were almost too old. But it never stopped me. I never stopped writing. I never stopped recording.
Ah!" I cried, springing up. "But no! no! My uncle shall never know it. He would insist upon doing it too. He would want to know all about it. Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he is! He would start, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he would take me with him, and we should never get back. No, never! never!" My over-excitement was beyond all description.
You
cannot assume that somebody can define you. You cannot
assume that the other person is right. No matter how they
say it to you, no matter with how much force they say, ‘Oh
my god, you’ll never make it; oh my god, you’re not bright;
you could never do this’—that’s one person. I can’t tell you
how many people told me I would never be an actor.