All Quotes

When I was a bachelor with a different girl on my arm every week, people didn't think I was quite legitimate.
‐‐ David H. Koch

When I was a backup singer, I enjoyed it.
‐‐ Darlene Love

When I was a bad writer, I would consciously imitate other NPR writers who I thought were wonderful. I suppose that everyone's artistic practice is different. But I collaborate and sometimes don't agree at all with my collaborators' opinions. It forces you to understand why you don't agree with something: what's the fight you're picking.
‐‐ Ira Glass

When I was a barber, me being extreme was how I got popular: you name it, I was drawing it on someone's head.
‐‐ Swizz Beatz

When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.
‐‐ Marc Maron

When I was a boxer, I wanted to be champion of the world, not the richest man in the world.
‐‐ George Foreman

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'
‐‐ Fred Rogers

When I was a boy, cricket was very, very English. Anyone who spoke English and anyone from a big town could play. And that was it.
‐‐ Kapil Dev

When I was a boy during Thatcher, you watched elections and wept in disbelief as the whole country turned blue, Scotland turned red, and we still got the Tories.
‐‐ John Niven

When I was a boy, I always saw myself as a hero in comic books and in movies. I grew up believing this dream.
‐‐ Elvis Presley

When I was a boy, I had a baseball team of my own. We played on a vacant lot between Ninetieth and Ninety-second streets. I had a little menagerie of my own, some pigeons, guinea pigs, and so on. On Saturday mornings, I had to take my music lesson. Then the members of my team used to come see my menagerie.
‐‐ Jacob Ruppert

When I was a boy, I read a terrible article in a big weekly American magazine called the 'Saturday Evening Post.' In the middle of this family magazine on my parent's coffee table was an article about this family that was camping, and they were all mauled by a grizzly bear in their sleeping bags.
‐‐ Robert Englund

When I was a boy, I took over the shed at the bottom of the garden and displayed fossils and potsherds and coins in it and proudly called it my 'museum'. I charged people to come in, and my most prized possession was a Saracen shield dating from the Crusades.
‐‐ Kevin Crossley-Holland

When I was a boy I used to do what my father wanted. Now I have to do what my boy wants. My problem is: When am I going to do what I want?
‐‐ Sam Levenson

When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.
‐‐ Joe Frazier

When I was a boy, I used to stay with a school friend in Bexhill, in Sussex, which was then well-known for being the town with more oldies than any other. Aged ten, I felt slightly embarrassed by this, though I'm not sure why.
‐‐ Craig Brown

When I was a boy, I was a worrier, and so was my son, Joe. I used to tell him that worrying meant he had an imagination and that one day he'd be pleased.
‐‐ Anthony Browne

When I was a boy, I was sagging my pants like everyone else. Some boys become men and continue to sag their pants because that's their form of rebellion.
‐‐ Jidenna

When I was a boy, I was taught never to use insulting expressions like, 'I've been gypped,' or, 'He welshed on the deal.'
‐‐ Dick Gregory

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
‐‐ Clarence Darrow

When I was a boy, I would ask about my family history, about my bloodlines. We really didn't know that much. We had a little Indian in us from the Oklahoma Trail of Tears.
‐‐ Brad Pitt

When I was a boy if a girl got pregnant the shame was placed on her and the boy could get away.
‐‐ Bill Cosby

When I was a boy in Desuq, Egypt, a city on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, about 50 miles east of Alexandria, my family lived steps away from the local landmark, a mosque named for a 13th-century Sufi sheik.
‐‐ Ahmed Zewail

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston. And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section.
‐‐ Gardner Dozois

When I was a boy in the late 1950s, the public library refused to stock books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. They were regarded as vulgar, ill-written potboilers.
‐‐ Michael Dirda

When I was a boy, my older brothers listened to Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool and the Gang. When I would try to get into their room, they would close the door and say, 'You can't hear that. It's not for a child!' Now, I can listen to it and enjoy it.
‐‐ Omar Sy

When I was a boy, my own dad told me in a smiling and wistful way that it's a wise man that knows his own father.
‐‐ Michael Leunig

When I was a boy, my parents were writers and they owned a bookstore, 'The Complete Traveler in New York,' so writing and books have held special places in my heart all my life.
‐‐ Mike Greenberg

When I was a boy, one of my uncles had a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. My family went there for parts of three summers, and I loved it!
‐‐ Kevin Henkes

When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.
‐‐ George Burns

When I was a boy, the neighbours all knew who I was because I'd take a ball with me everywhere I went.
‐‐ Isco

When I was a boy, the only thing which captivated me as much as music was the night sky.
‐‐ Daniel Hope

When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?
‐‐ Sitting Bull

When I was a boy, unconsciously, spontaneously I learned the art of telling ironic stories.
‐‐ Dario Fo

When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.
‐‐ Lyndon B. Johnson

When I was a carpenter, I built sets for small storefront Chicago companies. Like, I built sets for friends of mine at The House Theater.
‐‐ Timothy Simons

When I was a CEO, the books on management that I read weren't very much help after the first few months on the job. They were all designed to give you directions on how not to screw up your company.
‐‐ Ben Horowitz

When I was a child, a lot of my time was spent in Scotland because my mother's Scottish, and we used to go up to Ayrshire and visit relations in a place called Dalry.
‐‐ Jennifer Saunders

When I was a child, all I wanted was to enter the Austrian team and to compete on the World Cup tour. I had to fight hard to reach this. I wanted badly to win each race.
‐‐ Hermann Maier

When I was a child and came with my elders to Galway for their salmon fishing in the river that rushes past the gaol, I used to look with awe at the window where men were hung, and the dark, closed gate.
‐‐ Lady Gregory

When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.
‐‐ Josephine Baker

When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65.
‐‐ Michael Greger

When I was a child, going to a circus with wild animal acts was a rite of passage. These days, it's an act of complicit cruelty.
‐‐ K. A. Applegate

When I was a child growing up in Maine, one of my favorite things to do was to look for sand dollars on the seashores of Maine, because my parents told me it would bring me luck. But you know, these shells, they're hard to find. They're covered in sand. They're difficult to see.
‐‐ Sarah Parcak

When I was a child, I always wanted to be funny and to please people in my family. As you grow up that instinct becomes more refined, but it's still there.
‐‐ Romola Garai

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.
‐‐ Karl Lagerfeld

When I was a child, I'd see a movie, I took it for what it was, I enjoyed it. And if I believed it I would tend to be more interested in knowing more about it.
‐‐ Oliver Stone

When I was a child I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I loved losing myself in colourful and dramatic stories - and my absolute favourite was 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.' Everything about it electrified me, and when I re-read Roald Dahl's books as an adult it surprised me.
‐‐ David Walliams

When I was a child I didn't care about getting an education, and I didn't finish high school.
‐‐ Mary J. Blige

When I was a child, I didn't fly - we couldn't afford to fly. Flying was for rich people.
‐‐ Jeff Smisek

When I was a child, I dreaded blindness. We used to ask: 'Would we rather be blind or deaf?' I said I'd rather be blind, even though I was scared of it. I couldn't bear not being able to hear music or talk to people.
‐‐ Sue Townsend

When I was a child, I felt at times that I had been born into an insane asylum, that much of human life appeared to be an insane asylum. It was bewildering.
‐‐ Nathaniel Branden

When I was a child, I grew up speaking French, I mean, in a French public school. So my first contact with literature was in French, and that's the reason why I write in French.
‐‐ J. M. G. Le Clezio

When I was a child I had a best friend who lived across the road from me. When her mother died unexpectedly it was like losing a member of my own family. I think I am still affected by the memory of that loss.
‐‐ Margaret Mahy

When I was a child I had a crush on Abraham Lincoln. Why I would choose to reveal this, I know not.
‐‐ Julia Roberts

When I was a child I had a nightmare, and in the morning, I asked my mother and father, 'If I kill someone, would you still love me?' My parents were very preoccupied with this, but I think I'm not the only one to ask for that - not love, but absolute fidelity.
‐‐ Claire Denis

When I was a child, I had posters of James Dean in my room. I was a big admirer of his work and was fascinated by him living on the edge. Looking back, my life was kind of the same.
‐‐ Boris Becker

When I was a child I had something called Perthes' Disease which meant I was on crutches, so I was bullied at school and all that sort of stuff.
‐‐ Antony Beevor

When I was a child, I had wax in my ears. Dad didn't take me to the doctor, he used me as a night light.
‐‐ Les Dawson

When I was a child I liked watching shows about bounty hunters and Canadian Mounties. I liked the 'Lone Ranger,' I liked shows where the guy saved the girl from the villain. I just liked those kinds of things and I wanted to be a guy like that, you know, that would save the damsel in distress.
‐‐ Duane Chapman

When I was a child, I lived in Morocco, and I would always buy a lot of beads from the markets and to make jewellery for friends. Later, at 18, I would do my own clothes and make my own patterns. When I first came to New York, people just assumed I was a stylist because I was so into fashion.
‐‐ Maripol

When I was a child, I loved old people. My New Hampshire grandfather was my model human being.
‐‐ Donald Hall

When I was a child, I loved 'The Marble Faun' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The reason I liked it was because it had a beautiful binding. When you're a kid, you like books because they're pretty to look at, and this one had a white calfskin cover and gold edges. That was enough to make me love it.
‐‐ Edmund White

When I was a child, I pretended that I had my own cooking show. I would stand at the kitchen counter with an empty bowl and spoon and talk in a silly voice, explaining the concoction I was creating.
‐‐ Kimberly Schlapman

When I was a child, I probably should have been medicated about my obsession with The Spice Girls. I had the Buffalo shoes, a customised Baby Spice necklace - when I say custom-made, it was made out of plastic from the local mall - and a Union Jack dress.
‐‐ Blake Lively

When I was a child, I saw in the news that a person from Belitung had done well in sports in Jakarta, and I just couldn't imagine that it was possible for someone from here to become famous, and it's still very isolated out here.
‐‐ Andrea Hirata

When I was a child, I saw my father diving to the deepest point in the ocean with the U.S. Navy.
‐‐ Bertrand Piccard

When I was a child I thought I saw an angel. It had wings and kinda looked like my sister. I opened the door so some light could come into the room, and it sort of faded away. My mother said it was probably my Guardian Angel.
‐‐ Denzel Washington

When I was a child, I thought I was going to be a paleontologist because I loved dinosaurs. I loved monster movies and sci-fi, and then 'Star Wars' came out, and I was completely out of my mind with that, with 'Close Encounters,' and then I thought maybe I was going to go into special effects makeup, which I thought was awesome.
‐‐ Dee Bradley Baker

When I was a child, I used to cry all the time.
‐‐ Gwen John

When I was a child, I used to eat sugar Frosted Flakes with chocolate milk, but I digest, I mean digress.
‐‐ Stephen Furst

When I was a child, I used to paint intently. The older I become, and the closer death approaches, the brighter my life gets day by day.
‐‐ Yayoi Kusama

When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer.
‐‐ Melvin Burgess

When I was a child, I wanted to be... a fairy. I still do, really, except that now I've now graduated to wanting to be a pixie.
‐‐ Jaime Winstone

When I was a child, I wanted to be a jockey. I love horses, but it's not practical to have one in London. I also wanted to be an accountant, which isn't glamorous at all, but my dad was one, and I quite liked maths.
‐‐ Lydia Leonard

When I was a child I wanted to be a petrol pump attendant. I suppose you have all sorts of thoughts as a child and at the time I figured that it was a way to avoid doing anything like going on stage.
‐‐ Saffron Burrows

When I was a child I wanted to be a vet. I'd come home with "lost" kittens and dogs. My mother would tell me to put them back.
‐‐ Philippa Gregory

When I was a child, I wanted to be an actor, but I had really bad buckteeth. I didn't want to get braces, but my mom said I couldn't be an actor if I didn't get the braces. So, I got the braces.
‐‐ James Franco

When I was a child, I wanted to be important.
‐‐ Laura Amy Schlitz

When I was a child I wanted to be Pope. My greatest disappointment is missing out on that. I also wanted to be a tap dancer but I never fulfilled that ambition either.
‐‐ Peter Ackroyd

When I was a child, I wanted to... go into space! To go to Mars. I wanted to explore and explore and explore. I wanted to go to the Lost World in South America - I was heartbroken to discover there were no dinosaurs; I still don't accept it.
‐‐ Brian Blessed

When I was a child, I wanted to raise horses in Wyoming or be a cabin boy on a pirate ship.
‐‐ Sadie Jones

When I was a child, I wanted to watch things that made me laugh. It's attacking boredom, as simple as that. I was 19 when I first went to a comedy club - I wanted to do it, so I gave it a try and that was it. I found my office.
‐‐ Dylan Moran

When I was a child, I was always nicking my mum's jewellery to wear, and I loved to drape a massive Chinese shawl around me from our fancy-dress box. I was obsessed with a feather and rabbit-fur collar from the age of three and attempted to make one with my friend, whose father was a gamekeeper.
‐‐ Alice Temperley

When I was a child, I was certain that I could remember what it was like to live on Venus; I could remember what it was like to live in the American Plains. I could remember. And it's ancient memory. We all have it. It's just that some of us access it more than others.
‐‐ Patti Smith

When I was a child, I was living in the housing projects of Philadelphia. I didn't even have a Christmas tree.
‐‐ Bill Cosby

When I was a child, I was one of the kids who wore black all the time, and when the kids asked me why I wore black, I said things like, 'I'm mourning the death of modern society.' I mean, I was a riot.
‐‐ Maggie Stiefvater

When I was a child, I was referred to as the Danny Kaye of the family, because I was always impersonating and mimicking people. I was a song and dance man.
‐‐ Jason Mantzoukas

When I was a child, I was unable to go to any type of sleepaway summer camp because of health issues. Once I learned about the Lopez Foundation, I knew I wanted to get involved, send kids with kidney disease away to camp so they can still experience overnight camp with medical needs at hand.
‐‐ Sarah Hyland

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.
‐‐ Jackie Chan

When I was a child, I went to stage school three times a week in the evenings - singing, ballet, tap, modern and acting, and I loved it.
‐‐ Michelle Dockery

When I was a child, I would draw these little stick-figures, and my mom would put them up all over the loft and tell me how wonderful they were. Then you get out there into the harsh reality of the world, and you realize not everybody loves every little thing you do the way your mom did.
‐‐ Julia Stiles

When I was a child in the 1940s and early 1950s, my parents and grandparents spoke of Britain as home, and New Zealand had this strong sense of identity and coherence as being part of the commonwealth and a the identity of its people as being British.
‐‐ Michael King

When I was a child - in wartime, pre-television - books were my life.
‐‐ A. S. Byatt

When I was a child, it was cool to be a scientist.
‐‐ Michio Kaku

When I was a child, it was my dream to be a professional footballer. When I was 14 I visited Milan's San Siro stadium and remember thinking how unbelievable it was. From then onwards I vowed that one day I would be playing there - and I am very proud that I achieved this and also for everything else I have managed to achieve in football.
‐‐ Andriy Shevchenko

When I was a child it was very clear what I was allowed to see and what I was not allowed to see and there was no discussion or option or negotiation. Whatever my mom said, that's what went down.
‐‐ Yul Vazquez