Quotes About Determination

Two years passed, and I had no second book to follow 'Roots.' Four years passed, six years. When a decade had passed without me having another book to follow 'Roots,' I was having serious private frustrations with myself.

I knew being a musician was my calling when I was 12 or 13. I started singing when I was six but didn't actually see myself being a singer when I was 12 or 13.

For six years, I was really on my own and did not have a coach.

I raised my sister. I was six when she was born. My mother had to make a living for herself and it was very hard, so I was looking after my sister, cooking and cleaning, and she had four jobs.

The next night I got on an airplane, and flew to New York and looked into acting schools. Four or five acting schools. One of which was the Neighborhood Playhouse, which I started at six months there after.

I used to have six left feet. Now I only have one and a half left feet.

I worked out six hours a day, six days a week, to get 16 pounds of extra muscle.

In 1980 I sent a play, 'Jitney,' to the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, won a Jerome Fellowship, and found myself sitting in a room with sixteen playwrights. I remember looking around and thinking that since I was sitting there, I must be a playwright, too.

For many records, everyone was like, 'Oh, this next record is going to be their last, blah, blah, blah.' But here we are on our sixth full-length studio album and we debut at No. 16. It's obvious we're not going anywhere.

I said to myself, 'I don't want to be coming sixth or seventh, and being the best in Britain. I want to be the best in the world and race against these Kenyan guys.'

I used to come home crying at the beginning, 'cause I was playing against high-school guys, college guys, and I was like in the sixth grade, so it was tough.

It really doesn't matter whether you get picked first, second or in the sixth or seventh round. It's an amazing opportunity to play at this level.

In the sixth grade, I planned to start my own business making custom fishing lures.

I don't think I really knew I was going to be a rapper until sixth grade. Even then, it was still kind of - I was in sixth grade. I was always saying I was going to become a rapper.

I didn't want to go to Chelsea, because I wanted to play the Champions League and they were sixth in the league.

When I first started playing, I plunked away just like everyone else. During the Sixties I played in a blues band for a few years, and I liked it. It wasn't until I was playing for a while that I made the decision to change my style from a percussive to more of a legato approach. I just wanted a different sound.

I grew up with a single pair of shoes until I grew into the next size. My parents believed in the American dream and the power of education but didn't have the money to send me to college. I realized early on that I needed to go against the flow and be better than everyone else to support my family.

A lot of people have doubted me because of my size. They think someone like me doesn't deserve to be in the main event, but I think if they knew me, and knew what I've been through in my career, they would respect me.

It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the size of the fight in the dog.

But size isn't everything - effort and intensity is, especially in the fourth quarter.

It used to get my back up because people would only say 'he does well for his size' and it's like, forget the size, I do well because I do well.

My heart is bigger than most guys who have size over me.

I was raised on an estate in an inner city school where people had a go about my size, people saying I am too big to play football - which still happens today - and I used that to inspire me.

Whether or not you could actually increase the size of the force is something that will have to be determined.