Quotes About Youth

I used to finish school and go and play football.

From the age of seven, I knew I wanted to play football - I didn't think about it in a professional sense in terms of making money from it; it was more about the social aspect of being with my friends and losing myself in the sport.

Whenever I got home, I'd hurry to complete my homework and then play football in front of our house.

When I was young, all I wanted to do was play football.

I've seen other people grow up and not have respect for human beings. But even though I play football, I'm still able to talk to everyone on the estate. Whenever I go, I can literally talk to anyone that I meet and everyone I have known from my past.

As a kid, you just want to play football. For me one day it will end, but until the end I love getting the opportunity to go out there and play at a high level.

I've always known I could play football. I went to Arsenal and West Ham as a kid, but I took a year out because I wanted to play with my mates and get that competitiveness back. I got that fighting spirit and I never want to lose that.

The kids that are making the ghetto stuff I can't even reach are the ones that are inspiring me to play music for the other kids in the city they don't even know about. If I don't get those kids making music, there won't be an original kid DJing like me in five to 10 years.

I used to not really know any other people when I was young that wanted to play music - that's why I learned everything myself. As a result, you kind of naturally become an engineer of sorts, because you've got to learn how to record everything.

I dropped out of school at 17 'cause all I wanted to do was play music. I had odd jobs on the side of gigging until I turned 22, when I was lucky to start doing this full time.

We used to hang out in my studio apartment, play music and dream about being rock stars.

When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.

When we played Paris, the English punks would come over, and they got to know the French punks. There was some nice scenes in the back alleys.

Sometimes I played as a goalkeeper with my brother and his friends - they were all older, and nobody wanted to go in goal, so it had to be me!

I didn't grow up being a performer, really. I played baseball.

I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.

Mostly as a No 10. When I was really young, I played as a striker, but I grew a lot when I was 15 or 16.

I grew up an athlete, growing up in Pittsburgh. I played basketball. I played football. I played a little bit of baseball in my earlier years.

I was a fan of baseball growing up. We played baseball; I used to play in an A&P parking lot. It wasn't always easy to find a good baseball field to play in.

When I played Little League, I looked up to the big leaguers, too, and collected their baseball cards.

I played cello in my high school orchestra.

My dad - Gaby Yala - played for the Congo national team as well, at Under-21 level. When I see him playing, even today, I could see he's got something about him.

If I was a second-team player, I probably would have gone to uni.

It doesn't matter which year a player is born in, whether you are 19 or 20 - you have to be agile. You have to accept your shortcomings.