Quotes About Dedication

No one around me was obsessed with Fred Astaire except for me. It just snowballed, really. I started with tap lessons. When I didn't have tap shoes, I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers.

I'm going to continue to tap until I can't move.

Honestly, I feel pretty awed anytime I meet just about any writer. I get how hard it is to write and make a living from it, but there's also this almost magical force you need to tap into, and I'm amazed by anyone who can do it.

When I was 4, my parents took me to see a musical, and I was like, 'I want to do that!' I started doing all sorts of musical camps and a lot of professional theater. I took dance classes for 10 years, too - I was never the most amazing kid in the other classes, but tap stuck with me for some reason.

Luckily, my creative juices are pretty much on tap. If I'm compelled to do something, I can go for it and get it done.

I was about eight when I started tap dancing - against my own will. My mom wanted me to do it. She thought I would love it, and I didn't believe her. I turned out to be obsessed with it.

My dance shoes - ballroom shoes, tap shoes, ballerinas - are my life.

If I see an audition for a show or a movie, I'll send a tape in. I attack it. The whole time, I'm booking comedy, so no matter what, I always got that coming in. I'm always working on my craft.

I found wrestling when I was 11 years old. About two years later, I convinced my mom to let me rent my first UFC tape. I was fascinated by the sport.

Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you're always going to find a hip-hop tape; that's all I buy, that's all I live, that's all I listen to, that's all I love.

Working at a fulfillment center is definitely not the most glamorous job. I know because, in the early days, that's what I did, day in and day out. I had a tape gun in my hand, and I taped boxes.

I made my first mix tape when I was 14.

My day one fans - my fans from my mix tape days - know my life now. They know where I've been. You don't want to have a disconnection with those fans. You have to give them all of you because they feel like they've known you.

I don't take any shorts. I don't say, 'Okay, it's good enough.' I try to get exactly what I'm hearing in my head to the tape, and I won't let it move until then.

I could always hit. I learned to hit with a broomstick and a ball of tape and I could always get that bat on the ball.

I wear football socks and I actually tape my shoelaces to my socks. I don't like anything to be putting me off. I don't have an excuse of the shoelaces coming off.

I just sat down and thought, I'm going to write a song today, I'm going to give it a try. So I just stuck it on a tape like everything else. That was just another song.

There's a lot of things that go into scoring touchdowns and leading your team. It's not just the game itself, but going back and studying tape to pick apart everything I did. It's nice to have something to go on, doing it full speed in a game situation.

When we're not on the practice field, I'm watching tape, and when I'm not watching tape, I'm doing body work or something like that.

I wanted to become a better entertainer, and I learned from my brother James Andrews. And I've been studying some tape of James Brown and different people.

I break down the tape like I'm a quality-control coach, just like I was with the Packers in 1992. I break it down by hand, every play.

I had this DVD that my coach in Cameroon had mailed to me when I first came to America. It was an hour-long tape of Hakeem Olajuwon and some other legendary big men. I probably watched that DVD every single day for three years.

I usually tape about 99 percent of my auditions at my house. I have a camera and record myself, and my mom reads the other lines off-camera. Then I send it to my agent and manager, and they send it to the casting director, and we see how it goes from there.

My friend gave me a VHS tape of Eddie Murphy's 'Raw.' I watched it so many times, I fell in love with it. I would watch it every day, just picking it apart. And then I started doing open mics around Maryland and D.C.: that's where I'm from. And I haven't stopped since.