I was a little press writer when the National Endowment for the Arts came to my rescue and gave me an award. I couldn't buy a light bulb. Almost more than the money, the awards are important because they show that someone believes in you. Sandra Cisneros
I was blessed with certain gifts and talents and God gave them to me to be the best person I can be and to have a positive impact on other people.Bryan Clay
I was shortly again at the castle, and the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children, the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had known each other for years.Max Muller
In 1950, when the Giants signed me, they gave me $15,000. I bought a 1950 Mercury. I couldn't drive, but I had it in the parking lot there, and everybody that could drive would drive the car. So it was like a community thing. Willie Mays
In Jamaica High School in New York, my coach was Larry Ellis, and he said I could probably make the Olympic team. He gave me something to shoot for. Bob Beamon
In my era, where I'm from, I only had Donald Whiteside. He's from Englewood and he's the only one that came out of Englewood. Other than him, I really didn't have anyone else to look up to that was from my area. So in seeing him, I never gave up hope, just kept playing and then I realized that I might have a future in basketball. Derrick Rose
In my situation, unlike some players who retire because they have no choice - either teams don't want them or injuries have caused them to retire, and they just can't do it - for me, I really had never thought I would give out mentally before I gave out physically, but I think that was the case. Brett Favre
In some ways that fight gave me more respect around the world and helped me be even more popular because so many people felt my pain and saw that I was robbed. Marvin Hagler
It was men who stopped slavery. It was men who ran up the stairs in the Twin Towers to rescue people. It was men who gave up their seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic. Men are made to take risks and live passionately on behalf of others. John Eldredge
It's an image that the media has given me as a bad girl, and the only reason they gave me that image is just because of the few things that have gone wrong in my life, and also because I grew up living in a trailer. Tonya Harding
It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series. Jacqueline Carey
Iwas not a reader at all, not until I discovered 'The Hobbit.' That changed my life. It gave me the courage to read. It led me to the 'Lord of the Rings' series. And once I'd read that, I knew I could read anything because I had just read thousands of pages. Richard Paul Evans
John Henry Lloyd is the man I gave the credit to for polishing my skills. He taught me how to play third base and how to protect myself. John taught me more baseball than anyone else. Judy Johnson
Kids made fun of me because I was a slow learner, because I was hyperactive, because of a lot of things. Running gave me confidence. Steve Prefontaine
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.Thomas Alva Edison
My father cared a lot about me, but he never gave me the satisfaction of really knowing it. Hitting .390 wasn't enough for him. Nothing seemed to be. He was not trying to be mean. He was just seeing to it that I never got self-satisfied, that I worked hard to get the most out of what I had.George Brett
My father made me who I am. He gave me a basketball and told me to play with the ball, sleep with the ball, dream with the ball. Just don't take it to school. I used it as a pillow, and it never gave me a stiff neck. Shaquille ONeal
My first choice was to work it out with Larry Brown. I needed Larry and I gave him 50 million bucks. This is a situation that I'm in and I'll handle it and I'll make it work. Isaiah Thomas
My mother 'gave teas' the way other mothers breathed. Her own mother 'gave teas.' All of their friends 'gave teas,' each involving butter cookies extruded from a metal press and pastel bonbons ordered from See's. Joan Didion