I turned 40, got married, got a kid, and my mother passed away. I experienced life and death, with the enjoyment of creating life and the loss, within one year.

I was a hyperactive kid, and it took awhile for me to find the right teacher. My master was a Shaolin kung fu teacher, but he also taught tai chi, Chinese medicine, brush painting - he was adept at all facets of Chinese culture.

I don't know if my work is a concerted effort to make kids sad!

I don't know if my work is a concerted effort to make kids sad! But life and death go hand in hand. It's our condition as human beings.

My family always encouraged my drawing ability. Kids in school who teased me about my reading would get out of their seats and stand behind my desk as I worked and go, 'Wow, you can really draw.' Later, I earned a degree in Fine Art and got a Ph.D. in Art History.

I lived the first five years of my life on a farm in Union City, Michigan, with my mom and grandparents. It was the most magical time of my life.

I didn't learn to read until I was almost 14 years old. Reading out loud for me was a nightmare because I would mispronounce words or reconstruct things that weren't even there. That's when one of my teachers discovered I had a learning disability called dyslexia. Once I got help, I read very well!

But you see, that's the gilded prison of fashion. We're riding in private jets, and meantime I was so incredibly, painfully sad and lonely.

The past explains how I got here, but the future is up to me - and I love to live life at full throttle.

Money is like hormones. It's just how you feel on any given day.

Mothers don't let your daughters grow up to be models unless you're present.

I have a very vivid imagination.

As a child, I was subjected to a lot of spaghetti Westerns and hated them. I wanted the Indians to win - or just not be so sad!

I'm a sponge for historical images of black people and black history on film.

The promise of any artwork is that it can hold us - viewer and maker - in a conflicted or contestable space, without real-world injury or loss.

Humor's always been the problem of my work, hasn't it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing.

You will soon find that I am a bit obsessive about my work. And that is a little sad, one often feels strangely restricted, not finding time to simmer, although one actually has many interests.

The primary factor is proportions.

I'm so grounded, it's sad.

All I can tell you really is if you get to the point where someone is telling you that you are not great or not good enough, just follow your heart and don't let anybody crush your dream.

I'm 60, and I did 60-year-old women songs. I'm not trying to be the Hip-Hop Queen, although I am the original Hip Hop Queen.

People with no humor, they're outta my life.

I just sing the stuff that makes me smile, makes me feel like I didn't sell myself out.

A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.

Gates is the ultimate programming machine. He believes everything can be defined, examined, reduced to essentials, and rearranged into a logical sequence that will achieve a particular goal.

The death of what's dead is the birth of what's living.

At the same time the folk boom was happening, the civil rights movement was happening, the anti-war movement was happening, the ban the bomb movement was happening, the environmental movement was happening. There was suddenly a generation ready to change the course of history.

Basically, I think you need two things to get by in this world: a sense of humor and the ability to laugh when your ego is destroyed.

Along with a sense of humor, my songs have to be sincere, and they have to be sung from a position of inner conviction.

Life comes to the miners out of their deaths, and death out of their lives.

I won't forget the hood. I won't forget the days of catching a bullet on the way to the mailbox or bricks with death threats that somehow made their way through the window.

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.

Plenty of people detested Michael Jackson before his death wiped away the world's collective memory. Timberlake was originally dismissed as just another boy-bander. Legions have joined in a 'Hate Anne Hathaway' movement. Elvis, the Rolling Stones, Kristen Bell, even Mozart had haters.

No one - not a conservative or liberal or whatever - can stand back and 'define' what marriage means. Other people's marriages have nothing to do with mine; whether my neighbors are divorced or gay or widowed will not lead me to change anything about how my wife and I deal with each other or how we raise our children.

The tortures of present death disturb him not, but the recollection of his fall, fills him with a holy sorrow.

The nations were awakened from the sleep of death, as the words of eternal life flowed from the Apostles' lips, - the temples of superstition were shut or destroyed, and churches were planted in every part of the civilized world.

To this end the greatest asset of a school is the personality of the teacher.

Anyone who was alive during the outbreak of the bubonic plague in the 14th century experienced something terrifyingly close to the widespread death and chaos of an apocalyptic event.

The Singaporean government, which represents legal migrant workers in employment disputes and claims of exploitation, requires that they stay in the country until the disputes are settled. If they leave, their claims are closed.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in women.

You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition.

Intervention for the prevention and control of osteoporosis should comprise a combination of legislative action, educational measures, health service activities, media coverage, and individual counselling to initiate changes in behaviour.

The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full, but also when people's basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.

Investing in health will produce enormous benefits.

During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.

Health is the core of human development.

This is a historic moment in global public health, demonstrating the international will to tackle a threat to health head on.

Since the reduction of risk factors is the scientific basis for primary prevention, the World Health Organization promotes the development of an integrated strategy for prevention of several diseases, rather than focusing on individual ones.

Women's health is one of WHO's highest priorities.