I've seen that phenomenally successful people believe they can learn something from everybody. I call them 'mavericks with mentors.' Richard Branson, for instance, is a total maverick but he surrounds himself with incredibly successful, smart people and he listens to them.
What I went through in 1976, it's the same today: It's about all the pressure that you feel, the anxiety, the family, and everything that surrounds the Games, and then getting there knowing this is your big chance, and you're able to come through. It's such a satisfying thing.
I think that what I don't like is everything that surrounds a footballer. The fame, the people idolizing you, the press, not being able to have a normal life like normal person. I think that is what has held me back a little in football.
The tradition of Umuganda is a beautiful and inspiring one. It connects people to their surrounds and creates a responsible community.
The history of racial violence in our country is both omnipresent and unspoken. It is a smog that surrounds us that few will admit is there.
'Tristan' is a very unique case, not just in Wagner's output, but in music in general. It remains contemporary no matter what else surrounds it. There is something self-renewing about it.
Sendak's 1963 classic 'Where The Wild Things Are' has long been a favorite of mine because of the creative imagery, fantastic adventures and, most of all, because of how this timeless story shows us that children need to be free to roam, explore and invent in order to understand their place in the world that surrounds them.
I think an artist's true worth comes through an inter-generational thing - when you go beyond your own time, and start influencing people in a greater way than just what surrounds you.
The environment, what surrounds you, is so alive and delightful and complex.
While at Harvard, I was struck by the palpable sense of noblesse oblige that surrounds their sophisticated outreach and bursary programmes. It is almost as if they view extending opportunity to disadvantaged individuals as their highest mission.
