Prodigy Quotes

I was in jail a couple of times, and I was probably heading back there for a long time. But martial arts saved my life and some of the choices I made with it.

I started seeing how I wanted my story to be told. Going to jail is one of the best things that happened to me. It helped me get my mind right.

Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me.

When a person gets to the age of 35 and you go to jail, it either makes you or breaks you. It made me identify what I wanted.

I feel like if I wasn't to go to jail, I probably wouldn't be the person I am - I wouldn't.

I was heading in a self destructive direction. My priority wasn't together, wasn't in order. So me getting locked up was actually a blessing for me. It helped for me to see the light. Once you get the rug snatched from under you - I had my career and family snatched from me, and I was forced to just sit there in that box for three years and think about what I did and how selfish I was, it made me really see things with new eyes, like, hold up, why was I doing that? What the hell was I thinking about? I gotta change. Something's got to give. I can't ever come back in this place again.

It sounds kind of strange, but Jail time was almost a good experience for me.

I feel like my life has been a series of miracles. I was in every sense a lost cause.

When I got to jail, it was a blessing in disguise because it made me reevaluate and check who I am as a person.

I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.

I am making amends and seeking forgiveness. My only hope is that some good can come out of my situation.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn't. In fact, I didn't even know you were supposed to have one.

I could have easily gone down the wrong path and dropped out of school, but I was given a second chance.

I was a young kid; I did a little time in the Billerica House of Correction, and it basically turned my life around because I said, 'Oh, I'll never be locked up again. They're not taking away my privacy.' So I flipped a coin: heads - Miami, tails -California.

Incarceration didn't change me. In many ways, incarceration galvanized me. The totality of the experience helped me.

I like to think that even if we make some really bad choices and go down some bad paths, we'll eventually emerge from it.

My incarceration was actually a positive thing from the beginning. I needed a gimmick to get my act going again, it gave me material.

What I thought at the moment was the worst thing that could happen was absolutely the biggest gift I've received.

Most people are fascinated by what I did as a teenager, but when I look back at my life, I don't think very much about those years. I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.

When I was a kid, there were some people around me who were a bad influence. When I met my girlfriend Sofia, who is now my wife, I think it all changed. She was very important for me, because she steered me back on to the path I wanted to be on.

When you go to prison, you don't feel like a superstar. It really humbles you as a person.

I was pretty aimless as a youth, especially in Patna. I think reading saved me.

It took me three and a half years to go from being sentenced in federal court to going to the Oscars.

Let me say that discovering Tagore was the turning point of my life.

All I could do was try to build a new life and find a way somehow to repair some of the damage. People had every reason to doubt my sincerity, but most of them didn't. And - given my history, it was more than I could've hoped for - forgiveness and the benefit of the doubt. It still amazes me.