Mavis Staples Quotes

I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.

The last time I threw a punch was in primary school, and that was probably a slap.

I heard the various terms of abuse at school and probably indulged them in the way you do as a kid.

Sometimes I get ideas from childhood. In 'The Hat', Hedgie starts getting teased about his hat, and he just pretends that everything is okay. That's the advice that my mother gave me - not to get mad and pretend that everything is okay. And it worked.

I was 4 years old when I sang in public for the very first time.

I performed in public for the first time at three years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was on a big stage. There were probably three or four hundred people in the audience. We were doing this dance, this Kermit the Frog routine, all of us in our little green leotards.

When I was five or six, I asked to sing at a big family party, and ever since I got up there in front of everyone in my suit - it had a blue collar, like in 'Scarface' - I had the bug.

I felt intimidated the entire time I was in school by my teachers and classmates. But I just knew acting was something I wanted to do.

'Full House' was the first time I had ever been in front of a live audience. I said a line I had rehearsed with my mom, and they laughed. It was wild. To have that energy of the live audience was like, Whaaat? Feeding off that live audience was, to a 4 or 5 year old, a high.

There's a picture of me as a little girl, and I'm waiting to go onstage, and I am biting the last bit of nail I have left on my finger.

I used to eat lunch with the teachers at school. I just remember that kids would put their legs on the seats next to them so that I wouldn't have a place to sit.

Well, being from Mississippi, the church house is kind of the common denominator. It was for me growing up. Like so many public performers, that was the first place I was ever invited to sing.

All the kids at school would bully me and always wanted me to fight them. I never did, but if I wanted to, I totally could.

I think that 'Cry Baby' came from a nickname I was called as a kid.

I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.

One day I was at the park with my family, all my cousins and stuff, in Frankston... We were all just singing a song and my aunty was like 'oh guys, she can actually hold a note.' I think that's the earliest memory of someone actually pointing me out as someone that has an ability to sing. I was probably like 7 years old.

I'm a good singer, yet I couldn't participate in 'Star Ya Rockstar.'

I remember coming in second in a singing competition when I was about 5. I was terrified and didn't win because I apparently looked miserable.

When I was about nine or 10, I was on a few random talent shows in shopping malls.

I would have loved to have had a gay dad. At school, there were always kids saying 'my dad is bigger than your dad, my dad will batter your dad!' So what? My dad will shag your dad..and your dad will enjoy it.

When I was a kid. I never really had luck with the ladies my early years in high school. Then I started singing and I found that helped, so I would go in the talent show every year. It was always some female singer that would go up there and blast out some Celine Dion classic and just blow me away.

I did it once in high school - I was Sandy in Grease - and I decided then that I would never do it again. I've felt that way for years, and that's no bullshit.

Our kids go to school and they come out feeling not intelligent, not desirable, not attractive or appealing to others.

If you passed me walking home from school, you probably wouldn't even notice me. That's because I'm just a kid like you. I go to school like you. I get bullied like you. Unlike you, I live in Idaho. Don't ask me what state Idaho is in––news flash––Idaho IS a state. ~Michael Vey

One thing that's interesting is that whenever something starts, like the school year when you were a kid, it feels like such a significantly huge time in your life and how much life has changed. What's surprising is how quickly it's going by.