Akon Quotes

I grew up at a time in Singapore - the '70s and '80s - where it was still possible to go riding around the island barefoot. And I was one of these kids that was just climbing trees and running around the neighbourhood.

I lived an idyllic 'Huckleberry Finn' life in a tiny town. Climbing trees. Tagging after brothers. Happy. Barefoot on my pony. It was 'To Kill a Mockingbird'-esque.

My mom used to call us 'free range kids,' like free range chickens... We roamed the countryside.

I used to run around barefoot and climb trees and pick fruit and sell it on the side of the road like a real island girl.

As a kid, I was just led out in the morning to go spend my day with my friends and just run in the woods. And I'd only come home to eat or when I was thirsty.

What happens when all the parts of childhood are soldered down, when the young no longer have the time or space to play in their family's garden, cycle home in the dark with the stars and moon illuminating their route, walk down through the woods to the river, lie on their backs on hot July days in the long grass, or watch cockleburs, lit by morning sun, like bumblees quivering on harp wires? What then?

I got two older brothers and two younger sisters, and we grew up in the country, and we were a little feral. So as long as the car didn't end up in the rhubarb and you didn't get caught for doing whatever you were doing, you were fine.

I was a complete tomboy. I loved wandering out in storms or walking on the beaches in the dark. It was a very free upbringing, and I'm grateful to my parents for that.

I have great childhood memories cow-tipping, going off and getting lost in the bog for hours, and coming home covered in dirt.

I grew up like a lot of country boys and girls do - amongst the pine trees, dirt roads, farms, mules and people who were real.

Maybe there's less oppression growing up in a small village, and fewer rules, and less danger.

As a kid in Africa, you were so connected to nature itself because you went farming, watched the moon out at night, observed how the sky was different, and how the birds chanted different songs in the evening and the morning.

My grandmother raised me. She was a real no-nonsense but very funny lady. I drove tractors, made hay, milked cows, fed the chicken, fed the pigs.

I was born in Saratoga, Texas, a little town there in the Big Thicket about 60 miles north of Beaumont. Needless to say, we were very, very poor, but we always managed to have enough to keep our bellies full.

My mother did literally hitchhike barefoot to the country store.

My parents had us very young. We lived in a modest house. We built forts, we hiked, we went camping and they wanted us to be independent. It's how children grew up in the 1940s and 50s: outside all the time, playing in the dirt, riding your bike around.

The older I get, the more I appreciate my rural childhood. I spent a lot of time outdoors, unsupervised, which is a blessing.

I grew up hard. I picked cotton and plowed with the mule and fixed the cars and played with the guitar and the piano.

I lived a normal life for a number of years. I had kids. I lived up on a farm in Gloucestershire in rural England, and just kind of got back to reality again.

I was brought up in a very open, rural countryside in the middle of nowhere. There were no cell phones. If your lights went out, you were lit by candlelight for a good four days before they can get to you. And so, my imagination was crazy.

Growing up in the country, you're left to the wilds of your imagination.

Cockneys make good beggars. They are held in high esteem by the fraternity in America. Their resource, originality and invention, and a never-faltering tongue enable them to often attain their ends where others fail, and they succeed where the natives starve.

I think back to my childhood, and I remember running around as a kid. We were all running around then. It wasn't about getting into shape. It's just what we did.

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, in a really rundown old house. I'd stay out till 8:30, 9:00 at night. Just blow in. My mom and dad never really cared much. It was okay. We were pretty free to roam. I mean, I had no concept of stopping play. It just didn't occur to anyone.

Mom would say, 'Get out of the house,' and we would just go. We had all sorts of large swings and flying foxes and various death traps throughout the forest that we'd try and do our best to hurt ourselves on. It was a great childhood in terms of being creative, I think.